The RAG Podcast - Recruitment Agency Growth Podcast Season 9 | Ep20 Emma Storey: How 2 part-time working mums billed £500K in their first 2 years!
Emma Storey: How 2 part-time working mums billed £500K in their first 2 years!
Emma Storey never thought she'd still be in recruitment after having kids.
She'd never worked with a mum in the industry. Never had a role model who'd done it. The assumption was always the same: have a baby, and your recruitment career is over.
But after successfully juggling recruitment and becoming a mum inside the pandemic, in 2023 she launched her own agency with colleague Nicola Morse, a fellow working mum.
They launched Hera with the plan to both work part-time, and within months, Emma soon fell pregnant with baby number 2.
Inside the first 2 years, working part-time around school runs, nursery pickups and a maternity leave, they have billed £500K.
That's £150K in year one during one of the worst recruitment markets in a generation, and £350K in year two with Emma off for three months and working three days a week for the rest.
But what makes Emma different isn't the revenue. It's the reason she built the business in the first place.
Female candidates regularly tell Hera they're nervous about wearing their wedding ring to interviews because they know it signals they might want children. Hiring managers have told them directly: we don't want people from that age range.
Emma lived it herself. In one agency, a mum who left at three o'clock was met with the same comment every single day: "Thanks for coming."
So Emma and Nicola built Hera around a guarantee most agencies won't make: a diverse shortlist on every single role. They positioned diversity and inclusion not as a side project but as the commercial engine. And it worked. Every client they've won has bought into it.
Their target is £500K this year. They have no plans to hire a team. No plans to scale beyond two. No plans to stop billing.
Inside this unique story we cover:
- Why Emma assumed motherhood would end her recruitment career
- The "thanks for coming" culture that still exists in agencies
- Why female candidates hide their wedding rings in interviews
- How two part-time working mums billed £500K in their first two years
- The diverse shortlist guarantee that wins every client
- Why they target £500K a year and have zero interest in scaling beyond that
- How shared parental leave changed everything for their family
- The co-founder relationship that started at kids' swimming lessons
This isn't about scaling fast or building an empire.
It's about two women who were told, directly and indirectly, that motherhood and recruitment don't mix. They billed half a million pounds in two years working part-time and proved it wrong. Without sacrificing bedtimes, school runs, or being present for their kids.
If you're a female recruiter wondering whether you can have children, build a business, and still love what you do, this episode is your blueprint.
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