Getting personal
The WHY
Sympraxi was born from a desire to change the way the recruitment industry is perceived. One interaction at a time.
The name comes from a Greek word meaning, contribution, cooperation and collaboration. For me, these are the cornerstones of successfully helping businesses find the right people to create winning teams and in assisting people to find the right team and manager to progress through their career goals.
Getting personal, I wanted the name to mean something to me personally and let people get a bit closer to me by sharing my history. Using the word Sympraxi is a nod to my father who passed away over 20 years ago. He fell in love with the country, language and people, subsequently, so did I. His nickname for me, Marthikimoo (my little Martha) is his legacy as are his core values and beliefs I still hold fast to. One of these is to be useful, this is also how I see my role, to be of service to our society and bring empathy, joy and skill to the recruitment process.
I only work with customers (candidates and clients) who want to work with me. This is the collaboration part. Customer experience is at the heart of everything we do and we can only deliver this through cooperation and collaboration of all parties. Through mutual respect and regardless of time constraints, doing the right thing each and every time by each other. This also facilitates smooth processes with much less risk of nasty surprises. My goal is to ensure my contribution to the process makes each hire and person considering a new role enjoy the process as I seek to educate, nurture, develop confidence, empathy and mutual understanding for everyone involved.
EIGHT STEPS
Our Process: Clients
Understanding the Vacancy
A detailed meeting to uncover the “Black Swans”
For each role we commit to working with you to uncover the true needs of the role. We will dig deep with you through the discovery phase of understanding your vacancy and together we will often come up with small nuances that end up having a major effect on the short and long term success of this hire. We are more than just recruiters and want to understand your long term vision and strategy for your overall team and how the new person will be able to contribute. It is essential that we understand not only the role with short and long term goals, but team, environment and the strategic direction of the company. The people you want to hire want to know this information. Hiring is a critical part of any manager’s role and it is so important to get it right. Getting it right starts from the initial briefing on the role and the way potential new employees are engaged and nurtured through the process. We will also provide a full overview of market trends during this stage and provide data and insights around availability of talent for the position.Candidate Sourcing
Long Listing
The development of our network over the past 10 + years in Sydney ensures we have a large pool of pre screened candidates who are known and trusted. At any one time we will have pools of candidates across the core verticals in technology.
We generally have a mix of 70/30 passive vs active candidates which means you get access to the large portion of the market who aren’t active on Seek or other job boards and aren’t applying to adverts. These are candidates you would not be able to attract through direct advertising methods. Due to the relationships built over time with these passive candidate communities and with a high degree of trust and respect has been established which enables our strong focus on referral strategy to flourish.
In addition to our direct network we also use the latest cutting edge technologies to map the market, mine candidate data, segment and target niche skill sets to ensure that we reach those hard to find communities to deliver against the most obscure briefs.
We effectively provide a headhunting or search and selection type process for you. We have in depth knowledge of the market and where the best talent can be sourced. We also work off referrals and take the time to tap people on the shoulder who might not have been considering a move. Due to the detailed job briefings focussing on the elements that will attract and entice a candidate to the role we can create interest in a way that a job description or an advert cannot. This approach gives you access to some of the top candidates in the market.
Unless requested otherwise we provide a shortlist of 3, the due diligence in our approach ensures that any of these people can shine in the role and allows you to make the call based on your interaction during the interview and the personal connection you make.
Shortlisting
Choosing the Top 3
In Depth prescreening, face to face interviewing based on key competencies gleaned from initial brief. A big part of our role is to identify the correct cultural fit for your team and organisation, therefore alongside ensuring the candidate has the correct skills to perform the role, we also ensure the person will fit in well with the team and will react well to your management style ensuring we fit the role/ company/ manager to the candidate as well as the other way round!
Deciding who to meet
F2F Shortlist Presentation
We feel resumes are very one dimensional and there is a lot more to a person than a sheet of paper. Given we have invested the time getting to know our candidates we are confident to provide a face to face shortlist presentation where we can go over their personality style, key achievements and discuss why we feel they are a good fit for you. We will provide you with a concise written and verbal overview of each candidate detailing strengths for the role and personality profile to ensure you already have a strong feel for the candidate prior to meeting them.Scheduling Interviews
Let us do the work!
Let us take away the pain of scheduling interviews.
Using cutting edge technologies we are able to manage your diary and pre-populate calendar invites, coordinate and manage every detail to ensure you have everything you need in one place for the start of your in person or online interview.
