Elon Musk continues to make history. This year alone he has launched the world’s first commercial rocket, secured Tesla’s place in the Fortune 500 and severed his ties with Trump. When asked what fuelled his entrepreneurial ambitions and the secret to his success, he replied: “I read books”

Books are an invaluable source of inspiration to business visionaries. Here are a handful of good reads that might change the way you recruit and the way you run your business.

They say you become what you read. If that’s the case, then top billers and those with an entrepreneurial vision should read the Fountainhead. It’s a daring novel that explores those that will try to destroy you at every step in your journey. A powerful read for those that run a business differently or are disrupting a market. Recruiters can relate as they don’t get to the top without an undeterred belief in their convictions and a very strong jaw. It follows Howard Roark’s two decade battle with rivals and reminds us that success is not built overnight and does not always come easily.

Businesses will fail, struggle, and often reposition, but it’s critical to stay true to yourself and not lose sight of “the why” that drove you in the first place.

Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change) by Clayton M Christensen  

You can do everything you’re supposed to when running a business and still lose market share. It sits on the book shelf of the world’s leading business minds, with Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Malcolm Gladwell among those that publicly praise it. Exploring the idea that businesses that cling to traditional models will be passed by from those that innovate and disrupt. You only have to consider Airbnb, Uber and the explosive rise of the Fintech industry to know how true this can be.

Adopting new technology in the recruitment process is no longer an afterthought for agencies and “The Innovator’s Dilemma” tells us why.

WORK RULES!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laszlo Bock

Penned by the Former SVP of People Operations at the world’s biggest tech giant. It’s a catalogue of useful takeaways for business owners and recruiters. For a company that was supposedly receiving three million CVs a year, you would expect them to have a unique insight into recruiting. There will always be a place for instinct in recruitment as an algorithm will never read a relationship like a skilled headhunter can. However, one of the key messages that agencies need to take on-board in 2017 is that data needs to be involved in shaping strategy and decisions at a company. And this will help you discover how.

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way Your Lead Forever by Michael Bunger Stainer

It shares the lessons of a man that has trained over 10,000 business managers in unlocking more from their teams. Centred around seven questions that focus on saying less and asking more, this read moves the idea of traditional managers to that of coaches. Ten minutes a day set aside to coaching that will develop company changing results.

“Even after four decades of my own experience in this arena, The Coaching Habit has provided me with great takeaways.”

Tools, takeaways and an approach grounded in behavioural economics that every business owner could benefit from.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain

They are believed to make up one third of the population and yet introverts are often overlooked by those with more recognisable skillsets. As an owner of an agency you need to know how to communicate and utilise the different strengths of those you come across. The hiring managers, investors, interviewers, colleagues, and of course, candidates. Quiet is a real thought provoker into how the recruitment industry is geared towards extroverts and what is lost from this. Filled with insights into real stories of successful introverts, the book started a revolution in thinking and featured as one of the most successful TED talks of all time.

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Not everybody can steal the time to digest a novel which is why blogs provide a bite size insight that everybody can make time for.

Agency owners need to be reading blogs, or at least saving them to Pocket to read later.

That said, with millions created daily it can be overwhelming to know where to look.

Neil Patel, Avinash Kaushik and the Content Marketing Institute cover everything a business needs to know about SEO, content, and its place in inbound conversion.

For UK recruiters there’s a real mix of good blogs out there that they can get their teeth into.

  • The Savage Truth
  • Fast Track Recruitment
  • Barclay Jones
  • UK Recruiter
  • Recruitment International
  • Firefish Software
  • ERE Media

For marketing and data insights:

  • Buzzumo
  • Mashable
  • CB Insights

And of course… our own Blog and eBook series.