HOVER | RPO

The Challenge

HOVER is a 3D technology company that creates fully measured, customizable 3D models of any home. Talented Recruiting was asked to come in and build out an entire design team, starting with the Head of Design. We utilized the “Recruiting as a Service” model and embedded ourselves in with the existing design team. Once we filled the HOD role, we continued to play an integral part in securing all key design hires to take the company into its next stage of growth.

To deliver a fantastic candidate experience and achieve our hiring goals Talented Recruiting starts by doing a deep dive to get a solid understanding of the business and upcoming challenges.  To get started we worked through:

• Questionnaire: Using time-tested onboarding questions, we met with HOVER’s VP of Product to begin forming the parameters and benchmarks for the ideal candidates and the timeline to hire them. We also met with the existing design team to learn more about the culture. 

• Job Description: We worked with HOVER on over 6 job descriptions to make sure they attracted the talent we needed.

  • Head of Design

  • Brand/Communications Designer

  • Principal Designer 

  • Product Designer 

  • UX Researcher

Through the process monitored and updated our pipeline and white-glove serviced referrals and inbound candidates. We uncover valuable contact information on candidates and it remained, as an added bonus for HOVER. For each role, we dove into our existing database of high caliber candidates and found some great matches. We lead meetings and created interview playbooks added specific target areas per interviewer and set Greenhouse up with specific areas of coverage. 

Nailed It!

To build their design team, we set a 6-month target of 4 hires, 5 as a stretch. By the close of the contract, we onboarded 6 new hires! Whew!  Post our initial contact, the Talented team has gone on to secure another steller Product Designer and asked to take a lead on a Design Manager search. We loved our partnership with HOVER! 

Mode Analytics- We need Top Design Talent - Nailed it.

Mode Analytics is a dream enterprise software for Data Scientists in tech. Highly customizable, this software is the “Sports car” of data analytic tools. With a culture fully focused on their core values, it has been nothing but fun times helping them take their design and design team to the next level.

The Need:

To bring design into the third pillar of the company with a new process, a strong leader and a talented, execution oriented team.

The Outcome:

Over the past year, Talented Recruiting has helped to elevate this design team to the next level. We have successfully placed their Head of Design, 3 Senior PDs with enterprise experience in all the best design things, deep ux with a visual polish. Our team worked tirelessly to bring on their first UX Researcher. We unearthed a Top Brand and Communication designer in the Valley to kick off a unified brand experience.

I have to give credit where credit is due. We couldn’t have done all this hiring without Mode’s Recruiting & executive team being so freaking awesome! Out of all of our hiring partners, this company has truly built an excellent recruiting machine. It makes it so easy and fun to work with them. I could write an entire blog post on why they are so amazing. Bug me, and I just might!

Clearslide needed a Product Manager - Nailed it.

ClearSlide is a SaaS-based Sales Engagement platform that lets users share content / sales materials via email links or their viewer’s link in a ‘Live Pitch’. ClearSlide is designed for sales and marketing teams, accessible primarily via an annual subscription model.

The Need

Clearslide was behind the eight ball to hire a product manager to help with lead a new area of the business, leading online meetings and interactive content experience on their public API platform. With some recent turnover of some old timers and the product’s placement in the marketplace, before Talented Recruiting, they weren’t finding the caliber of candidates they wanted to lead this initiative.

The Outcome

Talented Recruiting entered the scene and immediately began to add qualified candidates to the pipeline. We used our technology text analysis tools to help optimize the job description to attract a wide array of diverse and hungry candidates. The hire took less than 3 months, our target. We found an articulate, thoughtful, hidden gem of a PM and worked closely together on the hiring and closing strategy. The offer was accepted, with a title of Senior PM and both parties ran off into the sunset together. Until Clearslide was acquired, and that was a shock to everyone!

Honeybook needed a Product Designer (after nailing, hiring a Performance Marketing Manager in record time) - Nailed it.

Honeybook wins major points for their spacious, natural lit office in SOMA. With values such as People Come First, and We are Family, it isn’t any wonder why it is such a joy to recruit for this All - in - one Project Management software serving creatives and solopreneurs. Helps with invoicing, managing your pipeline and more. Fun fact: In TR’s early days, they even let us use an office to host one of our internal interviews. Certainly helped seal the deal on one of Talented Recruiting’s most valuable hires to date!

The Need:

Honeybook needed to find a junior to mid-level enthusiastic driven and dedicated product designer.

The Outcome:

With their core values being at the heart of everything they do, when we hire with Honeybook, soft skills are equally, if not more important, than the fundamentals. Honeybook reached out seeking additional strong designers requesting that we reach out into our network and proffer up some good peeps. We delivered, with one of our favorite, most personable design candidates we’ve worked with accepting the job, canceling her other interviews and joining us at one of our Nights at the Theater, to celebrate.  Update: Over a year later, she is still there and loving it. We love matching people with work that is meaningful and purposeful to them because when that happens, your people stick.

Hipmunk needed a Product Designer - TR to the rescue!

With a cute little chipmunk as their mascot and one of the most useful travel search tools ever “The Agony Factor”, Hipmunk has been our go to travel search engine long before they were a Talent Partner. Acquired by Concur, which was acquired by Tripit with a parent company of SAP, Hipmunk offers travel solutions to businesses, operates like a start up with some big company perks. A repeat customer, we enjoy each time we have the pleasure to work with the team there.

The Need

When Hipmunk is ready, they are ready! With a limited time scope and a ton to get done, Talented Recruiting jumped in and hit the ground running. Hipmunk is one of those amazing Talent Partners that is able to literally drop everything and make hiring a top priority.

