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This week on the pod, we are joined by Jamie Burrows, and his journey into recruitment is one hell of a story!

Before he was in the game of coaching recruiters to get more out of the industry, Jamie was the golden boy of Ted Baker—until a wild turn of events (and a bolted-down chair in a security office) saw him escorted out the door and straight into a 2008 recession-era recruitment desk.

We dive into what it actually takes to survive those grueling first 18 months on the phone, the reality of scaling an agency from a garden shed to 37 staff, and why splitting from business partners is rarely a clean break.

What we cover:

• Growing up in a Crystal Palace pub and navigating the Millwall family stand.

• The Ted Baker "cult" culture and getting sacked for doing the right thing.

• Starting in recruitment just as the 2008 credit crunch hit (and hating BD).

• Bootstrapping an education agency to 37 staff and the messy reality of exiting.

• Surviving COVID by carrying his dad’s gas-fitting toolbox.

• Why one-day recruitment training is basically a "speed awareness course" for underperformers.

  
  

  Enjoy x

Welcome back to the pod!

We kick this week off with Luke's run in with a toaster followed by a surprise birthday party he completely fails to spot.. There was banners up, cake in a box labelled "Luke's surprise birthday," and he still doesn't clock it. Plus there's been a trip to the courtroom for jury service. Then the gear shift.Andy seems to be excited about where the market's at right now. Calls have gone from flat and negative to genuinely positive, and the quarterly planning session hit different without the usual half-day spent catching everyone up.And then the big one: custom fields are live.

Fully customisable across companies, contacts, candidates, jobs unlimited fields, searchable, drag-and-drop import from any messy spreadsheet a client throws at you.Andy backs it up with a story that does all the selling for him: a small agency splits a placement 50/50 through the Team Network, feels great about it until they realise the candidate was already sitting in their own database the whole time. No searchable system, no idea. Free money left on the table because their data was a mess.Then we close it off with a Lee's Lunchbox Question that really got us thinking.. Enjoy x

This week's guest is Dan McDonald from Evelyn GordonHe's a solo recruiter, three years in, and (his estate's words, not ours) "the egg boy." Because before recruitment, before the US clients, before any of it, 12-year-old Dan was running a genuine chicken business. Buying birds at point of lay, door-knocking eggs round the village, losing half the flock to a fox. Proper P&L lessons before he could legally work.Fast forward: one year in a recruitment job, a bad experience with fees that never got chased, and Dan walked out to go solo with £4,000 and no safety net. First deal landed at three months.Then it gets into the good stuff: How he built a business that's now 90% retained, mostly working the US market from a UK number (spoiler: it's simpler than everyone thinks), and why he reckons Americans respect the "I'm doing this on my own" pitch more than UK clients do. Real talk on cash flow, the loneliness of solo recruitment, why BD never stops even when things are going well, and the honest version of "how did you break into the US", which is basically: don't overcomplicate it, send the email, see what happens.Enjoy x

Welcome back to the pod! This week, we sit down to review Giig's progress in Q2 and what's coming in Q3.

Before we talk tech, we cover an unexpected trip to Silverstone for the F1 sprint qualifiers, Andy’s childhood confession regarding his primary school teacher over a disrupted morning routine, and Luke's highly questionable decision to "smuggle" Costco-bought Limoncello into Italy for a friend's wedding.

It's then onto the realities of software development. We talk about the very real frustrations of managing an ever-growing to-do list and why seemingly small updates (like faster email syncing) take weeks to perfect but often go unnoticed by users. We also dive into the nightmare of "edge case" bugs, like when only one person out of an entire team can't view CVs in the system.

Then it's onto, what's coming for Giig in Q3?

We discuss the major features coming to the Giig CRM. We cover our upcoming integrations with VoIP providers like Ringover and job posters like idibu, and the massive impact that introducing custom fields will have on the platform.

Finally, we share our excitement about the upcoming Claude AI integration, that will automate everyday recruitment tasks, from formatting job specs to searching candidate notes.

To wrap things up, Lee's Lunchbox poses a bizarre hypothetical: If you could have five different liquids shoot out of your fingers, what would they be?

Enjoy the episode!

