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In this week’s episode of all about business, James Reed sits down with the Founder of Bright Network, James Uffindell, as he shares his full journey. From his first venture helping students access top universities, to scaling Bright Network into one of the UK's leading platforms for connecting talent with opportunity.
Starting life in a working-class upbringing in Warwickshire to founding Bright Network, a tech-driven platform used by over a million students, James has spent his career solving the problems he once faced himself.
James talks about the crisis that led to their biggest innovation, how they scaled an internship programme to 150,000 students, AI, data, understanding Gen Z behaviour, and what employers really want when they say they’re looking for passion and resilience.
If you’re building a startup, thinking about purpose, or wondering how to turn experience into impact, this episode is for you. James’s story is proof that you don’t have to come from the right family or know the right people, but you do need to listen, adapt, and keep showing up.
02:51 James Uffindell's background and inspiration
04:10 building Bright Network
08:04 the importance of internships
11:52 personalisation and data utilization
24:05 impact of AI on job market
36:55 the importance of office environments for young professionals
39:31 the Bright Network platform and its benefits
41:23 AI in recruitment and business growth
51:03 diversity and inclusion in the job market
59:38 future plans and expansion
Check out Bright Network’s website: https://www.brightnetwork.co.uk/
Follow Bright Network on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bright-network/
Follow James Reed on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/chairmanjames/
[00:00:14] James: Well, today I'm all about business. I'm really, really pleased to welcome James Del, who is the CEO and founder of Bright Network. Um, and this is a network and a platform that supports young people and students in their early career, uh, progress. I, I suppose it's fair to say, but I'm gonna ask you my first question to you, James.
[00:00:34] James: Is. Apart from welcoming you, what is Bright Network? Explain.
[00:00:39] Uffindell: Thanks James. And really great to be here. Um, bright Network is a tech, AI and data platform, and we are the number one way that, um, undergraduates and students, um, connect with, um, and, uh, jobs and opportunities. So we set up the platform because we believe that talent is everywhere, kind of opportunity and how we can use tech, ai, and data to better build the workforce of tomorrow.
[00:01:02] James: Yeah, so go on. How, how do you do that?
[00:01:05] Uffindell: What do you take?
[00:01:06] James: So they say from the workforce. I've got lots of questions around. No, it's great. Well then let's get into, from this statement, go.
[00:01:11] Uffindell: Let's get into them. And it's great to obviously particularly have the conversation with you given everything kind of you and your, um, businesses achieved and is achieving in the world of recruitment.
[00:01:18] Uffindell: There's kind lots of overlap. Yeah, exactly. I'm interested in that. Yeah. So, um, so say founders kind of solve their own problems. Um, so I guess the background to Bright Network goes back to the experience I had when I was at university, um, when I grew up. Um, uh, it was a kind of single, um, parent working family.
[00:01:35] Uffindell: Um, my mom and dad had separation. I was three. We were living in rented accommodation when my mom, um,
[00:01:41] James: where was this? Up, up,
[00:01:42] Uffindell: up in, uh, up in Wilshire Warwickshire. And when mum remarried, the biggest kind of qualification in our household was my stepdad's tax driving license. Um, so neither my parents had been to university.
[00:01:52] Uffindell: Um, but I got lucky. I got to go to a good school and I got to, um, uh, had an amazing teacher and he encouraged me to apply to top university. So I was lucky enough to get into Oxford and went off to Oxford, but still didn't come from that. Kinda like professional services, kind of like, kind of, I'd describe it as as mud moneyed background.
[00:02:12] Uffindell: And at university I was working in the local pub. Um, I also had worked as a, you know, like a controller for my. For the, um, uh, in my step in, um, my stepfather's, um, kind of taxi driving business where he worked Well,
[00:02:25] James: you
[00:02:25] Uffindell: answered the phone. Yeah. Basically answering the phone. Um, so, so kind of
[00:02:29] James: through the night stuff?
[00:02:29] Uffindell: Yeah. Well, actually no, I never did night shifts actually. I used, I used to, I used to Sundays 'cause I when, uh, the taxi drivers all, uh, call with a bit of day off and I send them in the wrong directions and stuff. I, I learned my skills definitely on operations. So you wanna
[00:02:40] James: collect controller?
[00:02:41] Uffindell: Yeah, I, I was, I was the controller.
[00:02:43] Uffindell: So that's now
[00:02:43] James: done by Uber sort of. Exactly.
[00:02:44] Uffindell: And it's now a great example of AI automation. Anyway, I went off to university and I had no idea what to do. Um, when I left university, um, the career service at the time kind of wasn't very engaging unless you wanted to do kind of banking or finance. It was very, um, narrow.
[00:03:00] Uffindell: And I had an idea for a startup and I started an organization, um, helping other students apply to top tier universities. And the school I went to didn't send a lot of students. Um, the services focused on Oxford, Cambridge, didn't send a lot of students to Oxford, Cambridge. And I thought there's an opportunity here to, um, help, um, students, non-traditional backgrounds kind of access, um, kind of Oxford and Cambridge basically.
[00:03:24] Uffindell: So
[00:03:25] James: this is quite a small market, I imagine? Yes. Yeah. And, and are other people you are talking to? Well healed, if that's the right term. Yeah. Were they able to pay for this or did you not charge them? Or how did that work?
[00:03:36] Uffindell: So the way it worked was we had a model where we, um, worked with a lot of local educational authorities and schools.
[00:03:43] Uffindell: So we had about, we worked with about kind of 200 schools going into schools and, um, encouraging them to apply to top tier universities into the schools. And then, um, we did have a model where if people kind of, um, wanted to, uh, come to us individually, they could, but also if anybody couldn't afford it, they got the service for free.
[00:04:01] Uffindell: So it was a really nice model in terms of, um, doing business and doing good. And I got lucky because it was, um, 2000, I just graduated and there was rampant demand and we were absolutely obsessed with the needs of the schools in terms of two things, encouraging them to send their best students to top universities.
[00:04:20] Uffindell: And then secondly, when they applied, how do they maximize their chance of success for the students? And looking back now, um, we're all searching for growth, right? In this, uh, economy we're in. It was absolutely rampant and it was a nice cash model in terms of, um, kind of often kind of, you got paid up front.
[00:04:37] Uffindell: So I was able to grow that business through my twenties and I sold that business, um, to essentially to private equity in, uh, about about 10 years ago. So what was
[00:04:47] James: that called?
[00:04:48] Uffindell: Uh, it was a business called Oxbridge Applications.
[00:04:49] James: And is it still going? Yeah,
[00:04:50] Uffindell: it's still going. Um, it's continued to grow and develop and prosper and a nice reminder that kinda, hopefully build a premium asset is good for everybody.
[00:04:58] Uffindell: Um, but to answer your question, then, I was then kind of early thirties and I was like, well, what do I do next? And these students were coming to me saying, um, what do I do next? How do I get into the world of work? And these are all hopefully like pretty bright, hungry, ambitious students. And I realized back to.
[00:05:15] Uffindell: The question you asked me about, where did Bright Network come from? I realized that the problems I'd experienced, uh, at university were still very prevalent. And in terms of social mobility, democratization, how do you access, um, and make sure that everybody has kind of opportunity. That problem still existed and what I'd learned through my own journey of kind of, I guess being at Oxford and seeing how certain kind of founders operated, I call it like the tap on the shoulder.
[00:05:39] Uffindell: Um, there's a guy who's at university with me and he went off to do a, a paid internship. I was working at the Red Lion Pub in Stratford Aven, and he went to do a legal internship. And that was because his older sister, um, was a lawyer and she has said, if you want to get into law, you need to do a vacation scheme and this is what you do.
[00:05:57] Uffindell: So then I thought about how often social mobility, um, can, well, how, how social mobility can be facilitated and the networks that happen in kind of often wealthy, well connected families, and the data that happens in wealthy, well connected founders because. Um, young people as families are often, um, getting these taps on the shoulder from, you know, you're in, you're at maths, you're at top university.
[00:06:18] Uffindell: Uncle Dave might run a private equity firm, go and work at Uncle Dave's private equity firm. And I was like, actually what you can do here is put, um, all these amazing bright young people from all walks of life, um, on a platform and then use the data to personalize experience. So that's what we do on Bright Network.
[00:06:35] Uffindell: You sign up for Bright Network and then we use four different types of data to better match you to, um, opportunities in terms of jobs, kind of learn learning concept. You being the student at this point. Yeah, exactly. Um, to better match you to opportunities. And then it's all free for the. Student members.
[00:06:55] Uffindell: So we've got over a million on the platform now and, um, we have a, a, um, an amazing client roster about 300 blue chips, enterprise level clients pairs to access talent.
[00:07:05] James: So I had a look, dig around on your website earlier. Yeah. Um, uh, and it was, it seemed to be very much promoting internships, um, in the early summer and you were encouraging people to sign up for internships.
[00:07:19] James: Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Is that your, and, and so what's the business model there? So you, these people sign up and then they get placed into companies. Is that what you hope happens and you can Yeah. Like me charge an introduction fee? It was so, it, it's interesting. So
[00:07:31] Uffindell: we don't work on the kinda introduction fee basis.
[00:07:33] Uffindell: The way the business model works is, um, so interestingly you've got about half a million kind of graduates coming out of UK universities a year. Now there are about 50,000, um, graduate schemes. So if you think about a kind of a graduate program now, the vast majority of these graduate programs are filled by people who have already worked at that organization.
[00:07:54] Uffindell: Um, so if you want to get into a top tier organization, the reality is applying your third year is too late. So doing an internship, so classically a second year program is the way to get ahead. But then actually, interestingly with that, a lot of those internship places in the second year are actually given to students who have done the first year program.
[00:08:15] Uffindell: So actually from a social mobility angle, if you want to break into one of these organizations, that was all the, the, um, in these skyscrapers that we have around us, right here in the heart of London, you actually need to do a thirstier internship. So part of the mission is then encouraging students when they land on campus.
[00:08:33] Uffindell: To get ahead and to get stuck into their career early. Because if they don't do the first year of internship, they're less likely to get the second year internship. Potentially, they're less likely to get the, the final year kind of a graduate replacement scheme. And actually, if you think about the war for talent that's going on, and um, I was reading your article the day about what we've got happening around, um, decreasing demand for, um, jobs and kind of, and obviously in terms of the, uh, the, the empty vacancy rate going from about, I think it's about 1.3 million to about 700,000 now.
