Andrew Hargroves shares his secrets of a successful day in the office as a Recruitment Manager at Faststream Recruitment in Southampton, UK.
6 am: Working out at the gym is my morning ritual. It energises me and prepares me for the challenges of the day.
8 am: Since I like to start early, I often get to the office by 8 a.m. I grab a coffee and catch up on my emails. As a team leader, I have two aspects of my job: managing my own tasks and leading my team. The first thing I do is to handle most of my own recruitment tasks, so I can focus on the second aspect afterward. That’s why the mornings are the best time for me to speak with clients or arrange meetings with people.
8:30 am: The second aspect of my job is to lead my team. My team starts to arrive from 8:30 a.m. onwards and to ensure the day runs smoothly, I make sure that I have a pot of coffee ready for everyone. I then check in on them and find out their plans for the day and any updates from the night before.
10:30 am: After checking up on my team, I focus on outbound business development or client work. I divide my time into hourly segments and monitor my performance as I work.
12 pm: I enjoy going for a walk at lunchtime, to refresh my mind. I prefer to have an early lunch, as most people take theirs between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. This gives me an hour of tranquillity in the office.
1 pm: I usually use this time to review the applications for some jobs that I have. Then I start calling the candidates to qualify them before discussing the position with them or introducing them to the client. After that, I conduct a search on our extensive database and then on LinkedIn to find suitable candidates and contact them by phone.
Next, I send a follow-up email to see if they are interested in the opportunity we have. I usually do that for an hour or so for one job and repeat that process for a few positions. I probably work on two to three positions at a time and spend an hour on each one to give them enough attention. If something is more urgent, I will allocate more time for it.
3 pm: Since I work in the cruise market, many of my clients are based in Miami, which is five hours behind my time zone. That means 3:00 p.m. here is 10:00 a.m. there. So, it makes it the perfect time for me to contact them and discuss the opportunities they might have.
4 pm: I always ensure that my admin is up to date, all my emails are replied to, and all the applications are processed for the day. I also plan my diary for the next day. I am good at keeping my day well-organised.
My job as a team leader has a lot of time pressures and I need to balance the time I spend with my team and the time I spend on my own recruitment.
4:30 pm: I check in with the team to see what they have done for the day and what their plan is for tomorrow. We also have a bit of a chat in a casual environment.
5 pm: I have flexible hours, so I usually leave when I finish my tasks for the day. Sometimes I work later if I have projects in America, and other times I leave at 5:00 p.m. I have the freedom to do that, which is one of the best things about my job. I don’t have a fixed schedule. I can start and end my work whenever I want, as long as the job is done.
6 pm: I'm a morning person, so I've normally been to the gym before work, so the end of the day really is the end of the day for me. So, I will go home and generally hit decompress for a bit and have dinner with my wife.
If you're interested in a career with Faststream, please get in touch by filling out the form below.
Latest Insights
View All Insights
Talent Is a Competitive Strategy in Maritime
Many maritime businesses have ambitious growth plans.New markets. New technologies. New vessel strategies. Expansion into adjacent services.Yet one question often determines how quickly those plans...
7 Signs Your Maritime Salaries May Be Falling Behind the Market
Salary expectations in the maritime and shipping sectors are shifting quickly. Demand for specialist skills, competition between employers and global hiring trends mean pay levels can move faster t...
Update - Recruitment Scam - Norwegian Fishing Fleet
We have been made aware of a scam involving individuals falsely claiming to represent Faststream Recruitment.These individuals are offering jobs on the Norwegian fishing fleet and contacting candid...
Why Some Specialist Maritime Roles Stay Open for Months
Many maritime businesses have experienced it. A critical specialist role opens. The search begins with confidence. Weeks pass. Then months. Interviews happen, candidates fall short, and the role re...
The High-Volume Crew Hiring Survival Checklist
High-volume hiring in crew recruitment rarely breaks because people don’t know what they’re doing. It breaks when demand spikes, timelines tighten, decisions slow, and multiple stakeholders are pul...
The Maritime Career Roadmap Framework: Where You Are vs Where You Want to Be
You don’t accidentally build a great maritime career. But you can absolutely drift into one you never consciously chose. Most maritime professionals aren’t stuck. They’re unclear. Unclear on what t...
Budget Smart Hiring with RPO: A Finance-Led Guide to Predictable Recruitment Spend
Hiring budgets are easier to manage when maritime recruitment activity is planned, measured, and reported consistently. For many finance leaders, the challenge isn’t simply the recruitment fee; it’...
Singapore Maritime Recruitment Update 2026
Singapore continues to set the pace as one of the world’s most competitive and strategically important maritime talent markets. Hiring is steady, but the tone has shifted: organisations are making ...
Maritime skills-based attraction: Sell problems to solve and skills to build
Most job adverts are written to filter people out.In 2026, the best ones are written to pull the right people in by showing the problems they’ll solve, the skills they’ll build, and the future val...
Closing capability gaps in maritime when permanent headcount isn’t the answer
There’s a familiar pattern in maritime leadership teams. A priority initiative goes live. A key person becomes unavailable. A transformation programme hits the point where specialist depth is no lo...
Your EVP needs to match year one - or people leave fast
If you want a quick reality check on your EVP, ask this: Would a new joiner say your recruitment story matched their first 90 days? Because in 2026, the risk for maritime employers often isn’t tha...
The Maritime Workforce Gaps That Could Jeopardise Your 2026 Plan
If there is one factor that will shape your 2026 plan, it is this: having the right people ready, in the right roles, at the right time. It is an uncomfortable truth in maritime. Demand shifts fast...