In this 15‑minute interview on the Recruitment Mentors podcast, host Hishem Azzouz talks with Arjun Gillard, head of the .NET division at Understanding Recruitment. Arjun reflects on his biggest 2020 challenge—leading a team remotely—and shares how empathy and open communication strengthened his group. He offers a concrete work‑from‑home productivity tip: separating work and personal browsers and creating a “mini‑commute” to mark the start and end of the day. Arjun explains his most effective business‑development approach over the past year, which combines leveraging an existing network with active social‑media content creation, including a .NET Insight report generated from a candidate survey. He discusses a new habit he adopted in 2020—regular stretching and meditation—highlighting its impact on his physical and mental well‑being. A role‑play scenario demonstrates how he would re‑engage a long‑targeted client with a personalized call script. Finally, Arjun shares his goal‑setting methodology, emphasizing realistic, stretch goals, the use of a Zelo journal for weekly planning and review, and tying personal and professional objectives together. The conversation is informal, experience‑driven, and offers actionable advice for recruiters navigating remote work, business growth, and personal productivity.
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Welcome to the Recruitment Mentors Podcast. My name is Hishem Azzouz, and this is another episode of 15 Minutes with a Mentor series, which we're releasing in line with the Recruitment Mentors community opening. Um, and basically in this series, we're going to be talking to, um, some of the mentors from inside the community and, uh, asking them 7 questions in 15 minutes. I'm delighted today to be joined by Arj. But before we go into the question, I'll ask you the first one, Arj, if you introduce yourself for those that may not know who you are, and then we'll get into it.
Sure. My name is Arjun Gillard. Everyone calls me Arj. I head up the.NET division at Understanding Recruitment. I've been in recruitment for just over 9 years now. Started as a trainee with one organization, worked my way up to head of engineering and construction, managing over 20 people, and then moved out of that into tech recruitment, went back into a billing manager role, and have, yeah, been basically spent the last year and a half growing.NET and growing the team, which has been Very challenging through the times for obvious reasons.
Yeah, of course. Nice. Well, first question I have for you in line with that. So I want to know what your biggest challenge was in 2020 and how you overcame it and what you learned from it.
Yeah, um, so the biggest challenge for me probably was how to manage and lead effectively remotely. It was like, I'd never had that experience before. Yes, I've worked from home a couple of days a week before, but my team more often than not were always in the office. And yeah, it was just sort of just the challenge getting used to it with things, 'cause you don't get that sort of contact time with everyone. Like, we were catching up 2 or 3 times a day with it. And for me, I figured out pretty quickly it doesn't and it shouldn't just be sort of work-focused and like, what have you done today, what have you achieved, how did you get on, sort of, it was more empathetic with the team and sort of making sure they're all right, first and foremost, because last year in particular was challenging for everyone, like, I was living in a flat at that point and didn't really have any, well, have much space, so my work-life balance was getting really affected by it because I was just working all the hours under the sun because I had nothing else to do. So, um, yeah, I shared my, almost shared my problems with my team and said, look, I'm struggling with this, what do you guys feel, how do you feel about it, how are you coping with it? And It was like, it was just a level playing field with the team. And it was like, we're in this together, we'll get through it together. Let's help each other. And like, I'm here to guide you and lead you, obviously, but also you're here to guide me and lead me effectively. So that worked out, that worked out really well. And I think the team got a lot stronger for that, really.
Nice, that's really interesting. Thanks for sharing that. So I guess in line with that then, always interested about this, so like what working from home tip could you share with other recruiters listening to this that has had a massive impact on your own personal productivity, would you say?
Um, actually work the hours that you should be working, um, and not let it blur into one thing. So I use my own laptop at home, so what I've done now is I've got all my work-related stuff on Google Chrome, and I've got all my personal related stuff on Safari because I've got a MacBook. So every time, every time I finish for the day, I sign out of Teams, I close Chrome, I sign out of all my work stuff, and then I will go, I'll go for a walk and effectively have like a mini commute home as well. And I do that first thing in the morning too. So it actually feels like I'm going to work and then finishing work as well. That's, that's really helped me.
Yeah, great. Great. I love the Google Chrome and Safari tip there. Awesome. So interesting to hear this. So what's been— I know there's different sort of ways, but like for you, what's been the most effective way for you to win business over the last 12 months? Would you say?
At the moment, it's been leveraging my network of people. I mean, I've been in recruitment for a long time, as I've said. It's not just tech recruitment now that I'm leveraging, or people that I've met over the last year and a half. Like, I've worked with some great people who have moved on and gone into internal positions. So I'm sort of getting in contact with them and just keeping in contact with them. But a lot of the stuff I've been doing recently as well is being more active on social media and actually creating content. It's something that I've been doing over the last couple of months and really seen the benefit of it. And it's not just, oh, I've got a job, blah, blah, blah, let me know if you're interested, because it's like, people don't care. People, like, they don't want their feed with that the whole time. Like, one of my friends is a developer and he said the amount recruiters he's actually disconnected with because all he sees on his feed is job, job, job like that. So it's actually posting things and giving back to the community as well. So I'm creating a.NET Insight report for this year. So I've been running like a survey over the last couple of weeks. So I'm getting little bits of information come through and I'm using that to create content. As well, which has been working really well. Like I'm getting candidates come to me, I'm getting sort of decision makers saying, oh, I really like that. Actually, we're struggling with this. Can we jump on a call and discuss it in more detail? So yeah, that's working for me.