The Interview
What you can expect
We will ensure each candidate has detailed knowledge of your role and requirements. Each candidate should be able to succinctly explain why they are suited to the role and be ready with specific examples of where they have achieved similar results in the past. This will ensure a the interview is as productive as possible and you get the information you need to make decisions fast.The Offer
How to get who you want
Due to the nature of the relationships built we are able to maintain a relationship based on trust where we are across the roles and preferences of the candidate, we can manage your expectations every step of the way. We can also provide advice on how to achieve the result you are looking for by being the trusted advisor to our customers.Onboarding
No nasty surprises
We have all experienced those times when we have invested so much time and energy through the recruitment process, we have selected the preferred candidate, turned the others down, we are excited about the upcoming start date and suddenly we lose the candidate. Their dream job came up out of the blue and it is something they just cant say no to and all of a sudden we are back to the drawing board.
Due to the relationships we develop with our candidates and the ongoing support and communication we keep in touch every step of the way and gain commitment to ensure these types of frustrating back-outs don’t happen. Our customers (clients and candidates) become our friends, we want the best for them. The relationship doesn’t end once an offer of employment has been extended or accepted, we will be in regular contact throughout any notice period.
Ongoing Support
We keep in touch
We will schedule regular check-ins for day 1, week 1, then moving to monthly catch ups. This ensures expectations are being met on both sides and any issues can be raised.
We will work with both parties from an impartial standpoint and help to address and mediate the issues to successful resolution wherever possible. Thus saving the time of having to go back to market for unsuccessful recruits or avoid the disappointment of not passing probation.
SIX STEPS
Our Process: Candidates
Understanding your Career Aspirations
A detailed meeting
We may be introduced in a number of ways, most likely an introduction through a mutual connection where we may “tap you on the shoulder” when you aren’t actively looking for work. Many of our candidates have become friends over the past 10 years and we may have a long term and ongoing relationship that adds value over the long term.
We commit to working with you to uncover your short and long term career aspirations.
We commit to providing coaching to every candidate to ensure you are set up for success during the interview and have the presentation skills to frame your experience in the most effective way.
We also commit to providing you feedback from each interview you attend to enable you to refine your interviewing skills and take something away from each interaction.
Our interaction with you and support does not end as soon as a successful offer has been achieved, we will support you through your resignation process, the “dead period” which is often between resignation and your new start date and then throughout the onboarding process to ensure those important first few months in a new business run as smoothly as possible. We are your confidential ear, outside the company to provide impartial advice and to help resolve any initial issues or teething problems that may occur.
Job Sourcing
Ensuring you get to see the right roles
The development of our network over the past 10 + years in Sydney means we have solid relationships across multiple industries and at various levels. We provide a highly tailored solution and the ability to connect you to key stakeholders across the Sydney market.
We have an active pool of roles and will discuss the intricacies of the company and team culture. We will also provide a detailed overview of the manager, their style approach and long term goals for the team to ensure there is a cultural alignment and the opportunity fits into your short and long term career goals.
If you are not actively looking for work at the moment we still want to help! You might be happy where you are for the next year or so, or perhaps you are in a senior role where it can sometimes take 6 – 12 months to find the career move needed. We will spend time meeting with the key contacts across the Sydney market and when the potential for you to add value to an organisation aligns with your dream job, we will organise an informal introduction to allow you to explore and understand if the opportunity is something you wish to pursue.
Shortlisting
Choosing the Top 3
We will work together with you on each role to decide if it is a good fit and understand your likelihood for success. We will always provide feedback and let you know how you fair against your competition to ensure you are more likely to get a successful outcome. We will collaborate and work closely together to ensure in addition to your resume your key strengths for the specific role are highlighted and you have the best chance of securing a role.
Setting you up for success
Interview Preparation
Interviewing is a skill just like anything else and the more you practice the better you become! We will spend time with you going through the preparation you have done prior to your interview and make sure you understand the nuances of Competency Based Interviewing and how your examples can be scored at weighted. We encourage you to think of evidence based examples that demonstrate your capability to perform the role to a high degree.
We aim to build confidence and understanding of the process and arm you with the skills and tools to perform at your best.
Post Interview
Feedback & Managing Offers
We will speak to you immediately after your interview to gather your thoughts and feedback.
This is a perfect time to let us know if there is anything you wish you would have done differently as we can feed this information back prior to a decision being made and often overcome a negative piece of feedback by highlighting it first.
We can then work together to schedule any further interviews required in the process or should you not be successful we will provide full and thorough feedback to help you understand how you could improve and what pitfalls to watch out for next time.
Should you successfully receive an offer of employment we will work closely with you to assist in the resignation process and managing counter offers and how to approach exit interviews.
Onboarding and ongoing support
We keep in touch
We will keep in touch through your notice period and be on hand to answer any queries or questions.
We will connect you with your line manager and HR so you can stat to build a relationship before you start and call on your first day to check in.
We will have regular check points to give you an impartial outside ear to voice any issues or concerns. We can help guide and navigate you during your first few months in the business as if we were a confidential extension of the business.
Should there be any issues we will have built a strong relationship with the hiring manager and mediate to ensure that expectations are met and all parties are happy.
