Fabric’s Hiring Success at Puzzle.io – Retained Recruiting
Want to know more about working with a retained, subscription-based recruiting model?
In late May of this year, we (Fabric) reached an amicable end in our retained recruiting partnership with Puzzle.io. Not because we didn’t do a great job, but because we filled their open headcount.
Wanting to assure our recruiters are doing the best we can; we reached out to Lauren White, Head of Business Operations at Puzzle. We asked if she could answer a few quality assurance questions and if it would be okay to publish our conversation.
We hope this post helps employers/stakeholders understand more about partnering with retained recruiting firms and resolve any apprehensions they might have.
Fabric’s Interview with Puzzle:
How did you hear about Fabric Staffing?
Lauren: “I was not the person that hired Fabric, our CEO is who engaged with Fabric first. I believe he found Fabric through other trustworthy folks in his network. That said, Fabric is a great agency for hiring trustworthy engineers.”
Do have any current doubts or apprehension about Fabric’s services?
Lauren: “No, even at first, I was open-minded, because Fabric came recommended through our CEO’s very well-connected network. Because the Fabric model is a monthly fee, not contingency, I was curious if that would end up being more financially beneficial for us than a contingency model, or if the proper incentives for Fabric’s recruiters would be in place.
“My concerns were really alleviated; it did, take time for Fabric to ramp up and to really understand our business and what candidates we are looking for. But once we got over that initial hump, everything was effective. We felt like we were in a good motion with Fabric’s recruitment team. “
Was this your first experience working with a retained model?
Lauren: “I would say I have worked at companies that have had a retained recruiting firm on hand. But, no, I wasn’t as involved compared to Fabric. I talked to Fabric’s team every two weeks for months.”
Did you have any expectations coming into a retained model?
Lauren: “My initial expectation would be that Fabric’s recruiters wouldn’t be as motivated, compared to if they were on a contingency model. Because they got paid no matter if we placed candidates or not. But the intentions of folks at Fabric are not like that. And to have received great word-of-mouth referrals, they would have to have done a great job.
“I would recommend this model, especially if you’re hiring a large quantity of engineers.
And by large, it varies by company. But for us, we were more than doubling the size of our engineering team over nine months. It makes sense for us to have a retained model.
“We also weren’t investing in in-house recruiters or in-house resources, so the budget that we would have allocated internally to build up our internal recruiting capabilities was pretty much spent on Fabric, and that ended up being a good tradeoff; Now that we’ve slowed down hiring.
“We ended our engagement with Fabric not because you didn’t do a great job. Just ’cause we don’t really have any more open headcount. We don’t know what we would have done if we had in-house resources. They might have been let go or something, which would not be great.
“You need to be able to work flexibly, scale up and down in early stages. Outsourcing to people that are: A) experts in this and B) used to working in stents with companies when they need a burst of hiring is an efficient way to build your team and grow your company.”
Can you quantify the impact that Fabric Staffing made at Puzzle?
Lauren: “I believe Fabric has placed five engineers. So, that’s really impactful. And, also the candidate’s Fabric has placed has already made a really great impact on our team.
In the last couple of weeks, I believe Fabric engineers have won an internal award called Puzzelnaut of the Week where we give kudos to engineers making big impacts. There is a lot of value that Fabric brings beyond just sourcing candidates.
“Fabric helped us close candidates, as well. Our executives are all busy. They’re not just hiring; they’re trying to build the product, we’re trying to grow, and get the right product-market fit. We’re building a complicated system and we needed a partner that we can trust to really manage the recruiting side, and not just send us unqualified candidates that take a lot of time to filter through.
“The candidates that Fabric has sent Puzzle are all very high quality. Fabric’s recruiters have advanced filtering strategies, so by the time our engineering hiring managers and executives see these candidates, they are the best fit. And we know these candidates are most likely to be interested solely in working for Puzzle and therefore are most likely to pass through our hiring funnel. “
“It took some time to get to that point like you can’t just hire Fabric for a month and expect all this to happen. Every company has its own quirks about what they want and what they expect. And I know we are no exception. So, Fabric’s team tailored their outreach and sourcing based on the feedback from us and provided us with great advice on the markets and if our hiring bar is too high or too low. We only got honest answers. So, the quality just got better over time.
“Doing this really helped fabric understands what we are looking for and what the kind of attitude that we want the kind of things that we want a candidate to be excited about or what they would bring to Puzzle.”
Do you have any additional feedback for us?
Lauren: “You know, overall. I think we’re really happy with Fabric. You guys were instrumental in helping us grow our team and I feel everyone at Fabric has a high amount of emotional intelligence. You guys are very accessible, and good communicators. Obviously, just the fact that you are doing this interview feels very thorough. We’d love to work with you all again in the future once we ramp back up with hiring.”
More About Puzzle
Puzzle.io is a smarter and more secure financial infrastructure. The advancement and rise of new technologies made it easier for individuals to create impactful change in our environment, economy, and everyday life. However, there has not been change in how these technologies get discovered and financed- creating a large gap between creating progressive solutions and implementing them. Puzzle.io is solving this issue by building a platform that leverages trustworthy data in real-time. Puzzle is an ambitious startup, backed by a top-tier VC, with an experienced team that has built multiple successful companies and raised over $500M.
More About Fabric Staffing
Fabric Staffing is the best technology IT staffing firm, focused on building authentic connections with candidates and employers. We are industry professionals, offering highly tailored partnerships that save you time and money. Need to hire a high volume of candidates in a short amount of time? We specialize in Rapid Growth Hiring solutions that optimize time by utilizing high-growth strategies to deliver exceptional talent.
