Just the job for Disco Kid
Russell Lynch meets Sugar veteran-turned-recruiter
MORE than 30 years ago, back in the glory days of CB radio — that’s Citizens’ Band to those of you scratching heads in puzzlement — entrepreneur Darryl Mydat used to chat to other fans under the handle of the Disco Kid.
In 1980, as a “commercially precocious” 19-year-old (his own description), he opened the UK’s first CB radio retail shop in Edgware, attracting customers from all over the country looking for accessories for what was then an illegal hobby. He took his name from another one of his sidelines at the time as a mobile DJ. Selling the transmitters was illegal but not the T-shirts and aerials, so he “built up a nice little wholesale and retail business” under the watchful eye of the Revenue, which was trying to catch him out.
That fad died — effectively as soon as the Government legalised it and the covert glamour of the hobby faded away — and Mydat ended up in Lord Sugar’s Amstrad computing empire in 1986. He stayed for 10 years, first as a sales manager, seeing a fair bit of the multimillionaire’s robust management style.
Sugar is an inspirational character for him — “hard but very fair” — although he says he took a lot more stick from the great man than the hapless candidates on the small screen. “I went through a lot worse. The air is never blue on television,” he adds.
Mydat still drops the odd email to Sugar’s henchmen Bordan Tkachuk, the Viglen boss, and Nick Hewer, “two of the old faces I do remember well”.
Since leaving Sugar in 1996, he has been in recruitment and has been running his specialist recruiter, The London Teaching Pool, since 2006. Based in Ilford, it is on course for a record turnover this year.
Mydat gets a real buzz out of the job and his agency will probably place about 12,000 temporary teachers in state schools and academies over the course of the year.
How did he get into it? “My ex-wife’s family were in recruitment and when I left Amstrad they asked me to set up a new division for them. They were based in the City and we set up a new division doing medical recruitment.
“After two years, I set up another one but I was bought out in 2006. Then I opened The London Teaching Pool. We’re very customer-focused with our clients and our candidates.
“I like the interaction — schools phoning in the middle of the night. Today the first school phoned me at 5.30 in the morning, saying ‘Darryl, will you staff today?’ ”
Why schools? “They pay their bills. The money is always guaranteed with a school. Unfortunately, they only trade 39 weeks a year, which can be a limitation. That’s why we also have a medical division and we’re on three frameworks to supply the NHS with staff as well.”
The London Teaching Pool supplies primary, secondary and special-needs teachers, although it has also found the occasional headteacher for clients. Most of its business is done in the UK but it also has a presence in the Middle East.
The reason Mydat is so busy is a “terrible shortage of good-quality teachers among some of the core subjects”, which he freely admits “isn’t a bad issue for us”.
He adds: “There are thousands of schools short, and we’ll see 60 children in a class in primary schools, particularly inner London primaries. The building programme is very slow and these kids are going to need teachers. We will ruin another generation if we don’t get it right.”
That brings him on to another bugbear with red tape as employment agencies can no longer complete work permits for overseas applicants, placing the burden on the end employer.
“I’d like to go to America or Canada tomorrow and bring a couple of hundred teachers back and register and pay them through our agency but that was stopped many years ago. The person is a permanent employee of the school but that puts some amazing costs on the schools.”
SO for Mydat, the growth is coming from shor t ages at home as well as the “very big and growing market” of international schools into which his firm is attempting to tap. Then there’s the NHS side of the business, supplying “allied” healthcare professionals — physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, radiographers and dieticians. He hopes to get into supplying doctors and nurses later.
Mydat plans to open another office in West London soon and push turn over past the £6 million mark later this year. As 100% owner of the business, he isn’t ready to sell up yet, and could be tempted into buying other recruiters.
“If the right deal comes along, we’d always look at acquisitions for growth. [As for selling] I get offers all the time to be honest with you. I’m not quite ready, I’m only 53 and I enjoy coming to work every day. And what am I going to do sitting at home?”
Maybe the Disco Kid could dust down his CB radio. Over and out.