Industry Insights: Recruitment
and why pineapple on pizza is OK.
With Luke Pitkin, Founder of Giig
In the first instalment of Conjure’s Industry Insights series, Chris Tingley, Conjure’s CTO sat down (virtually) with Luke from Giig to talk about the recruitment industry, digital products, innovation and the current situation around Coronavirus. Oh, and why pineapple on pizza is OK.
Chris: So, Mr Luke Pitkin of Giig, tell me a bit about yourself and Giig…
Luke: So I’m Luke, the founder of Giig, which is an online recruitment marketplace which connects independent recruiters to companies that need the support of external recruitment consultants.
It’s interesting because I always picture us as the independent marketplace, where independent recruiters connect to employers. But we’re also helping to build the gig economy within the recruitment industry.
The idea for Giig first came about when I was working in Australia as a recruitment consultant because I thought that the recruitment industry was very disjointed and lacks regulation. I thought we could make a platform where we could connect employers and freelance recruitment consultants and bring trust and transparency by tracking and rating the recruiters.
Chris: So really, at the heart of your business you’re also a software company… you’re building software to connect businesses with independent recruiters, which otherwise they might find very difficult. Which is interesting, because from your perspective as a software company; what other software products out there do you use regularly? And importantly, how do you choose between them? Because there’s a lot of stuff on the market now that’s very similar. How do you go about evaluating different products?
Luke: There are two products that I mainly use. Hub Spot I live and breathe because it keeps track of everybody that’s signing up to Giig. It keeps track of where they come from and keeps track of who’s an employer and who’s a recruiter. It helps me manage my sales pipelines. I spend the majority of my life in Hub Spot, and I think it’s a wicked product.
The other thing that I use a lot is Buffer. If you’ve never heard of Buffer, it’s basically like Hoot Suite. I’ve got 10 different social media channels on there now. And it’s really simple to use and easy to like. If I’m setting up my content for the week I can be like, this post goes on Twitter and this one to Instagram and this one to LinkedIn. I want them all on different days at different times and you can just do that super easy.
Chris: So you compared it to Hoot Suite. But you chose buffer. Why?
Luke: Because I had a bad experience with Hoot Suite. I signed up for their trial and just after the two-week trial, they took a whole years membership from my card overnight! That shocked me a little that they didn’t just take a month subscription. They took, like, 400 quid, just like that overnight! To be fair to them, I went on Trust Pilot and so many people had said the same thing that they just basically take a whole year from your account. They don’t charge you per month. They’ll take the full whack and just assume you want the year. Then I had to try and get my money back. Admittedly, they were quite good at giving me my money back in the end. I started to look at other products and a friend said to me I should take a look at Buffer. It’s $15 a month. I thought $15 a month, it was a good price for what you get and ended up going with that in the end.
We’re small fish at the moment. Which I’m not scared to say, because we have a unique brand and proposition.
Chris: Great, that’s useful to hear. So Conjure as an agency focuses on three core areas: the strategy, technology and design of digital products. And when we build products and work with clients — those are the three ingredients that we think leads to great products. So for your business, specifically, do you look at those things independently and what importance do you place on each?
Luke: There are two big parts of our business, the execution of the product and the tech, and then how you go to market and sell it. How do you get it in front of people? Because the days of “build it and they will come” are over and from what I’ve experienced, that is definitely the case. So, I think I would put them all on the same level of importance.
The design and the technology falls into one for us and is handled by myself and James. Then me and my investor work a lot on the strategy. It’s quite nice for me to actually have somebody really experienced coming on board as an investor, because, to be honest, when I first started, I was on my own it was a little bit like a headless chicken running around putting out fires! That’s been a big learning for me actually. Have a plan, have some structure. It’s essential.
Chris: You’ve talked about some sort of agility in your processes and how you develop your products and services. Do you think that’s common in your industry? And I guess, would you define your industry as a software provider or a recruitment business?
Luke: So, I think if you look at it from a recruitment perspective, I guess it’s quite an agile industry to an extent because each individual within recruitment is almost it’s own business. I guess every company will run a little differently, and they’ll each have different ways of managing their teams and the rest of it. But from my experience working in recruitment, you as a recruitment consultant manage your own desk. You’re responsible for your own little business within the ecosystem of the recruitment company. So you’re responsible for bringing on board your client, servicing them, keeping your data up to date, doing your sales calls, your candidate calls and building those relationships. Maybe you plan events or write blogs or push social media. You look after all of that. So that in itself means you need to be agile in how you work.
