The placements and the money keep rolling in for members of Top Echelon Network!

Network members scored another 20 splits last week, and that’s not all. One of them resulted in a placement fee of $32,500. Congratulations to John Ricciardi of Afton Consulting Group and Trey Cameron of Cameron Craig Group for splitting that fee. The two placed a Senior Clinical Research Associate at 25%.

Speaking of Trey, he notched four splits overall during the week, which means he’s back in the mix in terms of reclaiming top status within the Network. (Although Michael Stuck and Steve Kohn will have something to say about that.)

As a friendly neighborhood reminder, here is the information that we publish with our weekly placements:

• Names of the split recruiting partners involved (with their profile photos, when available)
• Job title
• Overall placement fee (before TE’s 6% brokerage fee, of course)
• Fee percentage

Please note that the placements listed below reflect deals finalized in Top Echelon Network from Monday, March 14, through Sunday, March 20.

Remember, if you don’t want information related to your Network placements published in The Pinnacle, please send an email to marketing@topechelon.com to that effect.

Congratulations to everybody below for the split placements they made in Top Echelon Network!

This Week’s Top Echelon Split Placements

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Job recruiter: Lawrence T. Ploscowe of EXEK Recruiters, Ltd.

Candidate recruiter: Gary Thompson of Gary Thompson

Job title: R&D MATERIALS ENGINEER

Overall placement fee: $24,475

Fee percentage: 25%

— — —

Job recruiter: Ross Triplett of Fusion HCR, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Chris Westerlund of EJS Group, LLC

Job title: SENIOR ESTIMATOR/PRECONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Overall placement fee: $18,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: Ross Triplett of Fusion HCR, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Joe Cresci of Food Management Search

Job title: GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT

Overall placement fee: $11,250

Fee percentage: 15%

— — —

Job recruiter: Bob Arnold of ASI Recruiters, Inc.

Candidate recruiter: Vickie Richard of Richard & Associates HR

Job title: COST ACCOUNTANT

Overall placement fee: $11,250

Fee percentage: 15%

— — —

Job recruiter: Victoria Kennison, CPC of Sterling St. James, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Trey Cameron of Cameron Craig Group

Job title: CONSTRUCTION MANAGER

Overall placement fee: $22,500

Fee percentage: 25%

— — —

Job recruiter: Georgette Sandifer of Gallman Consulting

Candidate recruiter: Gary Elias of Elias Associates, Inc.

Job title: ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND SAFETY MANAGER

Overall placement fee: $22,860

Fee percentage: Flat

— — —

Job recruiter: David Wood of The David Wood Company

Candidate recruiter: Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search, Inc.

Job title: OPERATIONS MANAGER

Overall placement fee: $29,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: Ed Keil of Reliance Recruiting, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Michael Stuck of Gables Search Group

Job title: PLANT OPERATIONS MANAGER

Overall placement fee: $19,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: William DeAngelis of Crescent City Recruitment Group

Candidate recruiter: Trey Cameron of Cameron Craig Group

Job title: ELEMENTARY COUNSELOR

Overall placement fee: $5,000

Fee percentage: Flat

— — —

Job recruiter: Pat McCombs, CPC of KB Search Team, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Trey Cameron of Cameron Craig Group

Job title: INSIDE SALES REPRESENTATIVE

Overall placement fee: $20,400

Fee percentage: 24%

— — —

Job recruiter: Pat McCombs, CPC of KB Search Team, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Anjela Mangrum of Mangrum Career Solutions, LLC

Job title: CONTROLLER

Overall placement fee: $26,250

Fee percentage: 21%

— — —

Job Recruiter: Mike Ott of Lakeview Staffing Solutions, LLC

Candidate recruiter: Larry Gallin of Gallin Associates

Job title: MARKETING COORDINATOR

Overall placement fee: $14,260

Fee percentage: 23%

— — —

Job recruiter: Steve Kohn of Affinity Executive Search, Inc.

Candidate recruiter: Joshua Tanusaputra of Career Development Partners

Job title: ACCOUNTING COORDINATOR

Overall placement fee: $22,500

Fee percentage: 25%

— — —

Job recruiter: Alan Daum of Alan N. Daum & Associates, Inc.

Candidate recruiter: Steve Silianoff of Clifton Johnson Associates, Inc.

Job title: AUTOMATION ENGINEER

Overall placement fee: $17,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: Bill Kubena of Kubena & Associates

Candidate recruiter: Gary Schultz of Work 22, Inc.

Job title: CNC LATHE MACHINIST

Overall placement fee: $21,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: Matt O’Mara of Cranbrook Search Consultants

Candidate recruiter: Sonia Malik of Saba Talent

Job title: VP/DIRECTOR OF MARKETING

Overall placement fee: $25,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: Larry Radzely of Larry Radzely

Candidate recruiter: Michael Stuck of Gables Search Group

Job title: MEDICAL TECHNOLOGIST

Overall placement fee: $12,400

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

Job recruiter: Wendy Jespersen of Alliance Search Group, Inc.

