By Keiran Hathorn – Director, Big Wave Digital Recruitment
It was a rainy Sunday evening in Sydney, and I was doing what most sensible people do when the weather turns: settling onto the couch with my wife Rach to watch the Winter Olympics in Milano, Italy. The kind of night where the rain hammers the windows, the fire’s on, and you’ve got nowhere to be except exactly where you are.
Rach knows her stuff when it comes to the Winter Olympics. She actually worked as a manager on the Games with Channel 7, so she’s got that insider perspective that makes watching these events feel less like casual viewing and more like a masterclass. As we watched athletes hurl themselves down icy slopes and execute gravity-defying aerial manoeuvres, something clicked.
The parallels between what we were watching and what I do every day in recruitment were almost laughably obvious.
The Never-Say-Die Brigade
As we watched the current crop of athletes hurling themselves down the slopes, my mind kept drifting back to two Winter Olympics legends from years past: Eddie the Eagle and Steven Bradbury.
Watching the ski jumpers in Milano brought back memories of Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, the British ski jumper who became a folk hero at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, not because he won, but because he simply refused to give up. He finished dead last in both the 70m and 90m events. He was outclassed, out-funded, and out-trained by virtually everyone. But he showed up, he jumped, and he became more famous than most of the winners.
As Eddie himself once said: “I was a ski jumper. I wasn’t a very good ski jumper, but I was a ski jumper.” There’s something magnificently honest about that. No pretence. No false bravado. Just pure, stubborn commitment to the thing he’d chosen to do.
Then there’s Steven John Bradbury OAM, the Australian short-track speed skater who won gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in the most Australian way possible: by staying on his feet while everyone else crashed out in front of him. It’s become shorthand for unlikely success, but what people forget is that Bradbury had already competed in four Olympic Games. He’d suffered catastrophic injuries. He’d nearly died on the ice. And yet, he kept showing up, kept racing, kept believing that if he just stayed in the game long enough, something might break his way.
Bradbury summed it up perfectly: “If you’re not in the race, you can’t win the race.”
Simple. True. And deeply relevant to what we do.
Recruitment Isn’t Always About Being the Best. It’s About Still Being There.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth that nobody wants to say out loud in recruitment: sometimes the winning strategy isn’t brilliance or speed or even skill. Sometimes it’s just refusing to quit when everyone else has packed up and gone home.
I’ve had roles that have taken nine months to fill. Nine. Months.
Not because the client was difficult, not because the market was impossible, but because we refused to compromise on quality. We had a hiring bar, and we stuck to it. We kept searching. We kept presenting. We kept believing that the right person existed, somewhere, and that if we just stayed in the race long enough, we’d find them.
And we did.
One particular search stands out. It was for a Python Django developer for a fintech client in Sydney who needed someone with a very specific blend of backend expertise, clean coding habits, and an understanding of financial data pipelines. The kind of role that looks straightforward on paper but is devilishly hard to fill because the best Django developers are usually already happily employed, thank you very much.
Month one: Nothing. Well, not nothing. Plenty of candidates who could write Python but didn’t understand Django’s ORM deeply enough. Or knew Django but had never touched anything remotely financial.
Month two: More of the same. A few promising leads that went nowhere. One candidate who looked perfect on paper but bombed the technical assessment so badly it was almost poetic.
Month three: I started questioning my life choices. Maybe the role was impossible. Maybe the client needed to adjust their expectations. Maybe I should just present someone “good enough” and move on.
But I didn’t.
Month four through six: A grind. Small improvements. Candidates who were close but not quite there. The client stayed patient, which helped. But mostly, it was just showing up every day, refining the search, tweaking the messaging, reaching out to people who weren’t actively looking.
Month seven: Still nothing that hit the mark.
Month eight: Same.
Month nine: We found him. A backend developer working at a smaller startup who wasn’t looking to move but had been quietly building one of the cleanest Django codebases I’d ever seen. He wasn’t on LinkedIn. He wasn’t applying to jobs. He was just doing great work, heads down, until we found him through a referral from someone else we’d placed six months earlier.
The client hired him. He’s still there. And he’s exactly what they needed.
If we’d given up in month three, month five, month seven, they’d have settled for someone who was “fine” instead of someone who was right.
