Vol.22 – From JET programme to Recruitment: A Career Shaped by Continuous Learning
This week, we sat down with Caspian Challis, Lead Recruitment Consultant at Centre People Appointments. With 4.5 years at the company, he shares his journey into recruitment, his passions outside of work, and what motivates him while leading our Trading and Logistics team.
How did you get started in recruitment?
“I lived in Japan from 2017 to 2021, teaching English, but when I came back to the UK, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. I was lucky that one of our directors reached out to me on LinkedIn, saying they were looking for a new team member. I interviewed, found recruitment consultancy interesting, and joined the team. I think the main lesson from that is to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, because recruiters can then reach out and talk to you about opportunities. So yeah, it’s been a good journey so far!”
What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
“I’m an avid video gamer—mostly PC games—and I love connecting with friends and family online. My family are gamers too, so we enjoy playing together online. I’m married and we have a house, so I spend a lot of my time doing DIY around the house. I spend most of my weekends just doing DIY nowadays. For the last two years that we’ve been doing a full cosmetic reconstruction! It’s amazing what you can learn online nowadays.”
What’s something your clients or candidates might be surprised to learn about you?
“Of course, many people are surprised that I lived in Japan for four years and was teaching there. But that’s actually quite essential for our role — having an understanding of Japanese culture and how things work on the corporate side. I’m not sure I’m a very surprising individual though!”
Which skills from teaching have been useful in recruitment?
“There’s a lot in teaching a class in an EFL setting. It’s basically public speaking — standing up in front of a classroom of 30 or 40 students and giving a presentation about language and words. It’s very helpful in building confidence when speaking in front of people. And of course, improvisation is a very key skill. You never know what students are going to say or what questions they’re going to ask. It’s exactly the same in a registration interview or a client meeting — you don’t always know what’s going to come up.
Being able to improvise, adapt, and quickly give a prompt and professional response is a key thing. I think that builds confidence in you as a teacher, and it also builds confidence in you as a recruiter. So definitely those public speaking skills are important.”
Was there anything that surprised you when you first started in recruitment?
“I think, because I basically knew nothing about recruitment when I came in, I really kept an open mind. So, in that way, I wasn’t surprised — I didn’t know anything, so what could really surprise me? As far as surprises go, though, it was really nice at Centre People. The biggest surprise was how collaborative we are and how closely we work together. I’d heard about sales — and recruitment in particular — being a very cutthroat industry, with high turnover and a ‘sink or swim’ environment in a lot of agencies. Ours is very much the opposite. We work closely as a team and share a lot of the rewards, which really encourages a supportive environment. That’s something I relate to a lot — I like supporting others, but I also like being supported, and I definitely needed that in my first year. It was really nice to have that from management, and because there’s low turnover at our company, we build a strong base of knowledge that gets passed on to new consultants as we continue to grow.”
What are your goals for the new unit over the next year?
“Trading and logistics — these are the kinds of companies I’ve worked with since day one. My very first role was as an import clerk for a freight forwarding company, so it’s really been my bread and butter for the past four and a half years. To now be put in charge of a team, I feel very honoured and privileged to be trusted with such an important responsibility. The biggest challenge, of course, is that I’ve never managed a group of people before. Setting KPIs, defining targets, building a strategy — all of this is new to me. That said, I do have a lot of guidance from our management and our directors, who are really supporting me through it, so I feel very fortunate. We cover a very broad industry, and it makes up a big part of the roles we handle, so it does feel like a big responsibility. I hope I can continue to improve on what we’ve already been doing.”
What has been your most memorable placement?
“Yes, I mean, funnily enough, even though I’d been a generalist for four and a half years, it was actually a trading role — a fuel oil trader position for a Japanese oil company. It was a huge learning curve for me. Even though I’d worked with the company for two or three years and had some exposure to oil, I’d never dealt with fuel oil specifically, and it’s a very niche product. It was very memorable because the company was extremely understanding. They really took the time to guide me — giving detailed feedback on the candidates I sent, explaining why they were or weren’t suitable, and walking me through exactly what they were looking for. In the end, I was able to make a successful placement, and it turned into a really valuable learning experience. Even the candidates were great — one of them even recommended a book to me on the industry. So yes, it was really nice to properly dive into something so specific and interesting — an industry we work with, but don’t always get the chance to explore in that much depth.”
If you could go back to your first year in recruitment, what advice would you give yourself?
“I was really fortunate because I had great mentorship in my first year. Basically, all the advice I needed came from those mentors and from the directors. So, it’s hard to say exactly what I would tell myself. I suppose it would be to listen to the mentors and really work on my perspective. At first, I was very hesitant to do “cold calling” because I saw it as, well, bothering people. I would find people who were looking for work but then hesitate to call them and introduce the role. It took me a while to change my perspective and realise it’s not really cold calling — it’s what we call “warm calling”. These are people actively looking for jobs, and I’m providing opportunities. So, it’s not about calling out of the blue and bothering someone — they actually want to receive these calls.
That shift in mindset took time. I’m naturally someone who doesn’t like to bother others, so it took a while to build the confidence to pick up the phone and make those calls. But I’m really glad I did.
And of course, it was management who helped me see that — explaining it clearly and supporting me over time as I changed that mentality.”
What keeps you passionate about recruitment after 4.5 years?
“I love that our agency is generalist. Even though I’ve developed a specialism in trading, we still work across a wide range of roles, companies, and even countries. Every client and every position is different, so there’s always something new to learn.
That variety is what keeps things exciting — no two days are the same. I think if I were only working on the same two or three types of roles all the time, I’d probably get bored quite quickly. But because we work with different industries, different people, and different countries, there’s always something new and interesting to discover.
Each country has its own way of doing things, and that constant learning is what keeps me engaged and passionate about the job.”
We’re lucky to have Caspian on our team; his knowledge, dedication, and positive approach make him a truly valuable part of the Centre People family!