[00:09:02] Uffindell: Um, there is still have a incredibly intense competition for the top talent. Um, so in terms of the mission, the, the data and the AI technology allows bright young people to understand how this works in terms of getting their first job, but also the employers to compete with that talent more efficiently.
[00:09:19] James: So, so you would recommend to a young person that they should get an internship in their, the end of their first year. Go back in the second and then get a job in the third. Is that how it works? Yeah, I think there's a no
[00:09:31] Uffindell: brainer. Um, if you are, um, 18 landing at university to, um, really start exploring your career, so that gives kind of three main benefits.
[00:09:41] Uffindell: Um, you can build what we call CV capital so you can boost your CV and show kind of dedicated experience in the sector, um, in doing kind of a first year internship. Second, it helps you understand if that job is good for you or not. Um, 'cause you're actually kind of doing the work in the organization. I did a week as a, um, uh, an accounting work experience when I was basically 16, 17.
[00:10:02] Uffindell: It taught me I'd be the world's worst accountants. So actually kind of understanding whether that job's a good fit or not. And thirdly, skills you're developing, your skills, which might be transferrable to another sector.
[00:10:12] James: Yeah, so I'm so listening to this and thinking I have two sort of anxieties, babbling up one.
[00:10:18] James: One is the nature of 18 and 19 year olds that, you know, they're all gonna wanna do this sort of, or you know, as a parent I'm thinking how would I get my 19 year olds to go and do that? Hundred percent. So I imagine a lot of them as I've got other ideas. Yeah. And then on the other side, a lot of these businesses, you know, these Uncle Dave's Yeah.
[00:10:35] James: That you referred to are thinking, I don't need so many graduates now 'cause we're gonna automate.
[00:10:40] Frankie: Yeah.
[00:10:40] James: So there's a sort of couple of challenges there. So how do, how do you deal with those challenges? How do you make this type of root weight appealing to the young people? And how do you keep the Uncle Daves.
[00:10:52] James: Going back for more.
[00:10:53] Uffindell: Yeah. You've touched on huge, two huge areas there in terms of Yeah. Take them one at a time. Yeah. I'll go for the, the first one then we can obviously maybe come back to the AI automation piece, which is obviously, um, particularly prevalent given everything that's happening. Um, so the great thing with the, with the data on the, on the Bright Network platform, we've got about, um, billion plus bits of data now, and that's obviously topping up live all the time in terms of, um, students on the platform is that you can then segment the audience and we call them the kind of non-engaged.
[00:11:19] Uffindell: So there, as part of the audience on the network, there are the students who might sign up, but then kind of not really en engage much. So with that audience there, it's about incentives. And particularly with Gen Z, how do you create the kind of right incentives for them to engage, um, and make they gone?
[00:11:36] Uffindell: What, what are they? Well, it's personalization, fascinated, bright, bright network is all about personalization at scale. So a classic, um, you know, you'd then kind of. If you had somebody, say for example, your, your, your daughter is on the platform and signed up and not really engage 'em, you might send 'em an article being, for example, you know, five, five reasons to make sure you do a first year program.
[00:11:59] Uffindell: And that kind of like slightly click basey write, they need to read it. Now, you wouldn't send that to a student who, um, who had maybe you, you, you had already applied for five or ten first year internships. Sure. So it's the personalization at scale, and that's where, right now, platform, we have kind of four data sets.
[00:12:17] Uffindell: We use, we use the declared data. So they might say, look, I'm at this university, I'm studying maths and I want to go into investment banking. But then you get secondly, the behavioral data. So what are they actually doing on the platform to understand, you know, are they reading certain content, are they clicking on certain jobs, the level of engagement that's happening.
[00:12:34] Uffindell: Then psychometric data's fascinating. So we've built a two minute career pathway test to help you decide what career you might want to go into. And th and, sorry, fourthly, learning data. So we do two minutes. Yeah. Two minute test. Alright. Yeah. So yeah, it is kind of modern, um, web products, um, and it, and it's, and, and, and you can give it more information.
[00:12:55] Uffindell: But in this world of kind of, you know, so much attention deficit, people have short retention spans a two minute test to kind of look at a first, like what career choice could be of interest. And again, you think if you grow up in a certain family, you've got lots of people in, um, from certain sectors around you, you are having that given to you.
[00:13:13] Uffindell: Um, yeah. And, and, and then finally it's learning data. So you do about a million hours of online learning on the platform every year. So we use that to then try and personalize the content to where, to where the student is. So for example, if a student is just looking at, um, or engaging with content, for example, in the charity sector, we are not gonna then start sending them content about consultancy or banking or law because they're not gonna engage with it because we know they are kind of hyperfocused.
[00:13:40] Uffindell: So it, it is personalization, it's scale, I guess, much like, you know, Instagram works or something like that.
[00:13:45] James: Yeah, I remember doing those tests when I was at school. Yeah. I think it might, it was a paper, but yeah. My brother and I did it. It told him he should be a librarian. Yeah. And it told me I should be a truck driver.
[00:13:55] James: There you go. Well, the weird thing is he's been a librarian for 30 plus years and thoroughly enjoyed it. And I love a road trip, but I, there you go. Exactly. I so business. It would be very successful. People would try a bit more jobs and opportunities before they settle on one thing. There's so much choice out there.
[00:14:11] James: Exactly. That's the thing I think a lot of people miss, or they, they've, they sometimes get locked into a view that I'm, I'm struggling to get something. Well, actually there's a world of opportunities and it's about taking a bit of time and approaching them strategically. Yeah, I would say,
[00:14:26] Uffindell: I mean, absolute that no, that's what we've tried to systemize, right?
[00:14:29] Uffindell: Um, so the reality is with young people, um, 90% of them the primary, um, source of careers advice that is the parents. So, you know, if you've got a parent who's kind of a butcher or whatever like that, that's gonna be the primary replacement. Well, it used to be
[00:14:43] James: very common that people would do the same. I mean, it's still fairly
[00:14:45] Uffindell: common, even surnames, right?
[00:14:47] Uffindell: Yeah. Baker and Butcher, I guess being an example. Yeah. But,
[00:14:50] James: but it was very common that you'd follow in the same line of work. Yeah, it's become less common, I suppose, because there's so much change.
[00:14:55] Uffindell: Absolutely. And, and what, what, um, what excites me is, I guess having done economics at universities is it's a matching problem in terms of you've got all these great jobs out there, you've got all these, this great talent, supply and demand.
[00:15:07] Uffindell: How do you create more efficient matches? And for the employers and the companies we're lucky enough to work with what it does is as well as allowing them to get in front of that super high performance kind of diverse, um, candidate pool, which, um, is. You know, comes from, so how
[00:15:25] James: does it work with the employees?
[00:15:26] James: Do they subscribe to your service? Yeah. An apologies. Yes. So, so they, would you explain the model from their point? It's,
[00:15:31] Uffindell: it's a yearly subscription model, right? So, um, essentially they are buying a kind of a yearly access to the platform. Um, then they're able to do a, a number of things. Um, the primary one is they're able to kind of segment our database so they can take our network of 1.2 million now and actually be like, we want to get to, um, more candidates who have X, y, and Z qualities.
[00:15:53] Uffindell: And then we can send 'em a very, very targeted, um, bespoke, um, email. And these email rates have about a three x, um. Average open rate compared to kind of job boards because we're getting so much data based on those data sets. So when you get that, um, targeted email alert, it's a bit like getting an email from an older brother or sister because we're not kind of spamming you because they're sending you super personalized information.
[00:16:15] Uffindell: Um, you are more likely to engage it and it's more relevant to you. So back to the personalization points and also, but what would
[00:16:20] James: it say in the email?
[00:16:21] Uffindell: So it's, um, well, it, it, it would say, it would say, for example, hi James. As your, um, in your second year and your interest in jobs in investment banking, you might want to know that the internship for XY, Z bank, one of our 300 enterprise clients closes next week.
[00:16:37] Uffindell: Click here to apply. Right. Um, so that's our classic kind of model, but it's super, super personalized. So you are
[00:16:42] James: prompting them a lot.
[00:16:44] Uffindell: Yeah. So sometimes these eshots um, these kind of e alerts can be down to just like 12 people, I think is our minimum. There was a consultancy firm and they wanted to target people at a certain university, and they were having coffee in the local coffee shop, and they wanted, um, they were keen to get to kind of, they want to more female outcomes.
[00:16:58] Uffindell: How,
[00:16:59] James: how many of those 12 showed up?
[00:17:01] Uffindell: I dunno the answer actually. I think, uh, in terms of kind of a, um, that, that email, um, yeah, I think you got a, a pretty high kind of open rate from memory and then, and then they're encouraged to apply and turn up and, and meet the, so you won't
[00:17:12] James: know necessarily who gets jobs where out of this.
[00:17:15] James: So,
[00:17:15] Uffindell: so we do, we do track to, we built quite a cool tool. So some employers will tell us who's got jobs where. So when I, when I went into the business, um, because you are not charging introduction fees? No, no, no, we don't. We don't. So
[00:17:27] James: you're not, that's not a moment that you sort of Yeah, no,
[00:17:29] Uffindell: we, our, our model is based on, um, uh, it's subscription marketing platform model model fee.
[00:17:36] Uffindell: And um, one of things I noticed in the graduate recruitment industry, it was a classic, um, that famous quote, you know, I know, uh, these firms seem to be saying, I know half my marketing budgets are waste of my notes. Dunno which half. So tracking what we call attribution is, is, is a key part of the business.
[00:17:52] Uffindell: So what firms can do is they can actually, um, uh. And kind of through our system anonymously. And all GDPR compliant work out, um, who they've hired from where. And that then allows, um, them to know that we are getting 'em great results and our whole business model is built on. We get 'em great results. They get a great service, they renew the following year.
[00:18:13] Uffindell: And we're then able to actually look at certain of our members and actually track their journey. Like, for example, they signed up, they kind of like looked at a certain profile, um, and then you can actually see all the way through to hire.
[00:18:24] James: So as a member, what you call a customer?