Jules and the Seven-Month Performance Marketing Marathon
My colleague Jules Semmens has the same never-say-die attitude. If anything, hers might be even more stubborn than mine, which is saying something.
She recently filled a Performance Marketing Paid Media role that took seven months. Seven months of sourcing, screening, presenting, interviewing, negotiating, only to have candidates drop out, clients change scope, budgets shift, priorities re-prioritise.
Most recruiters would have walked away. Most clients would have lowered their standards or just promoted someone internally who wasn’t quite ready.
But Jules kept going. And the client kept trusting her.
She eventually placed a performance marketer who’s now running a $2.5m annual paid media budget across Google, Meta, and emerging platforms, driving a 34% improvement in ROAS quarter-on-quarter. The candidate wasn’t even looking when Jules first reached out. But Jules had built enough trust over the months that when she called and said, “I think this might be the one,” the candidate listened.
Seven months. And worth every single day.
When I asked Jules why she didn’t give up, she said something that stuck with me: “Because giving up would mean accepting that good enough is actually good enough. And it’s not.”
That’s the Eddie the Eagle spirit right there. Not because you’re the best, but because you refuse to accept less than what you set out to do.
Perhaps It’s a Generational Thing. Or Perhaps It’s Just Character.
I’ve thought about this a lot. Jules and I were both born in the 70s. We’re children of the 80s. We grew up in an era where participation trophies didn’t exist, where you learned to lose gracefully and try again, where quitting wasn’t celebrated and resilience was just what you did if you wanted to get anywhere.
I don’t want to sound like one of those “back in my day” bores, but there’s something to be said for the ethos of that era. You didn’t always win. You didn’t always get what you wanted. But you kept showing up, because what else were you going to do?
Eddie the Eagle embodied that perfectly. He wasn’t delusional. He knew he wasn’t going to win. But he’d committed to being a ski jumper, so he jumped. Bradbury knew he wasn’t the fastest skater on the ice, but he’d committed to racing, so he raced. And when the chaos unfolded in front of him, he was there to benefit from it, because he’d stayed in the game.
In recruitment, that translates to a very simple principle: stick to your values, stick to your hiring bar, and only present candidates who genuinely meet it. Even if it takes months. Even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if clients get impatient or candidates get frustrated.
Because the alternative, presenting mediocrity just to close a deal, is how you end up with teams full of people who are “fine” instead of teams full of people who are excellent.
The Art of Recruitment Is Saying No Until You Can Say Yes
Here’s what I’ve learned over two decades in this industry: the best recruiters aren’t the ones who fill roles the fastest. They’re the ones who fill roles with the right people, even when it’s hard.
That means saying no. A lot.
No to candidates who are 80% of the way there but missing the critical 20%. No to clients who want to lower the bar because the search is taking too long. No to shortcuts, no to compromises, no to “good enough.”
It’s not easy. It’s lonely sometimes. You question yourself. You wonder if you’re being too stubborn, too rigid, too perfectionist.
But then you make the placement. You see the candidate thrive. You see the client’s team transform. You see the impact of getting it right instead of getting it done.
And you remember why you stuck to your values in the first place.
The Bradbury Effect in Hiring
Steven Bradbury’s gold medal is often framed as luck. But luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and Bradbury had been preparing for 15 years before that race.
He’d been lapped by faster skaters. He’d suffered injuries that should have ended his career. He’d been told he wasn’t good enough. And yet, he kept training, kept racing, kept showing up.
When the moment came, when everyone else fell, he was there. Not because he was lucky, but because he’d refused to quit.
In recruitment, the Bradbury Effect shows up all the time.
You’re searching for months. The market is tight. Candidates are getting multiple offers. Clients are getting impatient. And then, out of nowhere, something shifts. A candidate becomes available. A referral comes through. A quiet achiever who wasn’t on anyone’s radar suddenly emerges.
And if you’re still in the game, if you haven’t given up, if you’ve kept your standards high and your effort consistent, you’re the one who gets the win.
But only if you’re still in the race.
What This Means for Employers in 2026
If you’re hiring for digital, tech, or marketing roles in 2026, here’s what matters:
1. Hire for character, not just capability.
Technical skills matter. But resilience, curiosity, and the willingness to keep learning matter more. Hire people who show up even when it’s hard.
