Full disclosure- I am in the recruitment business, working with accounts to place mid & senior level employees.
Few months ago, I landed a meeting with the CEO of a fintech startup. They're looking for Sr. AE's and are planning on growing at a rate of 2 AE's per month.... a recruitment firm's wet dream.
We placed a couple AE's pretty quick and the CEO was stoked, as they were exact fits for the role. He then introduced us to their new Head of Talent, who would be the new point of contact for any candidates that we send over. Seemed like a nice guy and I was excited to start working with him.
I send him ~10 new candidates that were VERY good for the role over the next couple weeks. This new HR guy either ghosts me, or finds bullshit reasons to reject each candidate. I finally schedule a call with him to see where we are missing the mark.
He gets on Zoom and tells us that he worked for a recruitment firm before this Fintech company and that he basically wants to push every role to his buddies at his old company, and that there is no point in us sending over candidates any more because he is just going to reject them all.
I immediately email the CEO telling him what happened. I explained that we had already proven ourselves by supplying strong candidates, and that there was no reason to limit all their searches to this new, unproven company.
CEO agrees and forces the HR guy to accept our candidates, which he clearly is not happy about. I send him 2 new people and HR guy immediately rejects them. I send the same two people to the CEO and he fast-tracks them through the hiring process, and hires them within 2 weeks for $30k a piece.
A long story, I know, but it felt good to overcome such a dumb hurdle with HR, who now begrudgingly responds to my emails 5-7 days after I send them.
19 comments