[00:18:26] Uffindell: Yeah, a a So a, a member is a bright network member.
[00:18:29] Uffindell: So you, you join the platform
[00:18:31] James: as what a business or a person are we talking about now?
[00:18:33] Uffindell: A as a person? Yeah, the partner. So what do you
[00:18:35] James: call the businesses?
[00:18:36] Uffindell: Uh, client partners. Okay. Yeah. So you've got about 300 s. So you've become
[00:18:39] James: a member of the platform, is that, yeah. You sign up for the member. So you said there were 1.2 million members?
[00:18:43] James: Members, yeah. I'm just trying understand. Yeah. Some of those would be quite recent graduates and I guess some, I mean, you've been going more than a decade. Yeah. To be quite sort of.
[00:18:51] Uffindell: Yeah. So in terms of our, our, our act, old terms of advance, our active, so we signed up, um, about a quarter of a million members last year.
[00:18:56] Uffindell: So we've already cracked acquisition as a business. Um, and I guess it's, you know, um, thinking about kind of the world of business, it's the idea of being kind of customer obsessed. Um, and when we started, I was like, okay, what, what do these young people need? Um, how do you give it to them? They wanted more personalization, um, bigger access to kind of opportunities, um, in terms of kind of making sure.
[00:19:19] Uffindell: So on the Bright Network platform, we make sure we, we list as many opportunities as we can, um, in terms of putting that stuff in front of our, our, our members. And, um, the personalization thing. And, and also events. So we actually do events for about a hundred thousand a year, um, in person and virtual.
[00:19:35] Uffindell: Right. Um, so we, we what, what, what sort of events? Yeah, so we do, um, uh, uh, two types of events. We, we do a big event every year called Bright Now Work Festival, um, which we do the Q conference Center Opposites, um, Westminster and I realized it was a bit odd because you have the classic milk ground, but before then there should be a big dynamic event where you have like contents and celebration of careers.
[00:19:57] Uffindell: You have about 4,000 students come along to that. Do you mind just, sorry, coming ground this way a little bit. Yeah. In fact
[00:20:05] James: that behind me. Which way do you mean left or right?
[00:20:08] Frankie: Yeah, if you just, um, uh, make sure that, uh, you don't look at the rear wall too much, and so if you are make eye contact with James, then you can look here a little bit, but not
[00:20:19] Uffindell: So you want me into that camera?
[00:20:19] Uffindell: Do you? Yeah. Okay.
[00:20:20] Frankie: We're not looking directly down the camera, but just so you're
[00:20:22] James: sort of facing this way. You were looking that
[00:20:25] Uffindell: way.
[00:20:25] Frankie: Ah, okay. Just because I'm getting a lot of like the back of view, this sort of
[00:20:28] Uffindell: area of view instead of your face that just be great. So more this. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm doing, yeah.
[00:20:32] Uffindell: Sometimes when I'm breaking, I think when I'm breaking your contact with you, I'm looking down there little bit like
[00:20:36] James: why if you pull the chair in a bit. Yeah. Okay. And look that way a bit more. Okay. Is he in the right? I I feel you should swing it in a bit. Yeah. He's in the right place now. So,
[00:20:45] Uffindell: I mean you can a little bit more if, if you what, what you are the boss, whatever.
[00:20:49] Frankie: Yeah. If you could just type yourself in just a touch more, that'd
[00:20:51] James: be great. Yeah. Okay.
[00:20:51] Frankie: Perfect.
[00:20:53] James: We should get fixed chairs. It's okay. All good
[00:20:59] James: people imprison. Well then
[00:21:01] Uffindell: they're not spin around too much. Yeah. That sort of a, so presumably we need to redo that. Be we.
[00:21:07] Frankie: What would you think Mikey? Um, just pick it up from Mike. That sort of the beginning of the section. So, um, thanks. Yeah. The events. You said we also do events.
[00:21:21] James: Yeah. You were starting to describe the bright, bright.
[00:21:24] James: Festival. Yeah. So we getting from the,
[00:21:27] Frankie: yeah, just from there and we'll, we'll edit it. I
[00:21:28] Uffindell: can't remember the question. Sorry. Can you go back to the
[00:21:30] Frankie: question talking about the events
[00:21:32] Uffindell: that you do? Yeah, but I can't remember the top of the question. It was, uh oh. Can I,
[00:21:39] Frankie: what are the types of in person
[00:21:41] James: James asked, I asked you to tell us about the events. About I, yeah, no, I was interested in what sort of events you do. That's what, yeah, that's right. Okay. Okay. So James, you mentioned events, so what sort of things do you do?
[00:21:54] Uffindell: Yeah, so we were primarily a tech and digital platform and that's where the vast majority of our edges in the markets and how members use us, our bright network members, that we realize the get go, you know, fundamentally humans are social animals and they want to in, and we want to interact with each other, and particularly with the pandemic.
[00:22:13] Uffindell: And it's fascinating with business because. Um, crisis really is the kinda mother invention. So we'd always done events. Um, and these are essentially very kind of focused sector events where, for example, women in technology, black talent and banking, um, uh, women in leadership, like very focused events using the data to really put, um, the right candidates in front of the right employers.
[00:22:38] Uffindell: So for example, we do the women in technology events is all about, um, how do big corporates get access to more often kind of stem females want to career, pursue a career in technology. However, um, back to, um, crisis being the mother of invention, when the pandemic hits, we, um, as much of the world was, we were thrown into, uh, kind of complete kind of disruption, but we really wanted to make sure we stood up for our community.
[00:23:05] Uffindell: So we, I. Um, launched a program called Internship Experience uk, which was, um, set back during the pandemic. And because employers are saying we can't have these young people into the offices for the internships. No, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. They needed to be done virtually. Yes, exactly. We did that as well.
[00:23:21] Uffindell: Young people couldn't go in, go into offices, and we realized there was a huge opportunity to connect them virtually. So we launched a program called Internship Experience uk. It became the biggest, um, internship experience globally. Um, over 150,000. Um, young people have now done it. Um, we've continued to run it every summer
[00:23:39] James: at, so you run that.
[00:23:40] James: Can from the, it was an idea that arose in the pandemic. Yeah. And just kept going with
[00:23:44] Uffindell: it. Yeah, absolutely. So that's, so how
[00:23:45] James: does that work if you want to do one of these internships? Yeah. What do you need to do, James?
[00:23:48] Uffindell: Actually, well, you need to sign up for Bright Network. Yeah. And it's, uh, we do it this year.
[00:23:53] Uffindell: It starts in the 14th of July to the 17th of July. We have different streams, for example, kind of banking. We might miss that for, well, well, yeah. Sorry if you've already missed it. But depends when it goes. When it goes out.
[00:24:05] James: Okay. It doesn't matter. So it once a year, is it?
[00:24:07] Uffindell: Yeah, it's once a year. Um, in July.
[00:24:09] Uffindell: In July. And it allows, um, our members, our brand network members to get kind of really valuable kind of work experience with the employers. They come on and do sessions and it allows 'em to sample. Um, uh, what, what certain and what age,
[00:24:22] James: what age are the people? So typically
[00:24:24] Uffindell: undergraduates, so typically kind of 18 to 20, 21 year olds.
[00:24:27] Uffindell: But it was a fascinating lesson when that hit in terms of business and entrepreneurship because, um, uh, I remember reading an article about, uh, there was a famous, um, volcano in 1815, um, I think it was called, um, Mount Tamura, and it erupted. Um, and that year, 1815, it was known as the year with no summer.
[00:24:47] Uffindell: And obviously there was this kind of global catastrophe. And what happened was, um, it created, um, a. A vol, what's called a volcanic winter in 1816, putting up so much ash into the, into the environment that crops all over the world were dying. And, um, and as a result, horses were too expensive to feed. So a lot of kind of horses were dying.
[00:25:09] Uffindell: And out of this incredible, horrific crisis came. Um, came the bicycle. So the bicycle was actually invented as a, they think as a result of this, uh, global phenomenon.
[00:25:19] James: So I, I don't get the connection. Yeah. So talking about, so your poor horse died, so you had to get a bike.
[00:25:24] Uffindell: Yeah. Es essentially, well, the bike was invented Yeah.
[00:25:26] Uffindell: As, as an alternative mode of transport. They, uh, uh, really because of that. Yeah. They think, yeah. That was a, um, uh, so, so what happened with us then when the pandemic hit was we launched, um, our internship experience uk, but that then, then propelled us to being number one in the market, um, in terms of how young people get their first job because it, it became such scale, we didn't kind of charge anybody for it, and it really propelled us to being kind of front of the market.
[00:25:52] Uffindell: So I think, I thought it was a nice reminder in terms of business that change is the only constant and when something happens, um, it can actually lead to. Kind of, um, un unplanned. Um,
[00:26:01] James: so yeah, so that's an interesting observation and I, I think looking around now, it seems like change is happening, you know, really fast and in a really substantial way.
[00:26:12] James: Yeah. Taking that sort of lesson, what, what would you be your advice to people now and what's the new bicycle?
[00:26:20] Uffindell: Yeah, it's, it is a great question. What is the new bicycle? Um, one, one of the best quotes I've heard is that, um, you're not, your job's not gonna get taken by ai. It's gonna get, get taken by somebody using ai.
[00:26:29] Uffindell: Um, so all of us have to kind of become, do you believe that I-I-I-I-I,
[00:26:33] James: I,
[00:26:33] Uffindell: I actually do. I think actually that's the optimistic version. Yeah. I, I, I mean, a
[00:26:38] James: pessimistic version is it's gonna be taken by ai.
[00:26:40] Uffindell: Yeah. I mean, what, what, in the short term, um, I think kind of the research seems to show that, um, often these things can kind of not be, um, can take a time to kind of bed in.
[00:26:50] Uffindell: And I think personally, I think the ai, the impact of AI is quite insidious. It's happening kind of almost like under the counter, kind of often kind of unnoticed incrementally. So for example, if you take software developers, copilot, making 'em 30% more productive kind of copywriters. Um, so I So you have fewer of them?
