René Schuster is living proof that today's working life need not be limited to one or two employers, one profession or even a single business sector. Like Zelig, the character in the Woody Allen film of the same name, the chief executive of Adecco UK and Ireland since November 2006 seems to have been at precisely the right place at the right time to experience industries and companies at defining moments.

Consider just a few of his professional experiences: Schuster was called on to integrate the two dissimilar cultures of computer makers Compaq and Hewlett Packard in the early noughties, in the wake of what is arguably still the world's largest IT merger. While at Hewlett-Packard, he ran the largest Microsoft division outside the software maker itself. "Microsoft outsourced its entire infrastructure to us, because we ran it better than them!" Schuster says, relishing the memory.

During his earlier, engineering career he had worked on "fun things" like the Boeing 777 airliner and the lethal B-2 Stealth bomber. After earning an MBA, he spent "six or seven" years at 'Big Four' firm KPMG Management Consulting, where his career culminated in the role of chief operating officer, EMEA.

"I think consulting is something everybody should try," Schuster says during a conversation at his central London office near Piccadilly. "Having to explain to main boards why they should do things and why they shouldn't do things is an art. Sometimes you get it wrong, and a lot of times you get it right!"

'Getting it right' at Adecco in terms of the candidate and customer relationship is on his mind at the moment. So is creating a service culture in place of what he says has been a sales culture at the No.2 player in the UK market.

"The No. 2 player in the market is going to have the opportunity to change the market," Schuster says. "The top one, two or three players in any market have a huge responsibility in showing, through leadership, where the market should be going and what we should be changing to meet customer and candidate needs. And I'm going to give it a go."

He joined Adecco from Vodafone, where he was global director for the mobile phone company's enterprise businesses. The fact that the only recruitment role on his CV was a non-executive directorship of the staffing and search company Hudson Highland Group (a stint which ended in August 2006) led to a collective raising of eyebrows among UK recruiters when Schuster was tapped last year to succeed Peter Searle, who left to become chief executive at Spring. And Schuster knows it. "It's a fair question," he acknowledges when asked about the non-traditional route that brought him to his current role.

But his exposure to recruitment, while serving on the Hudson Highland Group board, encouraged him to consider the industry for his next professional step. "I got the bug, and saw the potential of a true people services business, and how young this industry is, and the opportunities — because I don't think anyone's got it right," he says.

"The opportunity of actually getting it right, and forming a leadership position in the market, was too attractive to walk away from. That, along with the taste for being involved in this international company… it kind of looked like all the stars were aligning."

When Adecco announced earlier this year that the global giant's UK arm would undergo a restructuring, it was rumoured that Adecco individual brands such as Office Angels and Jonathan Wren would disappear. "Everyone leaps to what the name of the company is outside the door," Schuster says. "I'm so far from changing the name outside the front door because what I learned at Vodafone was, a brand is what a brand does. So what it's called on the front door is irrelevant — what's important is what you do.

"Now we've got some fabulous brands; they'll stay fabulous," he continues. "What we need to figure out is the customer and candidate experience, that if we all start treating the candidate a certain way and a different way from our competitors, and we focus on these 'moments of truth', the brand is what the brand does. I think the experience is going to be the most important thing."

That said, the £4m restructuring charge that Adecco UK and Ireland took earlier this year is supporting a consolidated approach to its enterprise business. Instead of continuing to serve its biggest customers by vertical speciality, its corporate clients will be able to discuss its needs across sectors through one contact point. The £4m is also helping to wind up some property leases earlier than scheduled.

But Schuster is also thinking ahead to broader issues around the recruitment industry — skills shortages and strategic partnerships in particular. He is adamant that the full potential of the recruitment industry is not understood. "Nobody knows where this industry is going, but I can see us doing a lot more than just providing an employee," he says.

His most intriguing concepts have to do with the development of new strategic partnerships with clients. Schuster is coy about the details, but he says

"some very exciting discussions" are taking place around the concept, which has some basis in outsourcing.

He offers a hypothetical example. Take the need for partly-qualified accountants, who are subject matter specialists [specialists in a particular field] in the US's complex Sarbanes-Oxley* compliance requirements, which UK companies doing business in the US must meet. "What's to say Adecco doesn't do some of the Sarbanes-Oxley work? They [the accountants] are our employees, our candidates.

"But in order for a customer to be comfortable handing over that kind of work, and that kind of risk, you need to have a demonstrable track record of actually being in tune with your customer and understanding what their business needs are," he adds.

"We're experimenting a little bit with some of our customers," Schuster says. "We're saying 'What do you think? Do you want to give it a go?' Because we've got these deep relationships and this trust, the customers are willing to give it a try.

"It's still early days," he adds hurriedly. "This isn't scaleable yet. I cannot forecast it. I'm being an entrepreneur."

What types of skillsets might be involved? "I would go from general staffing to IT specialists to engineers to doctors to lawyers. It really depends on what their pressures are in their business. And what do they consider core? And what are they willing to form a partnership with?" Schuster says.

In a trend that he's seeing in a variety of geographic markets, Schuster says that businesses experiencing economic pressures to perform well are looking to their recruitment partners to come up with creative solutions for their problems. "We've got insight they don't have," Schuster says.

Today, Schuster credits unnamed competitors with executing certain elements of business better than Adecco, but he says that his company has been undergoing a lengthy self-examination and "a lot of soul searching" as it looks to improve the candidate and client experience. The aim going forward is to capitalise on creating the best possible 'moments of truth' and 'touch points' each candidate or client experiences — which Schuster and company have mapped out — when they deal with Adecco.

"We understand there are moments of truth that when if we get it wrong, we will lose them, and if we get it right, we hook them for a long time," he says. Word of mouth also comes into play in the equation, in Schuster's view, and getting the 'moments of truth' right is critical to attracting the right kind of word of mouth — a theory he illuminates with the example of how a peer reference can encourage or discourage someone from seeing a particular film. If the word of mouth is good, a punter will be happy to shell out £10 to see the film in a cinema. But if it isn't, the potential filmgoer waits for the DVD — and rents it for significantly less money.

"The Adecco of yesterday will not be the Adecco of tomorrow," he adds.

And that also refers to building up a new breed of consultant, from both existing ranks and newcomers, with enhanced skills that will result from "investing, training, exposure to new ideas, a new culture and sprinkles of new talent to come into the company".

When he talks about his workforce Schuster refers back to his HP days when he had what he calls "the privilege" of meeting with Microsoft founder Bill Gates every six weeks or so. He once asked Gates why he was so confident about his company's success, and Gates told him it was because he had the smartest people in the world wanting to work for him. Sometimes, Gates said he hired so many people because then he knew that the competition wouldn't have them. "I learnt from him," Schuster says. "Can you imagine being in a position where you attract and retain the best the industry has?"

He offers a challenge: "If you believe you're good enough, give me a call."

Snapshot profile

Nationality: German-American

Previous roles include:

• Global director, enterprise businesses — Vodafone

• Senior vice president and general manager — Hewlett-Packard

• Chief executive — Compaq UK and Ireland

• Chief operating officer-EMEA — KPMG Management Consulting

Non-executive directorships:

• Davis Service Group (textile maintenance)

• SurfControl (enterprise web and email filtering product)

• Hudson Highland Group (recruitment), ended August 2006