In today’s episode I welcome a former-colleague and UK Special Forces sergeant major Gary ‘Gaz’ Banford to the podcast.

During a career spanning more than two decades, Gaz led teams within one of the most elite special forces units in the world, the Special Boat Service, and later led the recruitment arm of UK Special Forces.

Gaz is now the Founder and CEO of Duratas, where he coaches senior leaders to be more authentic and resilient.

Through the stories and wisdom gained, Gaz and I discuss the special forces’ approach to attracting and hiring the right people, where the side effect of a poor hire could be a matter of life or death.

Gaz breaks down the misconceptions surrounding what the ‘right person’ is and instead explains the crucial qualities you should be screening for to identify the best people to take your team to the next level.

You can expect to understand;

- How to identify the ‘right’ people for your team and company

- How to specifically attract these people

- How to screen candidates for the most crucial qualities

- And how to build a team which take your company to the next level

As always, if you enjoyed the episode and want to be the first to hear when new episodes drop, please like, rate, review and subscribe to the podcast.

Most importantly, thank you for watching and listening. This podcast was created for you, and I hope you enjoy the episode.

(0:00) Podcast intro

(0:50) Guest intro

(02:22) Gaz’s story

(05:25) The difference between SBS & SAS

(08:06) The power of healthy competition

(09:50) The UK Special Forces hiring process

(11:50) What inspired Gaz to sign up

(14:31) The stages of UKSF Selection

(16:13) How to attract & find the right people

(22:42) The importance of authenticity in recruitment

(24:42) Hiring for values & character vs skills

(30:41) How to adopt values-based hiring

(33:13) Hiring for potential vs experience

(36:52) The importance of alignment to the mission

(37:44) Communicating the role with authenticity

(40:20) Episode summary & takeaways

(45:56) 3 action points

(47:46) Coming up next