[00:27:07] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. Um, and. It makes kind of existing workforce more efficient or, or just quite frankly, which
[00:27:14] James: would explain why there are fewer vacancies. Yeah. And, and
[00:27:17] Uffindell: um, and, and it, it is fascinating moment. Like what is behind that kind of fewer vacancy number? My own observation I guess being in the market is that, um, the big blue chips we work with are kind of very stable.
[00:27:30] Uffindell: You know, if you have a graduate program, you're hiring a thousand graduates a year, you are probably gonna be pretty stable, stable around that. But we, that's not what's been
[00:27:37] James: reported though, you know, with these accountancy firms all cutting back on graduate trainees, you're saying that's not widely the case.
[00:27:43] James: Yeah.
[00:27:43] Uffindell: So, so we are not from your
[00:27:44] James: market.
[00:27:45] Uffindell: We, we are not experiencing that significantly, however. Um, the graduate market at the moment is tough and there are, um, about a 33% decline year on year in terms of the number of roles being advertised. They're talking about being the worst, some data that it was the worst kinda market at the moment for graduates since, um, 2018.
[00:28:03] Uffindell: Yeah, I've heard that
[00:28:04] James: too. Yeah.
[00:28:05] Uffindell: But what, what we're seeing from the big blue chips is, is, is stability. Um, however, back to my point earlier is that very, um, only about 10% of graduates go into classic kind of graduate schemes. So if you think about more about those kind of SMEs and smaller businesses, um, and it's hard to still, isn't it, is, is the AI that's causing this reduce in reduction of vacancies?
[00:28:24] Uffindell: Is it the general, um, kind of economic environment? You've got the 20 billion kind of jobs tax. Um, so what is actually, there's a
[00:28:30] James: economic malaise perhaps, but I I think that AI is having a, a growing impact Yeah. Would be my observation. I I would, this automation is widespread.
[00:28:40] Uffindell: Yes.
[00:28:40] James: And, and I think one challenge for.
[00:28:43] James: I'm not just saying you and your business, but others as societies, all these young people are gonna be coming outta university, probably looking for, broadly speaking, what would've been described as white collar jobs. Yeah. And they're gonna be increasingly scarce.
[00:28:56] Uffindell: I, I can, I can, I I think that's so
[00:28:57] James: where next, I suppose, what do we do?
[00:28:59] James: Because you want to keep placing them and keep them engaged and happy with your platform. And as a country, we need to make sure that we don't have great cohorts, that people are disappointed and out of work.
[00:29:09] Uffindell: Yeah. I, I completely agree. I think the big emphasis here is to make sure that young people are getting up to speed on AI and making sure they are getting skilled in that area so that they are competitive.
[00:29:19] Uffindell: Um, back to your point earlier about kind of making sure that people engage with their career early on and don't kind of disengage because those kind of graduates who haven't done much, they are probably the ones kind of most at risk because it isn't a competitive market. Um, a big phenomenon we've seen in our sector is the number of vacant, um, number of applications per vacancy rocketing up, um, due to, um, we believe due to ai.
[00:29:40] Uffindell: So what do you mean? Um, so, so. The number of, um, applications has gone from about 80 applications per graduate role to about 120 and that, so
[00:29:51] James: 50% increase. Yeah. And that's, what do you mean by that? What's AI got to do with it?
[00:29:55] Uffindell: So it's doing, um, it's doing two things. Um, firstly, it's making it easier for.
[00:30:01] Uffindell: Graduates to put in applications using ai. So, um, our own research on Bright Network suggests that about 50% of students, um, are using AI in their application, which is up from 38% kind of last year. You
[00:30:14] James: should discount the other 50%. They're obviously not. Yeah, well, you,
[00:30:18] Uffindell: well, interestingly, happens to them.
[00:30:19] Uffindell: Interestingly, 40% of firms aren't giving guidance about AI use. So some firms are, a lot of firms
[00:30:25] James: are using it, aren't they?
[00:30:26] Uffindell: Yeah. Well, the firms are using it, but some, some firms are saying. Basically kind of, you know, use it in the right way. Other firms are saying, um, use it, uh, but just, just please don't use it.
[00:30:36] Uffindell: Interestingly, when we ask our members, would they comply, um, with rules set down by firms that said, please don't use it. They say they, you know, the vast majority say they would kind of comply with the rules in terms of hopefully being kind of ethical. Um, and then the other thing is obviously there are these bots, which must, I'm
[00:30:50] James: not gonna say the opposite, are they?
[00:30:51] James: No.
[00:30:52] Uffindell: You, I, I dunno.
[00:30:54] James: I, I don't dunno. I
[00:30:54] Uffindell: don't,
[00:30:54] James: I'm generally believe in, uh, kind of people being kind of quite ethical, but, you know, you know, you never know. Well, I know I'm, I'm feeling a slightly agree for a lot of these young people in that I'm hearing stories of companies using AI to interview people.
[00:31:07] James: Yeah. So you've come across that you're nodding.
[00:31:09] Uffindell: Yeah. Yeah. The, um, well, I mean,
[00:31:10] James: what, what's going on? How, how does that work? And is it acceptable for a computer to reject a human being?
[00:31:16] Uffindell: No. I I think there should always be a human decision in any hiring, hiring decision. But that's not happening though, is it?
[00:31:21] Uffindell: Yeah. I, I, I personally, I think there should always be I know. So do I, but that's not happening now. Yeah. These
[00:31:26] James: companies, a lot of them, these big blue chips you described using this software to sort of scream people out.
[00:31:33] Uffindell: Yeah. And I, I, I, I, I, I think there should always be ethically a kind of a a, a human, a human, a human decision at some point in their appraisal.
[00:31:40] Uffindell: But the problem, dunno how that works
[00:31:41] James: though, because, because they've also then got so many applicants in there, as you are saying. Yeah. Well, a
[00:31:45] Uffindell: hundred, imagine having 120 applicants for every job and, and the other way that's not ideal. No, no. The the other way that, um, candidates are using ours, you know, there are bots now where you can literally set the bot up to go and apply for jobs for you, and the next day you can wake up and have, um, interviews arranged
[00:31:59] James: a rejection from me.
[00:32:00] James: Yeah. Yeah. Seems me, people, I mean, I was, I, I was on the radio the other day. It was a, and there was a woman who had applied for 647. Train accountancy jobs. Wow. And she'd finally got one. Great. So all credit to her, but she'd been doing it two a day. So she wasn't using AI but had taken her a long time, which I think a lot of people are in that situation.
[00:32:24] Uffindell: Yeah. A absolutely, I mean, the, the market has been kind of really thrown by AI because the employers are having to come up with new solutions because they're obviously flooded without applications and, you know, there's a whole kind of ordering going on. Um, but that's a great example there about, kinda back to advice for young people is that, um, really understanding what employers want is absolutely critical.
[00:32:47] Uffindell: And what that young lady there has shown is resilience. So on our Bright network research, when we ask employers. Um, what, what do you want and what are you after? The, the number one thing, um, they will say is, um, passion for the business, but the number two thing is resilience. Now students and young people only rank resilience about kind of seventh in terms of what they think employers are after.
[00:33:11] Uffindell: Instead, students and young people think the thing that employers really wants is a two one, and actually employers only rank that as about the 10th most important thing. A
[00:33:20] James: two one.
[00:33:21] Uffindell: Yeah. So, so I think the, that's
[00:33:22] James: a degree
[00:33:23] Uffindell: grade. Sorry. Degree grade. Yeah. I've
[00:33:24] James: never asked anyone in my third year career what their degree grade.
[00:33:27] James: Absolute. I dunno why worked so hard. University, a waste of time looking back. No, I'm not interested in their, you know, history skills. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:33:37] Uffindell: So, um, so I think back to your point about what advice can we give, can we give young people as we can do, I guess, for example, the great work you are doing here and making kind of.
[00:33:44] Uffindell: Um, explaining kind of commercial awareness and, and really educating young people about kind of what what employers are looking for is key. Making sure they're getting up to speed and developing their skills, staying, staying competitive. And I think kind of the key thing is this reminder that change really is the only constant that is, you know, how you handle uncertainty and that's where resilience is so critical.
[00:34:03] James: Right? So, yeah. So thinking about this, 'cause you, you just told me, and this isn't, I'm not trying to catch you out genuine interest in this. The, the, the, the, the jobs advertisers might have are now getting 120 applicants on average up from a ET. And we are talking about members or candidates who've applied for many, many jobs to employers who say they want passion for the company and resilience.
[00:34:27] James: Yeah. So the, the converse that I'm hearing is if I said to you, I've applied for 600 jobs being rejected, but I really love your business and I'd like you to gimme a chance, would the 600 rejections make you think better or worse of me? Well, if I was, if I was a Brian. So you are the per No. You're the, you're the person on the other side of the table.
[00:34:44] James: If I, if I do, I wanna see this applicant called Reed. Well, well, you probably wouldn't disclose in my 600 application. Well, well that's, that's interesting to me because, 'cause that's what's interesting to me. 'cause I'm thinking back a long time ago, I interviewed a young man who, who I said on his cv, he got a first class degree from Imperial.
[00:35:01] James: So I didn't ask him, but it said, and he was obviously super intelligent and he'd been rejected from all these jobs. So I hired him immediately. And he, I, I think he just had a squint or something, you know? Right. Something like that, that sort of was, you know, shouldn't have been taken into account at all.
[00:35:16] James: But I think that might've been the reason. So I had, when he told me I'm been rejected from every in, I hired him a medium and he was brilliant. He
[00:35:23] Uffindell: turned out
[00:35:23] James: well. Yeah.
[00:35:24] Uffindell: Great. And
[00:35:26] James: so a way it might be the people who keep going are the ones you want, aren't they the ones who don't get fed up and angrier, but they just keep trying?
[00:35:34] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely mean
[00:35:34] James: they're the ones we all want a hundred percent. And that's, but how do we, how do we identify 'em and flag them to those organizations? I mean, this is a challenge for us as, you know, people in this space. Well, I, I think share, I'm, I'm asking you for your ideas. Yeah.
[00:35:47] Uffindell: Well, I, I think what you've given example of there is a robust hiring process because I think, um, uh, the more you can systemize the high hiring process and make it more scientific, um, which you did there, because it sounds like he might have been discounted by previous roles back in the day because of essentially a, a body language tick.