2. Be patient with the right search.
If your recruiter is taking longer than you’d like, ask yourself: are they taking longer because they’re incompetent, or because they’re refusing to settle? If it’s the latter, trust the process.
3. Stick to your hiring bar.
The moment you lower your standards to fill a role faster, you’ve compromised the quality of your team. And once you’ve done it once, it becomes easier to do it again. Don’t start.
4. Celebrate resilience in candidates.
Someone who’s had a non-linear career path, who’s bounced back from setbacks, who’s stayed in industries during downturns? That’s someone who knows how to keep going when things get hard. That’s someone you want on your team.
What This Means for Candidates in 2026
If you’re looking for work in digital, tech, or marketing, here’s what will set you apart:
1. Don’t give up.
Job searches are hard. Rejections sting. But every no gets you closer to a yes, as long as you keep going.
2. Stay in the race.
Keep learning. Keep building. Keep showing up. The market shifts, opportunities emerge, and if you’ve kept your skills sharp and your mindset resilient, you’ll be ready when the moment comes.
3. Be Eddie the Eagle.
You don’t have to be the best candidate in the market. You just have to be the one who refuses to quit, who keeps improving, who shows up with enthusiasm and commitment even when it’s uncomfortable.
The Eddie and Bradbury Test
I’ve started using this as a mental framework when I’m deep into a hard search.
When I’m tempted to present a candidate who’s “close enough,” I ask myself: would Eddie the Eagle have settled for “close enough” at the bottom of that ski jump? No. He would have jumped, even if he knew he’d come last.
When I’m tempted to give up on a search because it’s taking too long, I ask myself: would Steven Bradbury have quit racing after his third Olympics without a medal? No. He would have kept racing, because you can’t win if you’re not in the race.
And then I keep going.
The Winter Olympics Reminded Me Why I Love This Job
Sitting there on that rainy Sunday evening, watching athletes push themselves to the edge of what’s humanly possible, I felt something shift.
Recruitment isn’t glamorous. It’s not always exciting. It’s often repetitive, frustrating, and thankless.
But when you get it right, when you place the right person in the right role after months of searching, when you see them thrive and the client’s business transform, it feels like winning a gold medal.
Not because it was easy. But because you refused to settle. Because you kept showing up. Because you stayed in the race.
Rach looked over at me during one of the ski jump replays and said, “You’re thinking about work, aren’t you?”
Guilty.
But she gets it. She knows that some of the best ideas come from the most unexpected places. And that sometimes, a rainy Sunday night watching the Winter Olympics is exactly where you need to be to remember why you do what you do.
Final Thoughts From a Rainy Evening in Sydney
Eddie the Eagle didn’t win a medal. Steven Bradbury’s gold is often dismissed as luck. But both of them understood something that most people miss: success isn’t always about being the best. It’s about being the one who refuses to quit.
In recruitment, that means sticking to your values, maintaining your hiring bar, and only presenting candidates who genuinely meet the standard, even if it takes nine months.
Jules gets it. I get it. And hopefully, after reading this, you get it too.
The future is bright, but only if you’re still in the race when it arrives.
The future is bright, let’s go there together!
Thanks for reading,
Cheers Keiran
Keiran Hathorn
Director, Big Wave Digital Recruitment
Sydney (with a renewed appreciation for ski jumpers and stubborn recruiters)
Big Wave Digital.
Born in Sydney. Built for digital.
Obsessed with tech.
Trusted by the best.
And, most importantly, ready when you are.
“Courage is knowing what not to fear.”
— Plato
Fear slow hires.
Fear bad hires.
Fear wasting time.
But don’t fear reaching out.
We’re right here.
Let us help you build a Brilliant team in Digital.
Big Wave Digital are experts in Digital Recruitment Sydney
At Big Wave Digital, Sydney’s leading digital, blockchain and technical recruitment agency, we have deep connections, experience and proven expertise, and the ability to achieve a win for all parties in the challenging recruiting process. We can connect to highly coveted digital and tech talent with the world’s best employers.
Keiran Hathorn is the CEO & Founder of Big Wave Digital. A Sydney based niche Digital, Blockchain & Technology recruitment company. Keiran leads a high performance, experienced recruitment team, assisting companies of all sizes secure the best talent.