Then if you’re talking about software, I find it’s a really tough question to answer, because I don’t know, if I’m honest, too much about how my competitors operate.
Chris: Well, let me ask that a bit differently. Do you see your competitors working in the same or in similar ways? How do you think that you are keeping one step ahead?
Luke: We’re playing in their world. And to be honest, we’re playing catch up. We’re the small fish at the moment. Which to me, I’m not scared about saying, because I think we have a unique brand and proposition. I think we have our different USPs and a different strategy.
If we were trying to match them feature for feature, you know, lock horns with them, we’d lose because they’ve got more capital. They’ve got deeper pockets and more firepower. But for example, with Coronavirus, if they have to pause on developing and growing because of what’s going on, it’s a great opportunity for us because we can still keep going.
Chris: There’s lots we all hear about how bad the current situation is and it is obviously very bad. But at the same time, there are opportunities that are showing themselves. Companies can still get themselves in a position to thrive, potentially through this period and very hopefully afterwards while the economy gets going again. For you, your business and your industry — where do you see opportunities now and out the back of this?
Luke: The big one potentially for us, is the reason we’re called Giig. That name came from us wanting to be the first gig economy marketplace for the recruitment industry. So in my mind, a gig worker is somebody that is almost like a freelancer that works independently for a platform. So a prime example would be Uber right? Those drivers are gig workers. We’re looking at doing the same thing in the recruitment industry. We restrict any recruitment agencies. There are no recruitment agencies, and every recruiter on the platform is an independent recruiter.
Now, I mentioned that is one of the big potential opportunities for us. This Coronavirus might shift mindsets. People might be more willing to work with independent people that work from home because the Coronavirus has shown us that we can efficiently work from home. So maybe before, where somebody was thinking, I need to go to a big recruitment agency because they’re in the city and they can service my needs better. They might be more willing to work with an independent recruiter who set up in a small office or works at home because of this shift in mindset.
The second thing is, obviously not a good thing, but, if there are, unfortunately, recruiters that lose their jobs or get let go from agencies, this might flood the market with independent recruiters that my take this opportunity to join our platform, because the platform takes care of terms, it brings clients to them, and it chases the fees for them. It does the initial introduction and helps them manage their candidate, with small database. So it’s a really easy step into managing your own recruitment company. So we might find that there’s a market full of independent recruiters that all open to using Giig.
Chris: So you see Giig as the saviour of independent recruitment?
Luke: [Laughs] I didn’t say saviour! I’m not claiming to be Robin Hood coming in and taking from the rich and giving to the poor, as much as I’d like to! I don’t see it as the saviour, but look, it might be something that is a little bit better received in the market, right? Especially when people have their backs up against the wall and are a little bit more open to trying to work in a different way.
Yeah, I’m cool with pineapple on pizza. Get one of your five a day. People don’t eat enough fruit and veg anyway.
Chris: So where do you stand on pineapple on pizza?
Luke: Um, I’m okay with it.
Chris: You’re OK with it?
Luke: Yeah, I’m cool with it. Get one of your five a day. People don’t get enough fruit and veg. I like my fruit and veg. I don’t eat meat at the moment. I’ve not eaten meat for nearly a year now, so get as much pineapple and veg on as you can! What about you?
Chris: Well, I would go as far as saying that I enjoy pineapple on pizza.
Luke: Nice.
Chris: I do like a little bit of sweet to go with the salty ham, I think that’s pretty nice! Although you got to be a little bit careful with the quantity of tomato sauce that you use. The tomato sauce is sweet and so is the pineapple. So you got to dial it down a little bit. Otherwise it can all be a bit too sweet.
Luke: You’ve really thought about that, haven’t you!? Coronavirus has given you the chance whilst locked down!
Chris: OK so one more silly question. I know that you’re super into your music. So, stuck on a desert island… what would be your three Desert Island discs?
Luke: Hang on! We need to clarify a few ground rules here. Can I take the artist back catalogue or just one album?
Chris: I think we have to limit this to one album.
Luke: Okay, so my favourite album of all time is Total Life Forever by Foals, which weirdly we were talking about on my podcast this week and Travis [Luke’s podcast co-presenter] is going to be reviewing the album this week for our podcast. I said to tread carefully, man, because this is my favourite. So, if you come back and shoot it down, I’m gonna be really upset. So, Total Life Forever by Foals. To be honest, I could take three Foals albums because I love their stuff, and a little bit too much probably.