[00:36:05] Uffindell: The more you can actually make like a, a systematic kind of evidence-based hiring decision, which I think employers have made leaps and bounds in that. Um, trying to get rid of things like unconscious bias just because, you know, somebody has a certain kind of body language quality there, you, you described.
[00:36:23] Uffindell: Yeah. And what we see amongst the kind of blue chip employees we work with, 'cause they're obviously pretty robust, kinda successful organizations, is a scientific kind of hiring process and, and back to kind of how they compete and get the best talents, um, by casting their net wide, super, super wide and not, for example, just going after graduates from certain universities or certain degree disciplines or certain backgrounds.
[00:36:47] Uffindell: Yeah. They can then filter to find those needles in the haystack.
[00:36:52] James: So what are they looking for you, you said resilience was second. Yeah. But how, how can you have passion for an organization that you've never been into? Uh, and, you know, not so little about. I mean, is that a reasonable request? I, I think it's quite, I think it's, how can I suddenly feel passion for Google?
[00:37:06] James: Yeah. Or they're one of your clients. Well, yeah. So how do I
[00:37:09] Uffindell: feel that, why, I guess being bought into the, the, the Google mission and the kind of culture fit and wanting to have that. So how
[00:37:16] James: do, so what's your advice to your, your Yeah. Members? They, how do they develop their passion? 'cause I mean, it takes a bit of time to feel passionate, doesn't it?
[00:37:23] James: Yeah. I guess
[00:37:24] Uffindell: knowing about the business. Yeah. Um, knowing what it's kind of trying to achieve. Knowing about the mission of the business, the values, I know you have your values at Read and I think, so you are
[00:37:33] James: saying Immerse, you're saying not just do a bit of homework, you are saying immerse yourself in this.
[00:37:37] James: I
[00:37:37] Uffindell: think the more you can know the organization, the culture you are joining, you think about culture being kind of how things are done around here.
[00:37:42] James: Um, so you should ask ai, shouldn't you? Yeah. Well that I might be, uh, tell me about the culture at you say that. Yeah. Well, you should. I mean, it depends on the, uh, some of these clients might have said, no, no, no, no, don't do that.
[00:37:53] James: But
[00:37:54] Uffindell: you've gotta find
[00:37:55] James: out, you've gotta use what you can to find out what you can, yeah.
[00:37:57] Uffindell: O other qualities, what they're looking for is communication skills. So interestingly, I. With AI and a lot of, um, hard skills becoming commoditized, we're back to, um, back to soft skills in terms of how you can influence a team, how you can lead, how you can communicate.
[00:38:12] Uffindell: So actually, interestingly, softer skills are becoming more important, which is why our research shows that young people are actually now more prone to wanting to go into the office. So 58% of our Bright now work members want to be in the office four days or more a week, um, which is up from 9% last year.
[00:38:29] Uffindell: So offices are obviously incredible learning machines. And then also problem solving skills is another thing that employers are really looking for in terms of top of the stack.
[00:38:38] James: Yeah. Well, our research shows the same that Gen Z would wanna be in the workplace. Yeah. And, and it's often the older people who have nicer homes and.
[00:38:47] James: And it's a problem, right? Dogs to walk and all that sort of stuff. And it's very easy deliveries to receive. Yeah. But prefer working at home, which I find a bit unconvincing. I think there's a moral show up and and help the young people get started.
[00:38:57] Uffindell: I completely agree and I think there's a moral argument to it, particularly for those people who've been lucky enough to go through.
[00:39:03] Uffindell: That kind of dynamic office environments and offices are, as I said, offices are great learning machines and they, they, our research turns up they show to, to learn from the, the older people in the organization. And if they're not there and they're padding around there, you know, they're later in their careers, they've got nicer houses, there's actually kind of dogs to walk, maybe spouse.
[00:39:21] Uffindell: So kind of working from home, I think there is a more responsibility. Yeah, I'm,
[00:39:24] James: I'm very worried about all this. 'cause I, I think, you know, a lot of those jobs are, are just being lined up to be automated or off short. Yeah. You know, 'cause if you can pat around at home in Cro nor Kingston, you can also pat around at home in Soweto or Hungary somewhere.
[00:39:39] James: I, I think, and that's what's happening there. All the jobs are being offshore.
[00:39:41] Uffindell: Well, well, well as you know, and you, you talk about, you know, we have a massive productivity gap in the uk. Um, we're about 20% less productive than, than, um, say that again. About, about 20% less production in terms of productivity, aren't we, than kind of mainland Europe Are the 20% less?
[00:39:55] Uffindell: Yeah, in terms of, um, it takes them about four days. It takes the US about
[00:39:59] James: five days. So we have to work five days for, for them to, yeah, 25%. But they're not far off. Yeah. It's
[00:40:03] Uffindell: uh. So, um, and then we know that Britain are the second biggest when it comes to remote work, um, after Canada. And we also, the research is increasing.
[00:40:12] Uffindell: Oh, it
[00:40:12] James: snows a lot in Canada.
[00:40:13] Uffindell: Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of fair. But, but we also know that, um, uh, that that remote working overall seems to be less productive. Now, of course, we should have flexible working arrangements and it's really beneficial for, um, kind of in some sector society, for example, kind of working parents, but it's getting the balance right.
[00:40:31] Uffindell: Um,
[00:40:32] James: yeah, I think that the, there's every argument for flexibility, but you are right. I wouldn't disagree. And it makes those roles, I think more, uh, jeopardy. Yeah. So, so you are advised to young people is show up,
[00:40:44] Uffindell: get into the office. I think absolutely. Get into the office, build those relationships, practice those soft skills, practice collaborating, learn from kind of senior people in the business, have those serendipitous conversations about your work and, um, and that will help you get ahead.
[00:40:58] James: You, you, you've talked a lot about the companies you deal with. Yeah. And you describe 'em as blue chip. Um, I'm imagining sort of banks, consulting firms, technology companies, um, the, the sort of names that people would know. Yes. It's a certain type of person. Is it who wants to go to the best school then work in a big bank?
[00:41:20] James: Yeah. And that's, there are lots of people who don't wanna do that or who would rather be in a smaller environment or work in a nonprofit or do you cater for them?
[00:41:31] Uffindell: Yeah. Well the great thing about the Bright Network platform, it's built as, um, to help young people connect with the world of work. And one of the things I love most about the model is that, uh, the.
[00:41:42] Uffindell: Uh, the, the platform caters for every, every, every, every undergraduate and students. So even though the firms are using it to kind of engage, um, the talent kind of that they want to hire, if you, you're not a hundred percent sure what you want to do or you probably don't want to engage the career maybe until you've even left university or you want to go and work a startup.
[00:42:01] Uffindell: Um, the, the, all the advice and information on those kind of two key things we're solving for, going back to the problem I hopefully I was trying to solve that I experienced as a founder is like, what should I do with my life? Back to your point about what are the opportunities out there, how do I match to a specific career?
[00:42:16] Uffindell: And secondly, how do I guess ahead? We still help you even if you don't go and work at one of our clients.
[00:42:21] James: Mm,
[00:42:22] Uffindell: mm Much less, I suppose you're doing at re
[00:42:24] James: Well, we have a lot of clients that are, are smaller organization. Yeah. I mean, we work with big organizations and small, but I, I just think. In my experience or just observing, it's often you, you get a lot of good experience in a smaller organization where you may have to do a bit of everything.
[00:42:38] James: Absolutely. And if you'll just clock if you become a specialist in a bigger one, and that's good for early career development.
[00:42:44] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, um, most graduates will actually go and work for an SME, um, that's where the majority of them go. And as, as Napoleon said, we're a a nation of shopkeepers.
[00:42:54] Uffindell: Right. We've got 5 million SMEs and they are the, the growth, I don't think
[00:42:58] James: he meant that as a compliment. I,
[00:43:00] Uffindell: I think he was shown
[00:43:01] James: to be foolish in his sneering.
[00:43:03] Uffindell: Yeah. Yeah. I I I, I I agree. He was definitely meaning as a putdown, but the reality of us having lots of kind of small businesses is, is, is the case.
[00:43:13] James: So how do you see the landscape? I mean, you, you are using ai well, and firstly, I mean, what do you use it for in your business? 'cause I would like to understand that, and then how do you see it changing the landscape?
[00:43:22] Uffindell: So we bought AI into our business about four years ago. So pre-chat, GBT, um, I was very much onto our tech team kind of reading articles about what was coming as the, as the, so what did you use it
[00:43:32] James: for then?
[00:43:33] Uffindell: So, um, what we use it, what we bought it in for then, which is what we use it for now, is the matching. Um, so in terms of the talent on the platform and how we matched them to roles, um, when we introduced Aon to the platform, introducing our matching ability by about 10 x, um, using the data I was describing earlier in terms of,
[00:43:51] James: so how did that actually improve the matching?
[00:43:53] James: 'cause I mean, there were matchings there's been matching software around for a long time.
[00:43:56] Uffindell: Yeah, so, um, one of our core products is our, a personalized newsletter that every one of our members gets. So the roles we list in there. So the clickthrough rates, when the matching was done by ai, which previously we were using, um, kind of humans to put these, these newsletters together.
[00:44:13] Uffindell: And so you,
[00:44:13] James: so the AI would post different jobs to different individuals? Yes. It's completely personalized. It could mass produce that as well. Yes. Whereas before it would've been a smooth process mass. So Mass produces personalized communications with specific jobs in Yes. That may of interest to that individual.
[00:44:29] James: That's exactly, but not that individual. Yeah, that's So that, yeah, that's something that wouldn't have been easy to do before ai. No, a hundred percent we, so, so you are using it for that.
[00:44:36] Uffindell: Yeah. That's, that's been a, a kind of a And, and, and how
[00:44:39] James: did it improve your business?
[00:44:40] Uffindell: Well, so, so improve the matching rate by 10 x.
[00:44:43] Uffindell: So if you think about our job being, we've got these 1.2 million right now, our members, we've got these 300 corporates and we're trying to kind of more efficiently match them. Um, so a use case might be a young person who has no idea they could go and work in a sector earning a huge salary, um, gets, put it in front of them a role that they wouldn't even thought they were a good match for, but actually, um, all the data suggests they could be a really good match for it.