So yeah, you haven't been just taking, you've been giving and then that comes full circle. Love that.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
What habit or hobby did you start in 2020 that you're going to continue in 2021?
I started stretching.
Nice. Oh my God, I always fail at that. Tell me about that.
Yeah, um, well, like, I realized— I'm really into the gym and I realized that I wasn't actually squatting properly, I wasn't deadlifting properly, because, um, I put a video up on Instagram and my mate who's a powerlifter, um, slated me for it, um, and said that I was doing it wrong. So that was fun. Um, and Basically, he worked out that it was just like my hamstrings and various other bits of my legs were really tight. So he said, work on stretching, work on mobility. And I was always someone where it's like, nah, don't do stretching, don't need to, just chuck a load of heavy weights about. And that actually worked really well for me. And I started day by day, week by week, started to see sort of incremental improvements. And I combined that with sort of meditating using Headspace, as well, which, yeah, sort of doing both at the same time means that I'm actually going to do it in the morning and it's then done. So yeah, I feel a lot more calmer now.
Yeah, stretching is— oh God, it's horrible. Yeah, I actually recently bought a massage gun.
Would highly recommend.
Oh my God.
Yeah, I spent half an hour with it yesterday and Yeah, my back was, my back was playing up. I just laid on the floor and my girlfriend just had it and was just sort of running it along my back like that.
So good. Yeah, anyone that's interested in stretching and these things, I would definitely recommend looking at that. Great investment. OJ, which do you think is better, the first coffee in the morning or the first pint post-work on a Friday?
That's an interesting one. I'd say, I'd say the first pint, if it was, if it was in a normal, normal scenario when you could obviously go to the pub. Because yeah, I'm very much someone who like, I like to achieve and then get rewarded for what I've done. So like the first pint at the end of a Friday when it's been a hard week, like if it's been a great week, happy days, like it's a celebratory pint. If it's been a not so good week, it's almost like a commiseration And yeah, you have a chat and a laugh with your mates about everything. So yeah, I think that first point.
Nice, fair enough. So next one is a bit more of a scenario. So I want you to share with us how you'd approach this scenario. So basically it's a particular business that's been on your target client list for over a year, for a while, and you've had a couple of touchpoints with them, different hiring managers over that period. So some, you may have spoke to a couple of them about your salary survey, or they may have engaged with some of your content. You might have sent them an email and someone in your candidate network manages to sort of pass on their contact details and you call them. They pick up, they answer, they say, hello, who is this? And I want to know sort of how you'd approach that and what you'd say.
Cool. So yeah, so first of all, I'd, well, I'll just run with it actually. So Hi Steve, my name is Arjun Gillard, I'm from Understanding Recruitment. I've previously spoken to Sonia, who's your Head of Talent, and David, who's the CTO. We've had various conversations about salary survey that I sent out to them, and you actually liked one of my LinkedIn posts a couple of weeks ago, so yeah, thanks very much for obviously engaging in the content. But the reason for my call, one of my candidates who I've worked with and placed called Sharon actually gave me your phone number because she said that I'd really be able to help you. She actually worked with you in your previous business. So yeah, I thought it was worth just introducing myself and seeing how I can help.
Hey, love that. Nice. First person to do like a little roleplay. Respect. Love that. Why not? Absolutely love that. So last question is With it being obviously the first quarter of this year, a lot of us would have been thinking about our goals for this year, hoping for a better year this year, right? So I want you to sort of think about what you'd want to share with me or the recruiters listening. So if I'm a recruiter who set my goals for 2021, they're written down, I'm feeling extremely motivated, what would your advice be to me to sort of give me the— that you think would give me the best possible chance of actually achieving the goals I've set myself.
Cool. So I'd say the main thing when I do goal setting is I set myself achievable goals. Yes, they've got to be stretched, but if you're someone who's starting out in a, in a new market and you're like, right, I'm going to build— I want to build $400K this year or $500K this year— is it actually going to be achievable for you to do? If it's not, I'd set something that is a little bit more attainable. Another thing I do is set both personal and professional goals and I tie those into each other and then make sure they're written down. So I use this thing called a Zelo journal which runs off a 6-month period. So you write your goals down at the beginning of the, at the beginning of each week, you sort of list what you're going to achieve for that week, and then it's got a daily, um, a daily target. So then you can write all that down, and then at the end of the week you tick off what you've done, but you write what's good and what you've achieved. You write what isn't as good and what you're going to focus on for the week after. So like week by week, it's just going to be incremental, and you're going to get better and better and better, and then you're just constantly reviewing those goals. As well. And that's like, I started using that last year and I noticed my productivity improved so much, even with working from home, even being on my own. Like, yeah, it was, it was really helpful.
I love that. So like anyone that has set goals, make sure that you've broken those down. And yeah, I love that. I've done that. Personally, I've done that in the last sort of 6 months and it's the constant reviewing and having visibility on what your goals are rather than writing them in January and not looking at them until, I don't know, maybe March or later. That, that part that really helped. So, um, amazing, Arj. Thank you. That was 50 Minutes with a Mentor. Thank you.
