Aurora Flex Recruit

07/10/2026

Another great Good to Connect session, this time with Sam Hyslop at the helm, coordinating the breakout rooms while Mike - New Hire was busy on a project.

It was a brilliant opportunity for me to explore an exciting collaboration with Sam, also known as The Social Hand Grenad, to bring my clients a cost-effective, bespoke, all-under-one-roof solution covering:

Marketing
CRM
ATS
Social media
HR
Invoicing
🌸

If you’d like to join our next meeting on 14 October, drop me a DM.

07/10/2026

Hiring shouldn't be the thing that keeps you up at night.

If you're an SME leader on the South Coast, you've probably said it: "We need to hire, but I don't have time."

That's where embedded recruitment comes in.

It's not another agency model. It's experienced recruitment capacity plugged directly into your business, like having a head of talent without the full-time salary or long-term commitment.

What it actually means
Instead of posting a job, sending a brief and waiting for CVs, you get a dedicated recruiter who attends your planning sessions, understands your culture, and manages the whole process end to end, from job description to accepted offer.

Where it sits
➡️ Contingency agency: great if you have a dedicated person managing the inbox thats perpetually filling
➡️ Full RPO: built for large, steady volumes (usually overkill for an SME)
➡️ Embedded: more strategic than the first, lighter and more flexible than the second

It could be right for you if:
✅ You hire once or twice a year with no one to own it
✅ Roles sit open too long and every manager does it differently
✅ You can't justify an in-house recruiter but need more than ad hoc agency support
✅ You can't afford another mis-hire in a small team
✅ You have a hiring drive over the next 6-18 months
✅ You need cover for maternity leave or a sudden gap

Thinking about ROI?
Its not just about the fee, it's about the opportunity cost of where you spend your time

What does a vacant role cost us in lost revenue or overtime?
What does a bad hire cost in time and disruption?

At Aurora Flex Recruit, I work embedded with SMEs to audit your hiring process, build one that fits you.

Is hiring a core activity in your business, or a side task squeezed in between everything else?

If it's the second, let's talk. 👇


https://zurl.co/Cstnj

07/10/2026

I've been quiet on here. Here's why.

I've been off the social grid, building something I'm really proud of: a more polished brand and a brand new website for Aurora Flex Recruit.

I built the site myself. Web building was a brand new skill for me, and it's included a form where SME owners can request a free recruitment process audit.

I couldn't have done it without a few brilliant people:

🙌 Ruttle for giving me the confidence to step into the AI space
🙌 O'Neil for the knowledge and tools to build the capture form
🙌 Gayle for introducing me to Lovable

If you're a South Coast business owner who keeps saying "we need to hire, but I don't have time", the audit is a no-pressure way to see where your hiring process is working, where it's costing you time, and what to fix first.

🔗 https://zurl.co/xAujY

Have a look and tell me what you think. 👇

What's the newest skill you've taught yourself in your business?

On-demand, embedded recruitment for SMEs in Hampshire, West Sussex, Surrey and Dorset. Full-cycle hiring, no retainer. Book a free Recruitment Health Check.

17/08/2026

Spending over 5 hours a week on your hiring process? 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 2?

That's what working with me as an embedded, on-demand recruiter partner actually gives you - 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞.

How does it work?

There's a one-off setup at the start, usually a few hours total, covering how your current hiring works and how we can improve or build your hiring process and the initial job brief.

After that, here's what a typical week looks like.

𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮.
Advert written and live
Candidates found and filtered
Agencies fielded
CVs that don't hold up on the phone weeded out

𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬.

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤:
5–10 minutes to review a shortlist.
One interview, max 1 hour.
20 minutes on Friday for a debrief, so you stay in the loop without being hands-on.
𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐏𝐎𝐈𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐓!

Then back to me to handle the offer, negotiation, and onboarding.

Run that over a typical 9-week project with one well-matched interview a week, and your time comes in under 2 hours, because the shortlist was right the first time.

That's the whole model: a recruiter embedded in your business, running full-cycle hiring end to end, without the fixed cost of a full-time hire.

Curious how this could work for you? Let's have a no-obligation conversation. 💬

Spending over 5 hours a week on your hiring process? 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 2? That's what working with me as an embedded, on-demand recruiter partner actually gives you - 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞. How does it work? There's a one-...

30/06/2026

No one likes to be blindsided.
Especially in an interview.

Yet many hiring processes still feel like a mystery

vague timelines,
surprise panels,
unclear expectations

and then we’re shocked when good candidates drop out or don’t perform.

Being upfront about your interview process doesn’t weaken it; it improves your hiring.

Transparent, well‑communicated processes are linked with stronger candidate engagement, better decisions and higher offer acceptance.

When you share:

How many stages there are
Who they’ll meet
Rough timelines
Any tasks or assessments

you take away needless anxiety and let candidates focus on showing you their skills and how they’d fit into your team.

And no

that’s not giving them the “answers”.

It’s removing pointless uncertainty so you can assess the right things more fairly and consistently.

Transparency builds trust:
respect for their time,
confidence in a fair process,
and a clearer sense of your culture.

If you want better interviews and better hires, start simple:
Tell candidates what the road ahead looks like.

29/06/2026

Outsourcing recruitment (or your finance, IT, etc.) doesn’t mean losing control

It means getting

structure
consistency
expertise

so you can focus on the work only you can do.

If you want to feel more like the person who leads the business, not the person plugging every gap, giving part of it to a specialist might be the smartest move you make this year.

Out of curiosity: which part of your business do you most wish you could take off your plate first, hiring, finance, or something else?

15/06/2026

You think the hire is done.
It’s not. This is where you lose them.

11/06/2026

The single most expensive mistake I see in the hiring process.

(And it doesn't cost a penny - until it does.)

I've been in recruitment for over for 25 years. I've seen it happen more times than I can count.

A client finds a brilliant candidate.
Ticks every box.
Gets excited.
And then… the diary dance begins.

Two weeks of back and forth. "Can we do Thursday?" "Actually, could we push to next week?"

Meanwhile, that candidate is still very much on the market.

And someone else, a competitor, a rival firm, a company who just moved faster, spotted the same person and acted on it.

Within 24 hours, that candidate had interviewed, been offered, and accepted.

Gone.

Here's the truth that doesn't get said enough:
Good people have choices.

The best candidates aren't sitting by the phone waiting for you.

They're being courted. They have options. And every day you delay, those options become decisions.

Speed isn't just a nice-to-have in hiring.
It's a competitive advantage.

If someone ticks your boxes, get them in front of you. Fast.

Because a couple of days' delay? That's all it takes.

🎥 I talk about this (and a few other hiring truths) in the video below.

I'd love to hear if this has happened to you.