[00:45:07] Uffindell: And then they apply for that role. They get the role. The client's really happy because they've got a super great hire. The young person's really happy. That creates obviously a case study. Um, so that becomes quite powerful.
[00:45:18] James: But you don't necessarily track who's hired, who do you?
[00:45:21] Uffindell: We, we, we, we, we, we do. We do.
[00:45:23] Uffindell: We, we are able to kind of track, to hire When the, do you use
[00:45:27] James: AI to do that?
[00:45:28] Uffindell: Uh, we don't use AI to do that, but we do use a data platform we've built where, um, the employers can, um, see actually which of they young people have come from Bright Network.
[00:45:36] James: Right. And has your business grown as a result of this?
[00:45:39] James: Yeah, AB absolutely. Um, that's encouraging for people who want jobs. Yeah. So how many, so what, so four years ago to now, how's it grown?
[00:45:46] Uffindell: Well, in, in terms of our kind of head to headcount, we've probably gone from about, um, maybe about four 40, something like that, kind of four years ago to about roughly the head count is about a hundred now,
[00:45:58] James: right?
[00:45:58] James: Yeah. So, but, but. Th those people wouldn't be doing that task. No. But our overall, overall revenue has grown, which has meant more, more
[00:46:07] Uffindell: marketing people, more kind of people for our clients. Yeah. That's to
[00:46:10] James: grow in Yeah. In other areas. Yeah. So would you say that was a key decision, a key moment for you doing that?
[00:46:15] James: Or were there other things that happened four years ago since
[00:46:17] Uffindell: in terms of kind of powering our growth? Yeah. Um, yeah, I think investment in technology. Um, we've raised, um, venture capital and we've put a lot of that money into technology and that then has given us some more of a competitive edge in the market in terms of us becoming number one player in our very specific part of the, of the jobs markets.
[00:46:33] Uffindell: Um, and then other things we've done that has really kind of powered our growth has been, um, investing in bringing more students onto the platform. So obviously the bigger audience we have, the more, um, so
[00:46:44] James: what do you, how do you, how do you do that? I mean, I'm just interested in anyone who's starting a business who wants to sort of create.
[00:46:50] James: A network or, it's quite hard to do, isn't it? I mean, there are not many social networks.
[00:46:55] Uffindell: No, it is, it, it building it from scratch and the kind of cold start problem. Um, and I was able to get What, what did you do? Well, so initially I had, um, access to my database of students, my previous business. That kind of was like the catalyst.
[00:47:07] Uffindell: And then it was a lot of getting out on campus, getting into universities, building relationships,
[00:47:11] James: so literally pounding the pavement.
[00:47:13] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. We used to give out mugs actually, um, as a, which is a great kind of, uh, store, although, um, you know, if someone signed up, they've got a, a bright network mug or they hadn't really thought through the logistics of casting around all these mugs around campus.
[00:47:23] Uffindell: That was quite a big operational Yeah. Um, experience. And then, um, we also kind of build relationships with societies, but now we've got to a point in terms of our audience where, um, because we're the number one, because the, the product is so good for young people, it creates kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
[00:47:38] Uffindell: Now, one of
[00:47:39] James: my young graduate colleagues told me she'd done one of your internships. Oh, great. Okay. How did she, that she found it, she said it was very good. Excellent. And she said it was really, it gave her a bit of confidence and, and it made, and it also ticked off a box that was required. Of great. Of course.
[00:47:51] James: Well, they're expert on their
[00:47:51] Uffindell: cv and then yeah, the syllabus as well is, is, uh, yeah. So
[00:47:54] James: I think that that was, she thought it was a very good, great one. Please to that please. Intervention on your part. Bright network
[00:47:59] Uffindell: members everywhere. Yeah. Great. So, so
[00:48:01] James: you go to Bright Network if you wanna do an internship and it's easy to do Yeah.
[00:48:04] James: Set up. Absolutely. Yeah. And it doesn't cost the member anyway
[00:48:07] Uffindell: completely free. It's all free for the members. Right. And, uh, yeah, we're trying to solve those two problems. What should I do with my life and, and how do I get ahead? So, okay.
[00:48:14] James: So AI, you've found helpful in your business, but I suppose it, it is interesting in that example, you described it sort of doing a job that a person wasn't actually able to do before in your case.
[00:48:25] James: I mean, it must be in other businesses doing jobs that people were able to do before. I mean, you are saying you are sort of seeing that. Yeah, absolutely. So where do you think this is headed? Because you know, you want to place graduates into jobs, you are using ai. Yeah. You're probably looking at other ways to use ai.
[00:48:41] James: Where's it headed from here? Because 2025, I think will be, think thought of as the year of ai. But year it became so mainstream, widely deployed. Everyone, everyone using it. Really. Some better than others. Yes. So where's it going next?
[00:48:55] Uffindell: Well, um, the, the tech community seems pretty kind of split splits on, you know, is AI a good thing or a bad thing person?
[00:49:04] Uffindell: I think it's gonna have a hugely and is already having a hugely transformative, um, impact on, on society. And I think, um, yeah, you, you, you, I think insidiously it is gonna be taking kind of, um, jobs, but we might not see it all the time. 'cause essentially it's making kind of people kind of more, more productive.
[00:49:23] Uffindell: And if you think about. Like, for example, like junior techno technology roles or marketer roles, um, arguably you need kind of, you do need kind of le less of these people. So the emphasis is, is on the young people to stay competitive. Um, ultimately kind of for us, um, great organizations are always gonna want to hire great entry level talents.
[00:49:41] Uffindell: And our job is to make sure that, um, that, you know, our mission in terms of building the workforce tomorrow is to make sure that, um, talent is aware of how far it can go and the opportunities out there. So yeah, it is, we're moving into potentially a very disruptive, um, time and you've gotta, we've gotta make sure that young people are equipped for this.
[00:50:01] James: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, that being equipped for this is an interesting question. You know, how do we equip people for something that's so hard to full tell?
[00:50:09] Uffindell: I, I, I think coming back to, obviously we can do kind of the basic things like encourage them to use AI and um, and maybe even like start building into the syllabus, et cetera.
[00:50:18] Uffindell: But I think it's this idea of this kind of growth mindset, um, which is one of the three values of our business is how do you kind of handle change And um, and, and being able to adapt to new environments is we, we need as much as a country, and if you think about our position as a country and where we are, we need to be showing as much resilience as possible and adapting to the kinda changes that are coming.
[00:50:40] James: So you, you said growth mindset was one of your values. I just wanna know what the other two are. Yeah. So Will to win, will to win,
[00:50:46] Uffindell: um, in terms of kind of being competitive and wanting to be the best. And, um, that's hopefully kind of, uh, kind of done well for us in terms of becoming number on the market.
[00:50:53] Uffindell: And, and then, um, the final one is trusted to deliver. Um, the idea of like, we are trusted by our client partners to deliver every year they, um, pay us to do a job and we do that job and we, uh, so
[00:51:06] James: when they, when they subscribe with you, just wanna understand what is the job that they expect you to do.
[00:51:13] James: 'cause
[00:51:13] Uffindell: generate high quality applications just through these mailings and Yeah. So that
[00:51:18] James: people keep coming into that.
[00:51:19] Uffindell: Yeah. And, and various other things on our, on our tech platform as well. Mm-hmm. And um, and then hire great talents. Um, and actually kinda seeing the results of that and then using this again the following year.
[00:51:30] Uffindell: Um, 'cause it is a very cyclical business. And is it, is it
[00:51:32] James: very seasonal?
[00:51:33] Uffindell: Yes. Yes, it is a very, very seasonal business. So when
[00:51:36] James: is it super busy?
[00:51:37] Uffindell: Um, so typically, um, applications are open from very roughly period, kind of September to January for third year, second year, first year internships. Um, so quite a small window.
[00:51:48] Uffindell: And some of those are very specific in terms of kind of, they might only be able for like a month window when they're ap, which again, I had no idea when I was at university, when I was working in the pub. So our ability to tell students when to apply for certain roles, and that's the tip I'd give to any student, listen to this as really think about when, um, when employers are advertising vacancies.
[00:52:06] Uffindell: Um, and then, um, and then they review the campaigns typically in, um, kind of the first kind of half of the year. And then they will book in their campaigns for the following year. Um, so the kind of classic milk round season in terms of timing, it's been elongated and kind of messed around, um, has changed a little bit, but it's still, it's still really there in terms of application.
[00:52:26] Uffindell: So do companies
[00:52:26] James: still show up on campus and stuff? Yeah. So they still go out on campus. They still do that.
[00:52:30] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. Um, but the great thing the Bright Network platform has enabled is by putting all students in the same place. It, it's made those kind of things a little bit more efficient, I think.
[00:52:40] James: Okay. Um, and also
[00:52:42] Uffindell: that's why we run our events because employers still want to get in front of students and meet them. We do a big event every year called Festival, which has about 4,000 come to it.
[00:52:49] James: Oh, great. That sounds like a good event. Attend. You should come along and have a look. I will, I will invite you.
[00:52:54] James: That's right. Oh, you is. You should come. You
[00:52:55] Uffindell: should come and do It's uh, queen Elizabeth, conference center director of at Westminster have about 4,000 come along and uh, yeah, we'd love to kind of have you there if you wanna come and do a how to be a Successful Entrepreneur talk or whatever
[00:53:06] James: you wanna talk about.
[00:53:06] James: That's very kind. Might take you up on that. That'd be great. So, so one of the, one of the, um, motivations I understand behind you sort of setting up the business in this way. Was to try and make things fairer Yeah. In the job market. Um, you know, uh, particularly for people with, you know, what have described as protected characteristic.
[00:53:26] James: Yeah. But people from minority groups or Yeah. Um, people with disabilities. Um, what, what have you done to, uh, sort of make that happen?
[00:53:35] Uffindell: So this is where the, the, the, the AI and data and tech gets really interesting because through that you can create kind of better matching. Um, so 60% of people from ethnic minority backgrounds still believe that their backgrounds holding them back 40% from social mobility backgrounds, believe their backgrounds holding 'em back.
