# Vas Georgiou

Vas Georgiou founded Heilsa, a specialist headhunting firm focused on law, cybersecurity and technology, financial services, and healthcare hiring across the US, UK, and EU.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/vas-georgiou/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vas-georgiou
- LinkedIn followers: 18,557
- Topics: cybersecurity, recruiting
- Based on 14 dated posts, latest 2026-10-02

## Summary

Useful for specialist recruitment insights on hiring briefs, candidate screening, and external recruiter support.

- Best for: An employer-brand campaign for cybersecurity hiring managers in the UK or EU.
- Not for: Generalist, high-volume applicant registration campaigns across many sectors.
- Check first: Ask for follower demographics and any documented creator deliverables or rates.

### Takeaways

- Most failed searches come from a poorly defined hiring need, not lack of talent.
- Speak to every candidate before sending a CV.
- External recruiters can reach passive candidates internal teams may not have time to pursue.

## Main ideas

- **Most failed searches are caused by a poorly defined hiring need, not a lack of talent**: Georgiou argues that hiring problems usually start before the search. One post cites 4.8 million unfilled cybersecurity roles worldwide and says the shortage is not of people but of clear briefs. They trace that view to years in HR watching searches go wrong. Their method is to spend more time onboarding a client than recruiting for them. Before asking for a job description, Georgiou wants to know why the role is open, why the last person left, what kind of personality succeeds in the business, what success looks like after six months, and why someone should join this company rather than a competitor. A recruiter represents the employer in every candidate conversation, so understanding the business helps them represent the role well. As Georgiou puts it, good recruitment does not start with sending CVs; it starts with understanding the business behind the vacancy.
- **Specialise by sector rather than offer generalist coverage**: Heilsa focuses on four sectors: law, cybersecurity and technology, financial services, and healthcare, with placements across the US, UK and EU. Announcing the relaunched website, Georgiou described the focus as four sectors the firm knows inside out, with no generalist shortcuts. Their argument draws on their experience in HR: sitting opposite a hiring manager who has been let down by recruiters three times running helps a headhunter understand the manager's needs, rather than simply having heard about them.
- **Speak to every candidate before sending a CV**: Georgiou says a screening conversation is essential to recruitment. Two candidates can look almost identical on paper, with the same qualifications, years of experience, industry and similar responsibilities, while one is curious and ambitious and the other cannot explain why they applied. A CV shows what someone has done, Georgiou argues, but not what motivates them, why they want to leave, what environment they thrive in or what they want next. They criticise recruiters who forward CVs without first speaking to candidates and say no CV goes anywhere without that call. As Georgiou puts it: "I'm not recruiting CVs. I'm recruiting people."
- **In-house talent teams and external recruiters should complement, not compete with, each other**: Georgiou challenges the idea that internal talent acquisition teams and external recruiters compete for the same placement. They do different jobs: internal teams manage multiple roles, interviews, onboarding and internal processes, while an external specialist can market roles differently, approach passive candidates and explore channels the internal team lacks time for. Georgiou argues that external recruitment should support internal teams, not compete with them, and that the best companies use both.
- **Treat a placement as reputation, not a transaction**: Georgiou presents recruitment as a long-term relationship, not a one-off deal. Candidates remember how they were treated, tell others, and can generate referrals years after a placement. A cautionary story illustrates the value of discretion: a Glasgow clinic owner asked detailed questions about Georgiou's process, where the firm recruited and how it automated the work, then never called back, blocked the number and did it in-house. Georgiou's lesson is to talk less and listen more: copying the steps does not reproduce the intent behind them.

## Work to read

- [Six years of Heilsa: the decision to specialise](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_6-years-ago-i-quit-my-job-and-started-heilsa-activity-7447988627088998402-8NDZ)
- [Onboarding before the job description](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_one-thing-that-surprises-a-lot-of-my-clients-activity-7495800490010804224-ORNw)
- [Why a CV is not a candidate](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_your-cv-will-tell-me-what-youve-done-so-activity-7498699614137532417-ndBK)
- [The need to fill cybersecurity roles: 4.8 million unfilled roles](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_cybersecurity-techhiring-hrleaders-activity-7449539941241606144-HGC0)
- [Internal talent teams and external recruiters are not competitors](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_seriously-why-does-it-feels-like-recruiters-activity-7465358988059148288-fJAb)
- [Reputation over transaction: the candidate who waited three years](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_ive-been-following-you-for-years-i-was-activity-7505584983110004738-V8iu)
- [The clinic owner who copied the process](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_she-asked-me-how-i-did-it-then-she-blocked-activity-7390005878655176704-RQup)
- [What clients actually praise: the quality-over-quantity review](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/vas-georgiou_ill-be-honest-the-feedback-that-means-activity-7450864414913646592-uziw)

## Brand relationships

- **Heilsa** (owned_business)

## Partnerships

Vas Georgiou's posts describe recruitment services—the hiring work itself—rather than public formats a brand could buy. The only commercial approach described is the headhunting engagement: they ask clients why a role is open, why the previous person left, what personality succeeds in the business, what success looks like after six months, and why someone would join that company over a competitor. They say this onboarding takes more time than the recruiting itself. One post invites hiring managers to make contact directly by message or through a scheduling link, but that route is for recruitment clients, not sponsorship or partnership enquiries; the link is not included in the posts. Buyers considering a creator partnership should ask directly about available formats, deliverables and rates.

## Alternatives

- Katrina Ungar: Ungar is the better choice when a growing beauty or wellness brand wants a recruiting partner working as an extension of its team, and the campaign should argue that a company's values are proven in the hiring process rather than on the careers page. Ungar's posts describe staying close to the search, adjusting when priorities shift, restarting a search rather than forcing candidates into a profile that no longer fits, and keeping candidates engaged through delays on the brand side. One post draws the values point from a sign on the wall at the BeautyMatter office: candidates experience a company through interviews, decisions, and how leaders communicate, not through a polished careers page. For a beauty or wellness employer that wants that argument made by someone who works the sector, Ungar's posts are more specific than Georgiou's.
- Jerad Clifford: Clifford is the better choice when the campaign is about the mechanics of attracting applicants rather than a named search: how a job posting is written, why keyword-standard titles beat clever ones, why four to six bullets beat a full task list, why salary and remote policy belong up front, and why mobile readability decides whether half the talent pool ever applies. Clifford's material also examines how AI changes what recruiters spend their time on, using a named customer story, Risus Talent Partners, with roughly $300K in placement revenue tied to AI-sourced candidates and a team reorganized so junior recruiters build pipelines while senior recruiters close. For a buyer whose campaign angle is employer branding, job-posting craft, or an operating-model story about AI in a staffing business, Clifford's posts supply the specific claims and a finished example.
- Lindzi Cox: Cox is the better choice when the campaign should address talent-acquisition leaders about the shape of the function rather than a single search. One post works through a talk by Mads Faurholt-Jorgensen and pulls out the ideas worth arguing about: that hiring managers ask for someone good at everything when they need the best goalkeeper and the best striker, that people hire people like themselves, and that resumes screen out strong performers who lack the pedigree to be loud. The other post takes a phrase, "don't pave the cowpath," and asks whether AI should speed up inherited funnel steps or replace them, closing with a question that invites peers to answer. That makes the material well suited to a campaign that wants a reflective, systems-level conversation and a built-in comment prompt.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/