Blake Oliver Consulting

Building long-term client relationships through a consultative approach.

Blake Oliver is a high-end recruitment firm focusing on the insurance space in Australia. Having started the business 2 years ago, Managing Director Daniel Marsh is on a mission to establish the company as the trusted provider in the industry through a long-term consultative approach that delivers better value and results for clients. In a recent conversation, he shared with us how having the right CRM is helping the team realise his vision.

ABOUT BLAKE OLIVER CONSULTING

I used to be in insurance myself. It’s a vast industry underpinning virtually every sector. Having experience across both, and having seen the challenges faced, I saw the need for a specialist recruitment agency focusing only on this industry.

Since launching, the team has grown to 14 people and we have offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. In future, we will not only focus on general insurance but also its specific sub-sectors, such as life and health insurance etc.

HOW IS BLAKE OLIVER CONSULTING DIFFERENT?

First off, we only hire from within industry. All of our staff come from the insurance industry. This means they have an in depth understanding of the roles they are recruiting for, as well as our clients’ needs, and they have established industry networks.

Secondly, we have a completely different approach to working with clients, building long-term relationships that add value and deliver better results. Essentially, we take care of all our client’s recruitment needs – not just ad hoc recruitment assignments. This ensures a consistent approach and reduces turnover, as we’re able to source high quality candidates that fit the role and also the company’s culture.

Lastly, we’re affiliated with government bodies, including ANZIF and UAC, and also sponsor the Australian General Insurer of the Year Award. We’re working with our industry partners to further develop the eco-system in Australia.

DOES HAVING A CRM HELP YOU DELIVER THIS VISION?

No matter what size, if you’re a serious recruitment company, you need to have a proper CRM to run your business.

For us specifically, having a CRM like Recruitment Boost helps us achieve our vision in that everything is recorded and transparent. Every job, every interaction with clients and candidates is visible in one place. Everyone in the team can be up to date with the latest developments on every opportunity.

This ensures we deliver a more professional and streamlined service – especially as our client relationships are long-term. This is particularly important when we onboard new team members.

DID YOU HAVE A DIFFERENT CRM BEFORE? WHAT MADE YOU CHANGE TO RECRUITMENT BOOST?

We were using Bullhorn before. When it was up for renewal, we decided to look at what else is available. Very few people in the team were using it properly; it didn’t come quite naturally. We looked at various companies. In the end we decided to go with Recruitment Boost because of how intuitive and easy the system is. It provides us with exactly the features we need for half the price and it can easily be scaled to grow with our business.

CHANGING SYSTEMS CAN BE PAINFUL! HOW DID THAT GO?

It was quite painless actually. The customer support is very good. The team is based in our time zone, which means queries get dealt with speedily, and we had onboarding and training for the entire team. Migration was quite quick, and all our data was migrated 100% accurately! Since using the system, we’ve had no downtime and any bugs or feedback are resolved or implemented with the ongoing updates. It’s been very reliable.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FEATURE?

The simplicity! It’s like an iPhone. Everything is self-explanatory, laid out in a user-friendly way. For our team, this has meant that people are happy to use the system as part of their day-to-day processes. For us as a business, this means things are nicely organised and everything is easy to track.

DOES THAT HELP YOUR CONSULTANTS IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE?

Yes, actually. Our top-performing consultants tend to use the system to its full capacity, making one or two more placements every month. Their billings go up and they can make an additional 20% per year. There is a direct correlation. It’s definitely been the right move for us.