[00:53:53] Uffindell: So by coming back to the tap on the shoulder and putting the right opportunities in front of you, whatever your backgrounds, not just because you're at a certain university, um, it allows the max team to work a lot more efficiently. Um, so these
[00:54:06] James: people feel this, even if they're at these high university high-end universities.
[00:54:11] James: Yeah. Yeah, there's a, they don't feel because they've got to Cambridge, that No. And imposter syndrome's a huge thing as well. It's still an issue. Yeah, absolutely. In terms, so they might have come from a family, no one had been university. Yeah. First generation
[00:54:22] Uffindell: university or,
[00:54:23] James: and they still feel that this is holding them back.
[00:54:25] Uffindell: Yeah. That there's still a perception of that. So what, what we try to do,
[00:54:28] James: is there a truth in that?
[00:54:30] Uffindell: Um, so the, the data doesn't suggest so. Um,
[00:54:34] James: but so it's more perception than reality? Yeah, absolutely. So the, the big
[00:54:37] Uffindell: thing there, the
[00:54:37] James: important thing to know is not true.
[00:54:39] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. Like, like firms want the best and brightest.
[00:54:43] Uffindell: Well, certain all backgrounds, well, I certain do. It's a t, right? It's absolutely, absolutely completely.
[00:54:47] James: I'm so disappointed that people are still feeling that. Yeah,
[00:54:50] Uffindell: there is, that, there is that perception. So we also run kind of super targeted events. For example, we do, you know, our black talent in banking events, we do, um, like a proud to be events like we do neurodiverse leaders events.
[00:55:02] Uffindell: So, um, looking and really trying to give specific help to people, um, to, to, to create a quality of opportunity and giving them the advice and information they need to succeed, um, ensures that they have kind of fair access.
[00:55:16] James: Yeah, I mean, one of, one of the other I, I'm, I've observed sort of changes is that some companies have sort of reigned in their graduate programs because they wanna make sure they recruit people from.
[00:55:28] James: A whole range of backgrounds. Yeah. And they thought that military or Yeah. Yeah. And they thought that people from universities were sort of, of a certain type. Yeah. Um, and so they might not take as many, or they might not do it in the same way. Are they wrong to do that now?
[00:55:43] Uffindell: Well, the, the, the reality is that, um, students at university are incredibly diverse in terms of That's what I'm wondering.
[00:55:50] Uffindell: Yeah. AB absolutely. You know, before
[00:55:51] James: they, when I was at university, they were not
[00:55:53] Uffindell: Yeah. A ce and, and, and now they are. No, they're, so does that
[00:55:57] James: sort of change the sort of thinking a bit?
[00:55:59] Uffindell: I, I, I think firms should be as cl, as inclusive as possible and reaching out to, as wider, um, candidate pool as possible, be that on university or encouraging, um, you know, uh, kind of returners to work, um, after paternity, paternity or maternity, et cetera.
[00:56:15] Uffindell: So yeah, having a broad reach as possible, however you want to do that, then having a very. Systematic system, systemic, um, organized and recruitment process gives you, um, a competitive advantage. So kind of go broad, get, get out as many applicants as possible, and then make sure your recruitment process is as robust as possible.
[00:56:34] James: So do you anonymize people so that No. So you don't do that? No. No. But some people argue that's what should be.
[00:56:40] Uffindell: But, but some, 'cause we are generating applications for the firms. Some firms will then be, you know, kind of like have scrap cvs for example. That's been something that's kind of been a bit of a phenomenon, not looking at academics.
[00:56:52] Uffindell: Um, so yeah, there is, there is, um, some movements like that happening in the market.
[00:56:55] James: But is that, I've heard that too, but they never seem to last very long that people say, I want know what, what, what, when the, uh, I guess depends how HR has trained the, trained the interview, I guess. Is that, is that a bad thing to know that though?
[00:57:08] James: I mean, it's part of your sort of life journey, isn't it? Yeah. I, I, I, well, you are saying, on the one hand, these, these clients want students from these top universities. And then on the other, they can't see this well, no. So, so I'm a bit confused from
[00:57:20] Uffindell: the top university. I think. Um, there is a, um, historic, isn't that the product here, partly historic?
[00:57:25] Uffindell: I think. I think things have changed. So some firms would just go to top universities and now they're able to kind of target all universities with platforms like Bright Network because they're able to get kind of broader access in terms of, yeah, all those candidates being on the platform. Um, I do think kind of academics can obviously show something and you know, if you've got a.
[00:57:43] Uffindell: If you've got a first from, um,
[00:57:46] James: well, it shows how good you are at academics.
[00:57:48] Uffindell: Well, well it, it can show certain things, right. But, but it can show, you know, in terms of,
[00:57:51] James: but certain jobs, you know, if you're gonna be a doctor or something, it's pretty important.
[00:57:54] Uffindell: Yeah. Ly there's a vocational angle and there's also is, you know, good academics can be a signal of kind of cognitive speed and ability, for example.
[00:58:02] Uffindell: But what you want to make sure is that you are giving kind of fair access to, say for example, there's a student who, um, grew up on a, on a counselor state as a first generation to go to university, and then maybe they haven't gone to a, a top tier university because maybe they weren't encouraged by their school to apply to top tier two university.
[00:58:19] Uffindell: Um, through the UX Bright network, they can still access top employers and making sure they get very well. And
[00:58:24] James: importantly, I'm thinking the top employer can access them 5%. Because you want those people in your organization. Absolutely. 'cause they'll, they'll bring a lot with them.
[00:58:32] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. They bring the kind of hunger and the drive and, and arguably, well, um, a can like that has actually proved a, a greater distance traveled than a student who's gone to a top private school, got the top grades and gone to top university.
[00:58:45] James: Yeah. They haven't had any setbacks. No, no. Back to our point. Yeah. So the resilient, back to our point, resilience is still to be, uh, still to be found. Yeah. One thing I'd say that you, you said that that companies, you know, said pageant for the company and, and resilience were the top two when I did a huge piece of research.
[00:59:04] James: I mean, it's more than 12 years ago now, you know, asking companies what they were looking for in terms of mindset, qualities. The thing that came top always was integrity and trustworthiness. Yeah. You know, you don't wanna hire a crook. Yeah. You want people to show up on time. Yes. Is that not still the case?
[00:59:22] Uffindell: Yeah. It, it's, um, it's not, and
[00:59:24] James: they don't talk about that in schools and colleges.
[00:59:26] Uffindell: Yeah, I mean, values is obviously kind of critically important and I think, well, personal values. Personal values, it's, it's not so Well, you don't go
[00:59:35] James: and say to someone in a job interview, I'm not a crook. No.
[00:59:38] Uffindell: Yeah.
[00:59:38] James: So how do you come across as someone who's sort of honest and upright?
[00:59:42] James: 'cause that's what they want.
[00:59:44] Uffindell: Yeah, absolutely. Um, it's not something that they, I guess it would come out generally through the, the graduate kind of recruitment process in terms of kind of looking for, you know, what is the composition of someone's kind of character. Um, and I think, you know, they're hopefully maybe kinda taking people at kind of face value more.
[01:00:01] Uffindell: And I think this is where probation periods come in. 'cause you obviously only know what an individual is really like until they've started.
[01:00:05] James: Yeah. I mean, you can be, and people change as well. Yeah. So it's a sort of, it's so important I think, sort of integrity aspect. Yes. So we developed the, the, the 3G mindset.
[01:00:14] James: Okay. What was it? What was that? Well, I'll tell you in, in our book that put your mindset to work, which was written years ago. Um, first G was, was good. Yeah. And that was integrity and kindness. So two types of good. The, the second G was grit. Yeah. As in resilience and persistence, which you've absolutely settled on.
[01:00:34] James: And so, and the third G, what was, um, global, which was open growth mindset. Yes. Could have been growth. Um, and those were the three things you, that we sort of summarized they were looking for. I think they're great. I would say you should write a book. You already, you already done it. So Yeah. We done, maybe we should do a sequel.
[01:00:49] James: Yeah. But I think that, but but I remember, and this book was prompted at the time by someone saying, at a conference I was at, they were asked from, they were from some skills body, from a government, you know, what skills will most be in demand in 10 years time? So we're talking like now. Yeah. Back 10 years ago.
[01:01:05] James: Yeah. And I was sitting there thinking, well, I have no idea what skills will be most in demand in 10. I mean, I didn't know I was gonna be working podcast producers, but I do know what sort of people I wanna hire in 10 years time. Yes. And they have these qualities. And these characteristics. Yeah, these fundamental kind of underly.
[01:01:19] James: So you are doing the same in a sense.
[01:01:21] Uffindell: Yeah. These fundamental underlying kind of qualities, values, characteristics because um, they're, they last forever. Right. Character is
[01:01:28] James: everything at some Yeah. Back to kind of
[01:01:30] Uffindell: change being the only constant. Yeah. Those fundamental underlying qualities of often what makes high performance.
[01:01:37] James: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's potentially. Yeah. The, the one constant doesn't change. Yeah. So, yeah. So, um, is there anything you you'd like to add about how your business is gonna evolve from here into the future? What, do you have any ambitious plans or, or some initiatives coming out you want to share? 'cause I'm intrigued.
[01:01:55] Uffindell: Yeah, so, so continuing to invest in our technology as the number one kind of focus, right? Because that then continues to, um, give us an edge in the market. And we're also working on some quite interesting technology at the moment that looks at how, um, employers can handle kind of mass applications, um, and ai.
[01:02:12] Uffindell: So we've got some interesting stuff in, in the pipeline there. Um, that's, uh, allows, um. Kind of candidates and employers to kind of think about how they use AI when it comes to, uh, the a the application process. Mm-hmm. So that's quite interest. Our tech hub is based up in Edinburgh. Um, so we've got some interesting kind of work happening there, which is exciting.
[01:02:33] Uffindell: And so do you
[01:02:34] James: do that in-house? Yeah. All
[01:02:35] Uffindell: of all of our technology is done in house. Right. Um, so we've In Edinburgh? Yeah. In Edinburgh. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Is
[01:02:40] James: there a sort of tech, sort of Silicon Glen, is it called? Yeah. Yeah.
[01:02:44] Uffindell: We set up Edinburgh because our, um, we had had our tech hub in London.
