Hello, I'm Sam.
Meet the recruiter behind EMT Talent
How my perspective has been shaped
When you handle every search, things feel different. You care about getting it right. You care about candidates staying. You care about reputation, because your name is above the door.
I’ve spent over 10 years in recruitment, but what defines my approach is not just time in the industry, it's exposure to how hiring decisions actually affect businesses.
I understand what it feels like to hire under pressure, when a role has a direct impact on delivery and performance. I also understand the consequences when it goes wrong - the cost of mis-hires, the disruption to teams, and the knock-on effect on projects and clients.
Just as importantly, I understand what good looks like in practice. Not just on a CV, but in behaviour, decision making, technical depth, and the ability to operate in complex environments.
Building and scaling recruitment businesses
I previously built and scaled my last recruitment business to approximately £3.5m annual revenue, during my time directly hiring +50 employees across multiple teams and office locations.
This experience covered both semi-skilled workforce delivery and specialist technical recruitment across engineering and industrial sectors.
I’ve been involved in hiring employees, structuring & re-structuring teams, and making difficult commercial decisions. It's experience that gives perspective on how hiring fits into the wider realities of running an organisation.
What my experience has shown me
Across all of the sectors I have recruited, the same pattern consistently appears.
The most difficult hiring challenges are rarely about availability - they are about specificity.
The strongest candidates are typically:
- already employed
- highly specialised within their field
- operating in tightly defined technical environments
- not visible through traditional recruitment channels
This is where generalist recruitment approaches consistently fail.
How I approach hiring
My approach is direct, research-led, and focused on relevance over volume.
That includes:
- Mapping talent from comparable engineering environments
- Engaging passive candidates, not just advertising vacancies and hoping/ waiting
- Deep qualification of roles with technical and commercial stakeholders
- Assessing candidates beyond CVs - including behaviour, attitude, judgement, and delivery capability
- Focusing on long-term fit, not short-term availability
At the centre of it is a simple principle: understanding what the hire actually needs to achieve inside the business.
If you’re hiring in environments where judgement, context, and access to the right people directly impact performance, I’d certainly welcome a conversation.