My Recruitment Journey:

What does a Geen Gorilla, growth hacking have to do with recruitment?

read my recruitment jouerney here.

from Grene Grollilla to recruiter

hi, that me. a green gorilla

hitting the streets in LKF, the Races in Happy Valleey, and the streets of Wan Chai - getting subscribers for Hong Kong’s ‘GQ magazine’ NecesCity.

it’s 2009 and I’m ‘growth hacking’ before it was a term.

doing all sorts of guerrilla marketing we could possibly imagine.

I loved it but, it wasn’t very ‘corporate’ and it didn’t pay the bills. It was a start-up.

Being a fresh graduate, i didnt know much better but to listen to my parents and find a proper job.

As any twenty something year old i just fired off applications everywhere.

no real strategy or reason.

and i almost ended up working on a massive CruiseShip and also Emirates.

I loved HK too much and didn’t want to leave.

So, i joined the recruitment industry.

from recruiter to recruitment trainer

fast forward 5+ years i was managing client accounts, doing recruitment BD when i got scouted to become a trainer.

Alex, one of UK’s top 20 recruitment trainers was visiting from HQ and giving training in asia.

I vividly remember the meeting.

he was managing a room of 20+ recruiters effortlessly.

flowing from topic to topic - recruiters glued to his words and charima.

thinking back, damn, he was good… I’m hapy to have had him as my mentor and teacher.

One day in trainng, while i was explaining a concept to a younger recruiter, he observed me and afterwas asked “Sinisa, have you ever considered to be a trainer?”.

“what’s that?” i replied.

“It’s what i’m doing now” Alex said

And continued, “facilitating change in poeple and impacting their ability to perform”. “Like a coach for the top 1% athletes but, for recruiters”.

“We have a huge need for recruitment training in HK and SG and you’ve just shown traits that make a great trainer” Alex sahred.

“Do you want me to speak to the owner and see what we can do?”.

“uhh… okay?” i replied

i know, i know, its not the best reply haha.

But, i really looked up to Alex and what he can do - and i never expected him to say i could do it too..!

(if you’re reading this; thanks Alex!).

fast forward 6 weeks later and i was on a flightto London not realising that i’ve just been thrown in the deep end “sink or swim”

Alex has set it up in such a way that my time in London will maximise my learning by giving all the recruitment trianing by myself.

BUT, to that day, i have never trained a person in my life! (capslock this)

the two main London trainers thought I was crazy to have said yes to this…

i’m set to train:
12 new recruiters.
At the highes perfomring office in the whole group.
5 days - 11-hour workdays. (brutal!)
full 360 recruitment training.
Classroom, exercises, on-desk, and call coaching.

You name it, I did it.

And that with no prior experience training or coaching,

what you’d expect to learn in in 3 months got fast tracked to 5 days.

I got up at 5am for breakfast & studies.
work at 8am.
finish at 7pm.
eat dinner, and sleep at 9pm.

Repeat x5.

to this day, i also think that what i did was crazy. but i don’t regret a single minute of it.

It allowed me to work in a highly specific niche, work with the best recruiters in Asia, win 15+ training & recruitment awards, and build multiple businesses.

Which gets me to the last 5 years

from award winning trainer to building 3 businesses

it’s 2020, COVID hits.