EP292: Abi Macleod, Head of Aspire Recruitment - Challenge your leader!

Abby McLeod, head of Aspire Recruitment, reflects on her 29 year career in recruitment, starting at Randstad and later leading regional operations at Brook Street. Her journey included roles across the UK and the US, eventually leading her to Aspire, a social enterprise focused on ethical recruitment and community reinvestment.In this episode, Abby outlined Aspire’s collaborative approach with internal talent teams, offering services like temp to perm recruitment and onboarding. She also discussed their commitment to diversity and ethical hiring, including an upcoming presentation for the Good Employment Charter.Highlighting ethical recruitment practices, such as prioritising honesty over placement volume. Abby and Lysha emphasised the importance of building trust through transparent decisions, like withdrawing unsuitable candidates.They also explored hybrid working trends, using data from polls and reports to discuss its economic and operational implications. Finally, they stressed the value of personal, human centric recruitment strategies, sharing how f2f engagement and authentic storytelling on social media drive better outcomes and deeper client relationships.Connect with Abi here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/abi-macleod/-----------The Recruiter's Recruitment Podcast is proudly sponsored by Paiger and partners to Needi, Keybridge IT and Diversity and Inclusion .Our Sponsor: Paiger - Making Recruiters Smarter and Faster. Paiger helps recruiters build personal brands, identify new business opportunities, attract candidates, and have better conversations.Find out more details on Paiger here - https://paiger.co/?utm_source=podcast...Our Partners: Needi is a concierge gift-matching service using psychology and AI, to pinpoint the perfect gifts and experiences for your recipient, from the best, local independent businesses. Their team of expert gift finders, save companies time and money, with their complimentary corporate gifting service . Find out more here -https://needi.co.uk/Diversity in Recruitment helps recruitment businesses understand diversity, equity, and inclusion in a way that makes sense. Our training and advisory work is designed anidence to attract diverse talent, recruit inclusively, improve your candidate journey and confidently partner with their clients. DE&I doesn’t have to be complicated and scary - it’s simply about fair, ethical and high-quality recruitment.Keybridge IT Solutions is a London-based Fully Managed IT Support and solutions Provider - Providing 24×7 Support to all Customers. Specialities include Microsoft Cloud, including Office 365, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Security, Internet Connectivity, VoIP, and much more didence to attract diverse talent, recruit inclusively, improve your candidate journey and confidently partner with their clients. DE&I doesn’t have to be complicated and scary - it’s simply about fair, ethical and high-quality recruitment.Bristow & Hardy partners with SME recruitment agencies to accelerate growth through sales enablement and recruitment marketing. With over 7 years’ experience, we specialise exclusively in the recruitment sector, delivering strategy, branding, websites, marketing campaigns, and sales support. Our proven growth suite of products helps agencies attract more clients, win more business, and scale efficiently. Find out more here – https://bristowandhardy.co.uk