Mike Santos – High Calibre Outsourcing Talent

Hi and welcome to another episode of Outsource Accelerator podcast. This is episode 143 and my name is Derek Gallimore. So today we are joined by Mike Santos of PhilExeqSearch Solutions. This is a recruitment HR company, and Mike is a seasoned recruitment and headhunting professional. He’s been working in the game since 2004 as we discuss, obviously recruitment has been around for a hell of a long time but in respect to outsourcing since 2004 he’s seen a lot of kind of evolution so it’s an interesting conversation and I’m you will enjoy too. If you wanna get in touch or know any more about the show then go to our show notes at outsourceaccelerator.com/143 enjoy.

Derek: Ok welcome back everybody today I’m joined by Mike Santos of Phil.Exeq Search Solutions. Hi Mike how are you?

Mike: Hi Derek, doing good.

Derek: Mike we have actually cross paths a number of times in Manila, Mike actually used to do recruitment for my old company and we have a lot of mutual friends. So that is nature of how small Manila can be sometimes. Would you introduce yourself and let us know a little bit about PhilExeqSearch Solutions.

Mike:  Sure, alright so, hi everyone so basically I have been in recruitment you could say since 2004, so that’s been quite a while. I started actually as a headhunter and then I went back to internal recruitment type of work then at the end of the day,  I wanna be a headhunter just servicing and helping out client with their recruitment needs. So now currently I’m actually the General Manager of Phil.Exeq Search Solutions so basically, it’s a bit of small company so it’s hands-on, so I do recruitments, I do a bit of business development, a little bit of finance and so yes, doing different types of work for all, that’s who I am and that’s what been happening right now.

Derek: Great, ok so just to encapsulate that for our listeners you are a recruitment firm and you deal with both standard domestic recruitment but then also recruitment for BPOs and I imagine recruitment like executive recruitment and recruitment for expats and to manage teams and stuff like that and I know also that you work with sort of mutual friend company or Manila Recruitment as well and for what I understand they specialize in executive recruitment and also recruitment for BPOs and foreign companies and things like that. I would like to get your perspective and you’ve been working on this for 14 years now and recruitment has obviously been around forever but in terms of the BPO sector, 14 years is quite a long time. Can you give me your thoughts on how things have evolved in recruitment and also the job sector for Manila or in the Philippines in that time?

Mike: The recruitment center has changed a lot ever since we actually started in 2004, I guess in terms of when we started, it was still taboo in other companies, there are some who aren’t really that open who, or you could say engaging to hire executive search firm sometimes they’re bit afraid in terms why would they need our help? So that’s the initial thoughts of other companies. And then with us and you know obviously there are different tools, there different ways of getting people for example with BPO sector obviously they needed help fast obviously, for example when they came in, for example they need for weekly, on a weekly basis  they need maybe 50-70 people and obviously their internal team won’t be able to manage that so that’s where the need of a headhunter or you could say an executive search firm that’s where they commend. So it actually helps a lot of companies and at the same time that started people putting up their own. Some people joining those firms in day to day vastly for headhunter I mean for the BPO companies that’s when you know that’s where top BPOs and then now you could see almost everywhere in Manila.There is a lot of BPO companies now going just like mushroom.

Derek: BPO companies, and certainly in comparison to companies in the west have phenomenal numbers of staffing and employees also when they a get a new client on or an account very often have to ramp up incredibly fast and we’re talking BPOs with 40,000 people and a new account might require 1 or 200 people in a month. Have you been involved in a big scale up like that and can you give some insight into how that possibly happens?

Mike:  In the past I have experience with that, obviously there’s a lot of planning involved, with that tool you just to actually reverse engineer, for example, if they need this number of people you have to reverse engineer, how many people do you actually have to get in touch to close that one. So if you know that amount, you more or less have an idea on how many people you need to actually have success so that’s one of the things that people do to think about during any start of a recruitment drive with that massive amount of requirements.

Derek: Yeah it’s incredible. I suppose I just couldn’t fathom it in terms of reaching out and the recruitment but then also onboarding and training but it happens so commonly doesn’t it and also for seasonal functions like Christmas and customer support and sales support and the bigger retail and things like that. It’s really quite massive. So, and, you know, if you go back to 2004, I’ve spoken many BPO managers, executive and they compare the job prospects and kind of executive careers of BPOs versus the traditional domestic professions in Manila, Philippines. Back in 2004, even now today there is quite a stark difference in terms of salaries and opportunities you know quite it wouldn’t uncommon, you could maybe earn twice as much within BPOs domestic firms. Did you notice that within your own recruitment career? Was that sort of always the stark difference that BPOs will pay more than domestic firms.