But for the idea of the game, I’m gonna mix it up. So No More by Mumford and Sons. I really love that album. And the last one is gonna be a toss-up between Two Door Cinema Club Tourist History, their first album, and London Grammar’s “If You Wait”. I love London Grammar.
Chris: I guess just to wrap up, and to put some of the vulnerability back my way, is there a couple of questions you’d like to ask me?
Luke: Yeah, well, you know what the 1st one is gonna be! What’s your favourite Disney Pixar film?
Chris: Wait? You’re actually gonna ask me that one? Okay, the problem is, I don’t know exactly which the Disney films are Pixar ones. I definitely know the marvel ones. [Pauses]. OK, I think it’s called “With the birds”
Luke: “For the birds”?
Chris: Yeah! Where the birds are sitting on the telephone line and the big bird comes along and sits in the middle.
Luke: And you know what? I can tell you what Pixar film that’s at the start of. It’s at the start of Monsters, Inc. Which is a great film!
I do also have some serious questions…One thing I was going ask you: Do you think that there’ll be any long term impact from Coronavirus that will affect processes or specific products you’re gonna have to cater for?
Chris: Definitely. I have seen some uptake in people looking for immediate solutions around how they are dealing with their changing situation now using digital tools. Which you would expect, right? But I think what’s more interesting is that we have started to hear people talking about what the long term effects will be and how that will change peoples behaviours and how they use digital products.
We have one good example with one of our clients that sells tickets… physical, paper tickets. And like a lot of companies, they are looking at how they ditch the physical and go digital. But now, there is a lot more pressure from the business because they are very much expecting in a post-corona world for there to be a desire for less physical interaction between staff and customers — rather than handle pieces of paper. They were thinking about this before Corona but this has now been bumped up the priority list.
Luke: What you’re saying, I think is true. We’re ultimately going to end up in a world where we’re even further apart, socially, which is a shame.
Chris: I wonder whether we will ever shake people’s hands again?
Luke: Yeah, and I’m a hugger!
Do you think the economy is gonna bounce back? If so, how quickly? What are we going to see? A new world, not just in terms of physical contact?
Chris: Look, I’m not too sure about the economy just yet. It’s just too early to say. There are numbers that came out yesterday that the UK economy has shrunk by 14%, it’s the biggest contraction in many years and definitely signals some form of recession. But whether that goes on, whether we bounce back is difficult to know at this point. And you know, I’m not an economist.
I’d like to think that there’s a lot of camaraderie between people at the moment who don’t want there to be some form of recession or depression, and I think people are very willing to go and start spending again and get projects back up and running as soon as they can and avoid a long term economic impact on the country. But, there are a lot of people that unfortunately, are losing jobs or, having a reduction in salary and that is going to hit people financially.
We will have the ability, you know, when we start integrating more and restaurants and bars start opening up — to go out and spend money. But will people have the funds to go out and spend money? People will want to because they’ve been stuck indoors for 3 to 6 months. But whether they have the financial freedom to do that, is another question entirely. That’s how we can restart the economy and that’s the big factor here. That obviously a consumer standpoint, but I think the same analogy will apply to businesses too.
This has been the world’s business biggest experiment at working from home, where a lot of businesses that probably thought that it was never possible, have had to think differently.
Luke: Do you think you guys will ever go back to working from an office?
Chris: Absolutely. We have tried really hard to build a close team culture where we have the facilities and tools to effectively work together and have our staff and our clients in the same physical place. And we think that whilst physical proximity isn’t 100% essential for us to operate, it is highly valued by the team and our clients — especially when it comes to creativity and innovation.
You know, we can replicate a lot of that virtually, but unfortunately nothing; nothing comes as close to having a team in a single room and working together towards a single goal. And that’s my solid belief. But, you know, we will have to adapt. Will it be different when we get back into the office? Absolutely. This has been the world’s business biggest experiment at working from home, where a lot of businesses that probably thought that it was never possible, have had to think differently.
To read more about Giig and how it can help you as an independent recruiter, or as a business that is hiring, please take a look at their website.
For more information on Conjure and how we can help your business with product innovation and development, please take a look at our website, case studies or get in touch.