Links & Resources:📈 Check out Giig: https://giighire.com/

Welcome back to Giig It A Rest! The hardest working man in recruitment is back in the studio. Our very first podcast guest Saeed Bor is back for round 2. A quick heads-up before you dive in: Make sure you stick around until the very end of this one. Saeed drops two of the most genuinely shocking, stop-you-in-your-tracks stories we have ever heard on the podcast. You will not see the conversation taking the turn it does, so make sure you listen all the way through!While Saeed is usually known for juggling a million business projects, this episode kicks off with a heavy dose of family life. We get the full debrief on his epic 3-week family holiday to Thailand, talking about navigating the madness of Bangkok with four-year-old twins, finding absolute zen on the quiet beaches of Koh Lanta, and returning home with a suitcase packed full of vintage replica football shirts and knock off trainers.... We also dive deep into the hilarity of weekend parenting. Saeed shares the brilliant realities of being a Saturday morning kids' football dad, the chaos of letting his kids pick their own outfits, and Miles cheering on the lads in the world cup by belting out "England on the shirt" instead of "Three Lions."Of course, we still cover off all the recruitment jargon. After chatting about how quickly that Thailand holiday zen wears off when you run your own business, the cash-flow realities of taking time off, the upcoming launch of RecXperts, and why annoying "bait and switch" LinkedIn posts are ruining our feeds.Genuinely this one is a rollercoaster... Do make sure you hang around! Enjoy the episode!Links & Resources:🔗 Connect with Saeed Bor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saeedbor/🎧 Check out the Kosi Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@KOSIshow📈 Check out Giig: https://giighire.com/

Welcome back to the pod! We did it. We officially completed the massive 207-mile "Chase the Sun" charity cycle across England, raising over £3,200 for Say it with a Smile.In this episode, we unpack the absolute delirium of spending 13 hours on a bike. We talk about our scariest moments on the road, hitting a physical wall outside a Co-op in Bristol, and the overwhelming emotional relief of finally crossing the finish line before sunset.Once we shake off the cycling fatigue, we dive back into the recruitment tech world. We talk about the recent wave of feature requests hitting the Giig inbox, and why we are taking a serious look at integrating Claude AI directly into the platform to automate workflows and act as a digital assistant for recruiters.We also debrief on the recent Team Conference, discuss the highs and lows of being bootstrapped solo founders, and touch on why tracking the actual ROI of your tech stack is so critical for growing agencies.Finally, we crack open Lee's Lunchbox, which sparks a funny (and slightly competitive) conversation with the question: What is the next big challenge? We debate the realities of stepping up to Iron Man distances and whether a head-to-head Olympic triathlon is on the cards for next year.Enjoy the episode!Links & Resources:🚴‍♂️ Support our £10k Goal for 'Say it with a Smile': https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/say-it-with-a-smile-1#🤖 Check out Giig: https://giighire.com/

Welcome back to the pod! With the massive 200-mile "Chase the Sun" charity cycle only days away, the nerves are officially setting in.First up, we give a quick update on our fundraising for Say it with a Smile (we are over the £1,600 mark!) and break down our completely untested strategy for surviving a 15-hour day on the saddle.We then jump into a debrief of the recent team conference. We talk about the feeling of wanting to "kick on" and grow the business faster, and contrast the grind of being a bootstrapped SaaS company against tech startups running on VC funding.The conversation moves into product updates and how feature requests (like custom fields and AI integrations) seem to hit the Giig inbox in massive waves. We also take a quick detour to talk about our newfound obsession with Clarkson's Farm and the brilliant editing tricks they use.Finally, we dip into Lee's Lunchbox for a moment of reflection: What is the one thing you have improved on the most in the last year? This leads to a great chat about the importance of continuous learning, why old-school recruitment training was often lacking, and the memories of making our very first placements in the industry.Enjoy the episode, and wish us luck on the bikes!Links & Resources:🚴‍♂️ Support our £10k Goal for 'Say it with a Smile': https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/say-it-with-a-smile-1#📈 Check out Giig: https://giighire.com/

Welcome back to the pod!

This week, we are joined by Charles Kuryaku and Naz Harrison, the brilliant recruitment coaches behind Milo! A brand new AI-driven recruitment co-pilot.This episode is an absolute masterclass for anyone interested in Learning & Development (L&D), recruitment tech, or the gritty reality of building a SaaS business from scratch.Charles and Naz talk us through their early days in the recruitment trenches and how they made the leap into L&D. They tackle the old-school industry stigma that L&D professionals are just "failed salespeople" and explain why one-to-one coaching delivers a massively higher ROI than just sticking consultants in a classroom to watch videos.We then get deep into the startup journey. The boys open up about the brutal reality of being non-technical founders trying to build an AI product. They share the absolute nightmare scenario of having their original tech partners lock them out of their prototype just minutes before a major investor pitch and how they managed to completely turn it around, secure cash investors, and find a technical co-founder who shares their vision.Plus, we cover:Why they are building an active desktop "co-pilot" instead of a boring library of training videos.The importance of using "The Mom Test" to get brutal, honest market validation.A hilarious, highly awkward story about the cultural differences of trying to cold-call and headhunt in Germany.If you are a recruitment founder, an L&D professional, or someone thinking about launching your own tech product, you need to hear this one. Enjoy!Links & Resources:🤖 Check out Milo: https://www.linkedin.com/company/m-i-l-o/📈 Check out Giig: https://giighire.com/