Mike: During the start, I mean you could say it’s more lucrative in terms of look for example if you’re choosing a fresh graduate if you compare let say your starting salary compare let say somebody who is doing regular job compares to let say people in BPO sector or an agent. There would be an additional pay. Because you almost  earn 50 to 80 percent increase with what you’re getting but obviously there would be the difference that maybe work schedule and all. Some people just say I wanna earn more so I would rather go in BPO but at the same time you think there’s more exposure, more international per say. I guess they prefer working for a big multinational company at times instead for a BPO company. There’s a lot of actually advantages also in terms of your career path if ever you do decide to do the type of work.

Derek: Are you seeing a lot of crossover now from seasoned industry executives moving across into BPO and then also the other way from BPO into domestic industry or is it more of a one-way track or is it completely sort of interchangeable, How do the sort of industry sit side by side?

Mike: Yeah i guess it’s interchangeable. In terms of the work you could say it’s similar. I guess the only difference for that is, in a BPO it’s more of working for an international company where maybe time may be a bit different but in terms of the role, in terms of the function it’s very similar. There are a couple of people that I’ve actually interviewed and you know they’re actually very open on working for a BPO company. I guess, for me, there isn’t much difference it’s more of let’s say your preference in terms of working for what specific company or opportunity.

Derek: Right and what are the sort of hot jobs in Manila at the moment like you know if you’re on Silicon Valley you obviously it’s kinda tech, if you’re London it’s probably banking What are the things that kind of you know I believe kind graduates aspire to in Manila?

Mike: Ok, in Manila are call center industries, I guess BPO is still there on top second would be IT, a lot of IT requirements now. Mostly especially with data coming in. There’s actually new position or new titles actually positions becoming hot in the sense that there’s actually more demand rather than in supply. If I’m going back to BPO you could say that the top requirements would be bilingual/multilingual agents, people who are looking for Spanish speaking agents, Portuguese, French, Mandarin, Japanese so they could really see there are actually people who know this language in the Philippines so they actually bring in the talents or bring in the requirements here. So yeah basically BPO and IT would be the strong ones right now.

Derek: Are you seeing many, because the Philippines obviously English is almost first tongue or you know suddenly as good as and very culturally aligned but what is the opportunity for third languages like as you say Spanish or Cantonese or different European languages.

Mike: There are opportunities here and you know if ever you know a third language like that, they actually pay at a very high premium for example if you’re speaking (inaudible)  So when bring in your third language it actually gives you a premium, for example, it could pay you as much maybe 100 percent increase to what you are actually earning and at the same time it doesn’t need to be a local or a Filipino there are even actually non-Filipinos who go to that jobs so it brings different people or different nationalities in Manila for those opportunities.

Derek: Right yeah because it’s kind of weird that everyone just assumes that outsourcing is in English but there are so many other western developed countries that don’t speak English and really could benefit from outsourcing talent.

Mike: Exactly, English speaking in this country so they other companies maybe some Filipinos can actually speak the language so why not bring him here so that’s what happening now.

Derek: I wanna get you back to discuss PhilExeqSearch Solutions a little bit more but can you just give us an outline of PhilExeq you’ve been going since about 2013 is that right? and do you specialized in everything or it’s executive recruitment.

Mike: Yeah, obviously executive is on top, we specialized actually on IT, on finance and manufacturing so the reason for that is actually my recruiters have a good grasp on a network of people in that industry that initially but we’re open to other industries as well. nowadays with recruitment I guess the only advantage right now or at this time social media, the internet there’s actually everything there to find people. Back in my days when I started you just have to know how to cold call, or on how to actually head hunt people in their own office or in their own company now it’s actually much easier pass in people.

Derek: Yeah it’s all changed now isn’t it.Fantastic ok thanks so much and I wanna get you back, of course, to talk more about PhilExeq and also recruitment and how that can be applied to people listening  or whether it’s expats or people setting up BPOs or people building teams.

in the meantime Mike if people wanna get in touch with you or PhilExeq, how can they do that.

Mike: Sure. Our email is at [email protected] or my email [email protected] contact me or contact the company.

Derek: Absolutely, fantastic thank you Mike and we’ll also put the URL on the website there and of course all of that will be in the show notes. thanks so much, Mike

Mike: Bye, thank you.

That was Mike Santos of PhilExeq Search Solutions if you want to get in touch with Mike then go to our show notes at outsourceaccelerator.com/143 and of course if you want to get in touch us then drop us an email at [email protected]. See you next time.