James Parsons was 25 when he quit his job at S3, two weeks after buying his first house, to start Arrows Group with business partner Adrian in 2003. By 2016 the business had more than 300 people in six countries, with sales north of 150 million. 

James tells Andy Simpson how a farmer's son whose plan to fly fighter jets ended with a colour blindness test at 14 went from nearly being fired after his first year at S3 to top biller in the Huxley group the next, by being relentless about process. He explains why he built a client centric business when the firms he'd worked at were candidate centric, why companies don't scale without a blueprint everybody works to, and what a deal that should have taken three months and took six taught him about two founders sitting on opposite sides of the table. 

He also covers the move from deploying engineers to owning the outcome through Build Circle, the technology consultancy the group bought in 2022, why he thinks a recruitment business probably needs to acquire to make that shift land, and the German acquisition that COVID murdered overnight. 

KEY MOMENTS

• 07:41 The fighter jet plan that ended with a colour blindness test at 14 
• 21:15 Buying his first house, then quitting S3 two weeks later to go it alone at 25 
• 40:13 Why companies don't scale: the blueprint everybody works to 
• 53:03 Why partners going into a deal need to be crystal clear on each other's motivations 
• 56:42 From recruitment partner to owning the outcome: buying Build Circle 

James Parsons
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jwparsonsrec

Building Circle
https://www.linkedin.com/company/buildcircle 

Recruiting Alchemy is sponsored by ryvr.ai: https://ryvr.ai/

Hosted by Andy Simpson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyhsimpson/

Produced by Vertical Drop: https://www.vertical-drop.com/

All episodes: https://www.recruitingalchemy.com/

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/recruiting-alchemy-podcast/