The DEMsays Story
Dem started at Emmanuels Staffing Services in 1994 (at the time the largest privately owned recruitment company in SA) right out of university.
He became their Newcomer of the Year, top biller and manager by the age of 26. In 2002, he decided to launch DEMsays SA, a Recruiter Training and Mentoring company dedicated to enhancing the skills and jumpstarting the spirits of Recruiters in South Africa.
His Recruiter Training System has become a core tool for a generation of Recruiters, and his presentations have made him one of the busiest speakers in the country. Since 2002, DEMsays SA has guided over 5 000 students and owners of the staffing industry through workshops, conferences, in-house coaching, seminars and team building experiences.
DEMsays SA has grown every year of its existence. DEMsays SA has developed training techniques that brilliantly switch focus during candidate- short markets and job- short markets. This is why DEMsays students have consistently outperformed the markets they compete against, regardless of employment conditions.
Dem’s style of teaching cannot be duplicated. It is an installation process. It does not merely expose students to unique approaches, it actually installs them into the way a recruiter carries out their day. A combination of neuro linguistic association, objection rebuttals, humour, repetition, and self- realisation through often brutally honest commentary, has left its mark on thousands of high performance recruiters. DEMsays SA is arguably the most effective Recruitment Training company in South Africa, generating more high performance Billers than any other methodology.
10 years ago, together with Kelly Tambourlas, he started XCaliber Staffing. XCaliber currently employs 8 Recruitment Consultants, operates throughout South Africa, and has exclusive relationships with some of the strongest companies in South Africa in Finance, Logistics, Pharmaceutical, and Freight Forwarding.
Dem has 2 Post Graduate Degrees in Clinical and Industrial Psychology.
Dem speaks at a seminar. That's probably where you first met him. An APSO conference perhaps? The time goes by too quickly and there's only so much he can cover. You have questions. You send emails and call. Dem can't stand to know there's a Recruiter he didn't help. So he takes your calls, he Emails back. Recruiters line up at his door. "How about us?" is what the look on their faces say. So he offers In-House Training and Mentoring. It's a huge success,, but Dem can't accommodate the demand and, let's face it, it's very expensive.
Fast forward. Asked to speak at national level conferences, Dem began to concentrate on refining The DEMsays Methodology and more importantly, developing his style of teaching. Recruiters responded to his honesty, his work ethic, and his ability to alter his style to the individual student. Most say the brilliance of his techniques was rooted in integrity. No games. He demonstrated phone calls, on a live speaker phone, with a company or candidate provided by an audience member. Dem became known as the only staffing industry trainer that walked the talk. Even in front of hundreds of people.
Recruiting agencies grow and so does DEMsays. 12 seminars a month. 100 people in a room. Johannesburg. Cape Town. Durban. And virtually, the Philippines, London, and Hong Kong.
In 2016, Dem started XCaliber Staffing with his wife Kelly, herself a 20 year Recruitment veteran (but MUCH prettier!). His traveling stopped. He told his students, “If you want training, you need to come to my house.” They did.
Now The DEMsays movement continues with our DEMsays SA ONLINE Recruiter Training Classroom!
For almost 30 years, Dem has dedicated his life to modelling successful recruiters in the staffing industry. Through access to their experience, he has discovered the strategies that can be applied to improve your billings regardless of where you are in your recruiter life cycle.
APSO calls Dem...
“...one of the BEST recruitment specialist trainers in the country...”
DEMsays..."Converting a Job Order into an exciting story will increase your Recruiting effectiveness".