A Day in the Life of Richard Maddox

Name: Richard Maddox
Company: MajorPlayers
Job title: Head Of Integrated

What keeps you busy all day?:
Listening and questioning our clients and finding new ways to deliver more of the best, most relevant people to them.

What keeps you awake at night?:
Ideas. Big, small, old, new, good, bad. Innovation is a constant challenge and you never know when the right idea will pop up!

Describe your working day (needs to be fairly lengthy):
My typical day simply involves an awful lot of listening and questioning. I enjoy a peaceful walk into Covent Garden most mornings but once I’m in, it’s non-stop until I feel I’ve achieved as much as I can for the day. I listen to clients: their vision and recruitment plans ahead. I listen to candidates: their needs. I manage a big team of exceptionally driven consultants so I structure listening and coaching into each week on an individual and team level.  MajorPlayers is that rare beast – a specialist recruitment agency with scale so we deliver on so many fronts. It’s a huge challenge to ensure we are consistently delivering solutions on all these fronts: from junior to senior, from implementors to strategists, to creatives, to support. So the rest of my time is spent brainstorming ideas with my peers especially while there is a skills shortage and client needs are acute.

What’s your busiest time of day?:
It’s structured busyness all day long. The great thing is the day flies by but you can see progress.

What brands/accounts have you worked on?:
Long list! I’ve worked on more than 300 brands in my 9 years here and I currently have ultimate responsibility for all of my team’s 200 clients.

Best day at work:
I love the consultative relationships we have developed here as you are genuinely thanked and appreciated by clients and candidates but the best days are those where I get to see one of my team develop.

Worst day at work:
Boringly I always see a glass full but when a client is forced to make redundancies the mood is not so great.

Name one thing you’ve achieved that has made your bosses sit up and take notice:
Luckily, delivering people to businesses is measurable in sales figures so being top at the end of a year sends the right message. Growing and developing successful people helps too.

Ambitions:
While there are fresh challenges (we’ve just gone global) and MajorPlayers can remain innovative.  I’m wherever this business needs me.

Advice to other rising stars:
Join a company on the rise that knows how to retain and inspire staff. Hire people who are better than you. Underpromise, overdeliver.

Quote from the boss:
Jack says, “Ricky epitomises everything that Major Players stands for. He innovates, is loyal, professional, fun and over delivers. The best accolade I could give him is that if I was looking for a job (you never know!) or needed great talent, I’d call him.”