This guest blog post comes from Dom Farnan, CEO of DotConnect, partner of Conscious Capitalism, and member of our Senior Leader Network.
As a recruiting agency, how are you able to ensure that the new team members you identify for your clients will fit with or add to their corporate culture?
Good hiring takes time and is intentional. It is important to our team at DotConnect to partner with clients whose values align with our own. That allows us to truly partner with our clients and their unique position in their respective industries and markets.
Have you ever worked with a recruiting company or agency where you don’t feel seen or understood? We hear this a lot from prospective clients. The truth is many recruiters don’t slow down to understand or ask the right questions. Even worse, they make assumptions instead of leading with curiosity and openness.
We approach our engagements like Dora the Explorer, ready to dig deep into what the hiring team is looking for, often uncovering what they may not even know they are really looking for through our series of questions. For us, it’s not about placing anyone — it’s about placing the right person.
For us, it’s not about placing anyone, it’s about placing the right person.”
It’s important for our team to be able to read the notes behind the music when it comes to helping our clients build their workforce. Sometimes clients may not know how to truly articulate the nuances of their team dynamics, internal magic, or special sauce, so we aim to tease that out and look for talent through a different lens.
Some of the best hires we have made are those who align with a company’s bigger picture and values rather than being solely based on a job description. One example is when we hired an entire Product Management team for an entertainment company. The team was brand new and launching new products, and the job descriptions were vague, but we had a good sense of the hiring manager’s vision and the leadership team’s north star. This allowed us to broaden our search and weave together a beautifully diverse team with many different types of skills and experiences that established a strong foundation for this new arm of the company to grow. Recruiting this team required trust, calibration, open feedback loops, and partnership with our client. Otherwise, these hires may not have happened.
When working with our team at DotConnect, I want clients and candidates to feel seen, heard, understood, and valued. I want them to walk away from any experience with us and say, “Wow, they really get me,” and know that that is our intention. To really understand the people we have the opportunity to connect with — that is the impact we are here to create.
For over twenty years, Dom Farnan has been a fearless leader in high-growth settings, blending entrepreneurship and advocacy in each of her roles. Whether she’s recruiting talent for titans like Snapchat and Instacart or injecting joy into team meetings through sound and dance, the first thing people notice about Dom is the profound intentionality behind her actions. Dom brings radical change to the talent industry through the application of mindfulness, generosity of spirit, and a sense of compassion that values relationship building.
Currently, she channels her expertise into DotConnect, the conscious connection agency she founded in 2011. In DotConnect’s first year of business, Dom scaled the company to $3M. From there, Dom’s growth mentality has never subsided. In 2022, DotConnect was honored by being included on the Inc5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country.
At home in Southern California, Dom cherishes creating memories with those she loves and is eager to offer a resounding “yes” to new experiences and opportunities. When she’s not spending time with her family, Dom can be found collecting stories, writing, and cultivating her soul-affirming spiritual practice. Dom’s first book, “Now Here: A Journey from Toxic Boss to Conscious Connector” is available on Amazon for pre-order now and will be released on March, 28th, 2023.