[01:02:50] Uffindell: Yeah. And we found it incredibly competitive, um, to. Uh, to hire talents and to get kind of right people. And, um, our CTO at the time, funnily enough, um, got located to Edinburgh and we thought it would be, um, really interesting to kind of build a tech hub up there. And it's actually worked really, really well, um, in terms of, um, kind of the phenomenal talents up there and, um, kinda building people like living there.
[01:03:16] Uffindell: Yeah. It's Graham's a great city, isn't it? Yeah,
[01:03:18] James: absolutely. Yeah, we did that. We, we put a tech team in Sligo in the west of Ireland. Did you really? Wow. Is it still there or, yeah, and people love living there and working there and there's a, there's a very good tech college not far away, which people graduate from and join us.
[01:03:29] James: Do they? Fantastic. How? Only about 20, but it's nice.
[01:03:33] Frankie: Yeah. But it's good.
[01:03:34] James: It's a good, they do really good work. So I think that's quite interesting. 'cause there, there's a great sense of gra there's a great gravitational pull of, you know, being in, you know, well ultimately Silicon Valley, I suppose. Yeah. But, but there, there are other ways of approaching tech, especially if you're a smaller business or a startup entrepreneur.
[01:03:51] James: Yeah.
[01:03:51] Uffindell: You've gotta be agile. And we've got, we've got about 15 up there now, so it's, it's worked really well.
[01:03:55] James: Yeah. And well I wish you continuing success with that. Thank you, appreciate that. And look forward to seeing how the business evolves. Thank you. Now I've got two questions that I always ask at the end, James.
[01:04:04] James: Right. And um, the first question, there's a clue on the one is what gets you up on a Monday morning? On
[01:04:11] Uffindell: Mondays? Yeah, I think, I think for me it's. The mission in the business and unleashing the talent of our Bright network members. And the wonderful thing we get in testimonials, having kind of had, had our members sign up when they're 18 at Land University and then get these incredible jobs, is just seeing how far they can go.
[01:04:29] Uffindell: And I think everybody can probably go further than they think they can with the right support and help. And I, I had that support and help when I was at school and had this incredible teacher who encouraged me to apply to top universities. So I think it's the mission for me and unleashing kinda the talent on Bright Network to, to, to go far,
[01:04:45] James: you said something interesting or just sort of caught my attention.
[01:04:47] James: Everyone can go further than they think they can. Yeah. So you are saying we've got sort of hidden potential? I think so. Or hidden from ourselves, you're saying? I like that idea.
[01:04:56] Uffindell: Yeah. And I think it's the power of having somebody believe in you. So at Bright Network are big things, is like believing in our members, backing them, being on their side again, much like that kind of older brother or sister.
[01:05:06] Uffindell: And we think about kind of having,
[01:05:08] James: you must have had a nice older brother or sister. Yeah,
[01:05:10] Uffindell: no,
[01:05:12] James: not every relationship was like that. Technically I was only child, so, so I don't know. You, you have a utopian view of brothers and sisters, but, uh, um, so, um, so, but I know what you mean. Yeah. And that's where kind of like someone on your side.
[01:05:25] James: Yeah, absolutely. And that's what during you on
[01:05:27] Uffindell: Absolutely. With mentoring. Yeah. Almost like the difference between kind of mentoring with a capital M and initial M you can have kind of like, you know, proper kind of mentors with a capital M who, you know, you meet up with now and then and kind of like try to help you develop and you have mentors with a initial M who are like, you know, you're learning from in the office or seeing Yeah.
[01:05:42] Uffindell: Seeing stuff. So having somebody believe in you. And again, if you think about how we try and. Power, more social mobility about what works in these kind of, again, these kind of wealthy, well connected families is they've got somebody believing in them, often these kids and gunning for them. And we try and do that on Bright Network for every one of our members.
[01:05:59] Uffindell: Um, so yeah, that's what gets me outta bed every morning.
[01:06:02] James: That's great. And my last question, where do you see yourself in five years time?
[01:06:06] Uffindell: Uh, in five years time, kind of building a bright network. The business is growing, developing, um, we've got a lot of opportunities in the business and the big things are alumni.
[01:06:17] Uffindell: Um, so once our members get their first job, we've created this kind of hyper personalized network of talents, um, who know us know Bright Network. We've, in terms of being trusted to deliver, we've delivered great results for them. They've gone and got their first job. Um, so, you know, that's a, an interesting kind of growth opportunity for us as well.
[01:06:36] Uffindell: Um, so yeah, and, um, kind of o overseas is also an interesting opportunity for us. Well, well I was wondering
[01:06:41] James: that, whether you might take it into other geographies. Yeah,
[01:06:43] Uffindell: so we've um, uh, we've uh, launched out in Germany. Um, so we're actually out in Germany now, so we've got a team of about five, I think.
[01:06:50] James: Same name.
[01:06:51] Uffindell: Uh, yes. Uh, well, um, we, um, uh, yeah, we um, we, you've put me on the spot there 'cause I can't remember actually
[01:07:00] James: can we, can we edit that bit out because I can't remember what happened. You, Germans, I can't remember right at the end. Sorry. I can't, so Well true. I know. Sorry, we're gonna have to, I can't remember.
[01:07:10] James: The Bright network in it is called Bright. I can't remember the right now, the name in Germany. Can you look it up? Chance? I think you should just call it Bright Network and then everyone will remember fine. Okay. Okay. Well I, I dunno if you wanna to redo that then, but that, that would be a bit embarrassing.
[01:07:24] James: Bright. Are you able to help him here, Jane?
[01:07:26] Frankie: Is it just ball
[01:07:27] James: de
[01:07:31] James: Frankie speaks German. I think we did have a memory. We renamed it. It's not like obvious. No, no. Don't worry. We don't need to put that in. Apologies. We've got, I can't I Right. Network. Germany. Not right. Network. Yeah,
[01:07:53] James: we, I'm
[01:07:53] Uffindell: pretty sure the German lead might have another. I, I remember something flipped off. It might just be right now. I dunno what you want to do. If you want to just ask the question again to say that we won't use that, we won't include that part. Okay, fine. Okay. Sorry.
[01:08:06] James: I know it's quite funny. I shouldn't worry about it.
[01:08:09] James: I should, uh, I should, I should suppose, yeah, I probably should. The, you know, you know what happened? The German team will get upset. This is, you know what it's like in the, I, I should know this. It's readings National, well, we've got offices in other, we've got an office, well, we've got an employee in Germany.
[01:08:24] James: Okay. Okay. Yeah. We just call it read, we call it read everywhere. I suppose it's a name rather than a description. Yeah, yeah. Um, it doesn't sort of, you don't need to change. Yeah. I, I, I, I'm 99,
[01:08:36] Uffindell: I'm 90% sure it's, we still go with Bright Network, but, um, we'll have to, we'll just, so what do you want me to ask
[01:08:40] James: you?
[01:08:40] James: So I just, you don't need to say what, I won't say What's it called? 'cause I just, I'll just curious. No, no, no, it's fine. So you, so you, you, you, you mentioned you might be going into, well you're opening in Germany, saving up in Germany. Yeah. We Germany two years ago. Yeah, it's two years. So have you got any other countries you're looking at?
[01:08:53] James: Just, just that so
[01:08:54] Uffindell: far? Yeah, I mean, we picked, picked Germany because one at a time. Yeah. We, we, we are learning, um, yeah. About international and how to do it. And we picked Germany because, um, it was where our clients asked us to go. So we spoke to our clients. Oh, I see. Yeah. They wanted to hire there. They wanted, uh, they wanted Germany.
[01:09:09] James: Yeah. Yeah. Not America.
[01:09:11] Uffindell: Uh, they did want America as well. And the reason we didn't go for America first was because, um, it's obviously you, you know, you need a. Um, it's a, you know, a significant amount of capital to launch well in America. Yeah. And so we wanted to learn, learn about international first. So that could be next.
[01:09:27] Uffindell: Yeah. Yeah. America could be next.
[01:09:28] James: Well, I wish you every success with that. Thank you very much. I have to get you back in five years time and see how it's going.
[01:09:32] Uffindell: Yeah. Brilliant. Well, I've really enjoyed it. Thanks. Thanks very much.
[01:09:34] James: So I thank you for coming to talk to me. Absolute pleasure. Thank you.
[01:09:38] James: Excellent. Yeah, that was great.
[01:09:39] Frankie: Well done.
[01:09:45] James: What does it take to kickstart an incredible career as a recent graduate in a world with increasing demands and competition, and who can help bridge the gap between talent and opportunity? Joining me today on all about business is James Del, founder and CEO of Bright Network, an innovative organization on the UK job market that connects data, talent, and businesses in revolutionizing new ways.
[01:10:13] James: That's a bit of a. Um, exciting new ways. Yeah. Joining me today on All About business is James Hindel, founder and CEO of Bright Network, an innovative organization on the UK job market that connects data, talent, and businesses in exciting new ways. Having successfully collaborated with leading employers such as Google, apple, and Amazon, James shares valuable insights and knowledge for both young talent and businesses on how to find a good path forward.
[01:10:46] James: I'll do that again, shall I? Yeah, and just take, take the tone off slightly. So
[01:10:54] Frankie: just one, one. So, but not, so more. Maybe a bit.
[01:11:02] James: Don't want at the moment. Don't wanna market his business too much. I don't wanna give him too much of a plug. For God's sake. I, you ask this guy in.
[01:11:14] James: What does it take to kickstart an incredible career as a recent graduate in a world with increasing demands and much more competition, and who can help bridge the gap between talent and opportunity? Joining me today on All About business is James Del, founder and CEO of Bright Network, an innovative organization on the UK job market scene that connects data, talent, and businesses in exciting new ways.
[01:11:40] James: Having successfully collaborated with leading employers such as Google, apple, and Amazon, James shares valuable insights and his knowledge for both young talent and businesses on how to find a good path forward. Yeah, much better. Is that all right? Alright, I'll take that then and then outro. Thank you, James for joining me on all about business.
[01:12:03] James: I'm your host, James Reed, chairman and CEO of Reed, a family run recruitment and philanthropy company. If you'd like to find out more about Reed James Del, and Bright Network, all links are in the show notes. See you next time. Alright.
All About Business is brought to you by Reed Global. Learn more at: https://www.reed.com/
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