The Outcome

We heard received fast and thoughtful feedback from the design team and were able to get several qualified, available and interested candidates through the process to ultimately arrive at one Senior Stellar Product Designer, who is still there, creating beautiful and impactful tools for those of us who travel. This was a quick turn around with our new hire “butt in seat” before 6 weeks elapsed. Our next assignment was an executive search for their Head of Design. It makes us feel so great when a hiring partner comes back for more AND entrusts us with their executive level searches. (Check out our Retained Search of Sparkcentral case study)

TALENTED RECRUITING SUCCESS STORY | VP of PRODUCT

Good product management can make or break a software company, especially one like Sparkcentral.

Businesses use their software provide customer service and support via social media platforms, so if there's a problem with the product, Sparkcentral's customers can't provide help for their own customers. That's why it was so critical to find the perfect candidate when they were hiring a Vice President of Product Management.

Larry Bernstein, Sparkcentral's CTO, had been working with the company's internal recruiter to fill the role, but they simply weren't finding the talent they needed. Then, he remembered an old contact from earlier in his career: Talented Recruiting founder Danielle van Asch Prevot.

"[Talented Recruiting] reached out for a role I was looking for before I had this job," Larry said. "Someone I had talked to while I was looking put me in touch with Danielle. She had some successes in placing product management people and I remembered that, so when I needed it, I reached out to her."

From there, Sparkcentral began working with Talented Recruiting. As with any new partnership, it can take a bit of time for both parties to get to know each other and figure out how to best work together. To help them get aligned on the right candidates, Danielle and Larry established regular weekly meetings on top of their informal communications. During these meetings, they discussed the resumes Larry had looked at and which candidates should and shouldn't move forward.

"It was nice having a regular time to meet up," Larry said. "The first few candidates didn't seem like the right fit, or maybe should have [been] cut sooner, but this was part of our learning. Danielle was quick to recognize what wasn't working, and was able to make the adjustments to accommodate."

Within a couple of months, they found the person Sparkcentral eventually hired for the position.

"He really knew our space from an industry perspective," said Larry of his hire. "He was able to … immediately take over major parts of accountability and ownership that I needed [to transfer] to someone who could take it and run with it. He's been improving our whole product strategy, and engaging not just with engineering, but also sales and marketing."

Admittedly, Larry wasn't sure if his now-employee had the right experience for the job at first glance. But Danielle encouraged Larry to schedule a face-to-face meeting with him over coffee.

"We immediately connected in a way that probably wouldn't have happened over a phone call," Larry said. "The candidate requested it, and she helped drive that."

This, he said, was an example of what he really liked about working with Talented Recruiting: Danielle challenged him to look carefully at each candidate, and not dismiss anyone based on certain factors.

"Wherever she thought I might have been missing something about a candidate, she was good at articulating what she saw, and following up [about] people … I may have initially thought weren't the right fit," Larry said.

Download our Success Story!

Check out our case study on our recent VP of Product success!

My Bestie - “Find me a Husband!” Lisa- Cupid Arrowed it.

In 2014, Lisa, my bestie and neighbor and I were on an urban hike to Hopper’s Hands in San Francisco.

The Need: To find Lisa a husband.

Lisa and I were in deep into a brainstorming session on how to meet eligible men in San Francisco. On this walk to Hopper’s Hands we established on (a) my friend would be an amazing stepmom and was open to a man with children (b) based on our mutual reading that “widowed men are the most likely to remarry” and  maybe we should find a the bar closest to the local widows meet up group to source from.

The Process

The next morning as I cat-crouched into the only small patch of natural light in my living room, I scoured the internet for a place to find Lisa a man. I settled on a website “Single Parent Meet up” (Owned by Match.com, well, their parent company, IAC). I knew my friend could bring so much love to any family she chose to be a part of. Without her behest, I created a profile for my friend, roping in another bestie to help wordsmith it making our friend sparkle, and help her find the man she deserved (Ashley gets major credit for adding: “cute butt earns extra points!”).

That morning I began “poking”. (Quite similar to all those Linkedin inmails I send, and emails I craft). In no time at all, Lisa had a fully functioning robust profile with likes, and emails. It was time to fess up and turn this profile into the hands of its rightful owner!

The Outcome

As they say, the rest is history. For Lisa’s birthday I paid for a one month subscription to the site. (Quite the splurge at the time!) During that month, she met the love of her life, future husband, and father of a dear son, Russ. (She assures me, Russ was her own “poke”.) They were married in 2016 at the St. Francis Yacht Club and I had the honor of being her Maid of Honor.

Dropbox needed a UX Research Manager - We delivered “Cupcake”

In case you somehow don’t know what Dropbox does! Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Fun fact: One of their values is a simply a picture of a “Happy Cupcake”. Seriously, how awesome is that?

The Need

We did a little dance when we heard from Dropbox. We have listened to their designers speak, read their medium articles and without a doubt think they are running a top-notch design team. Needless to say, Dropbox is a beloved brand at Talented Recruiting. With their normal design recruiting team a bit stretched, Talented Recruiting connected with their Head of User Experience research to search for a Design Research Manager. What a fun search!

The Outcome

When you recruit for a high profile company like Dropbox it is super important to make sure your actions, communications, and process are impeccable! We take this responsibility very seriously. In the time we recruited for Dropbox, we were able to make a dream come true on both sides. Within three months we found a UX Research Manager who was both personable and aligned with the vision of Dropbox’s research team. The feedback we received at the end was the best compliment ever, “I loved working with you and would recommend you to anyone who needs recruiting help!” I’ll take that any day!