Candidate recruiter: David Manns of Access Staffing

Job title: CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

Overall placement fee: $25,000

Fee percentage: 25%

— — —

Job recruiter: John Ricciardi of Afton Consulting Group

Candidate recruiter: Trey Cameron of Cameron Craig Group

Job title: SENIOR CLINICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

Overall placement fee: $32,500

Fee percentage: 25%

— — —

Job recruiter: Michael Agen of New Solutions Group, LLC

Candidate recruiter: David Cuozzo of CrowdSourced Recruiting

Job title: LICENSED CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

Overall placement fee: $16,000

Fee percentage: 20%

— — —

If you’re a newer Network member and you’d like to enjoy more success in our recruiter network, then I encourage you to contact Top Echelon Director of Network Operations Drea Codispoti, CPC/CERS.

You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

Top Echelon Network member Neans Moran of CPG Talent Management, LLC went from wondering whether or not she could trust a recruiting network to discovering that she had found, in her own words, “the best secret ever.”

Neans, who specializes in the Consumer Package Goods and Food & Beverage industries, has made 13 split placements since joining the Network. After making two splits in 2020, she added 11 more the following year.

According to Neans, she didn’t know much about the Network prior to applying for membership.

“I didn’t even know something like this existed,” she said. “I started in external search and was never part of a network, just a member of a traditional external search firm team. I went in-house as an internal corporate recruiter and still never knew it existed. Then I started researching and discovered another network that now no longer exists, and via networking with other recruiters and search firms, I discovered TE.”

Like some recruiters, Neans initially had concerns about the integrity and the confidentiality of Top Echelon Network.

“My biggest concern was, is it sketchy and can I trust anyone outside of my inner circle?” she said. “My biggest curiosity was how does it operate, how are recruiters and search firms vetted, and how do recruiters in the Network make money?”

Eventually, her questions were answered and her concerns were alleviated, and she was able to get down to business in the Network. Specifically, she was primarily looking for sourcing help and she was motivated by a personal reason, as well.

“I was looking for other search firms that had clients with jobs for candidate referrals that came my way when I had no jobs for them,” said Neans. “More importantly, what I was looking for all centered around family and work-life balance. A year into external search on my own, work-life balance didn’t exist like I thought it would by owning my own time.”

According to Neans, below are four additional takeaways that have been instrumental to her success as a member of Top Echelon Network:

#1—Persistence breeds success.

As we tell new Network members when they join, you might not make placements immediately. In fact, there’s a good chance that you won’t. However, if you’re persistent and you keep working the system, good things will happen. And those good things will bring placement fees with them.

“In my first year, I really didn’t have any monetary success because I’m a skeptical person and didn’t put my jobs or candidates out there,” said Neans. “I spent more time getting to know other partners and attending local and national meetings to ensure it was a good cultural fit.

“Watching TE grow, change, and upgrade technology to meet the needs of the members has been impressive. I have been very impressed with the professional contracting services side of the business, as well. I feel like I discovered the underworld of recruiting and the best secret ever!”

#2—Trust is the cornerstone of her membership.

Trust is also one of The Four Pillars of Top Echelon Network. The other three are Quality, Communication, and Active Participation, and Neans practices these, as well.

“I treat all levels of people with respect, no matter what level they have achieved, income, or position,” she said. “I can be tough, but I’m never mean. I work hard and I do good work. I track candidate sources to ensure I give credit where credit is due.

“Signed contracts with clients are always in place before initiating a search to ensure that I can pay a recruiting partner. When it comes down to it, I do the right thing.”

#3—Collaboration and camaraderie are key.

Making money through split placements is just one of the benefits of Top Echelon Network membership. There are other intangible benefits, as well, and collaboration and camaraderie are the threads that run through many of them.

“It’s great to have a broader reach and it’s fun to connect with other like-minded recruiters to keep myself and team members sane some days,” said Neans. “We have trust knowing others are ‘in our shoes’ reaching for the same goals with our clients and not paranoid that they’re going to be poached.

“It’s inspiring that we all have enough integrity and confidence to take a breath and teach or offer new recruiters in the Network feedback or constructive criticism. A big high is making an impact on another firm or recruiter by increasing their revenue and making them a hero for their candidates and clients.”

#4—Attend Top Echelon meetings.

According to Neans, the most impactful thing she did, especially during the early stages of her membership, was invest in attending Top Echelon recruiter networking events. This helped her to grow as a Network member, both in terms of building relationships and making splits.

“Meeting other members in person gave me peace of mind and confidence in the Network,” said Neans. “You need to put yourself out there and be genuine. Find other ‘eagles’ in the Network to partner with and understand that you might run into some ‘turkeys’ along the way. Remember, if this job was easy, everyone would be doing it.”

Now, more than ever, it matters which job orders and search assignments you’re actively working as a recruiter.

That’s because you can NOT spend time on what amounts to a “wild goose chase.” As a recruiter, time is your most important commodity, and considering the current state of world affairs, you can’t afford to waste it.

With that in mind, you’ve probably heard of a television show called Seinfeld. If you haven’t, it’s considered one of the most successful television shows in the history of entertainment.

Of course, comedian Jerry Seinfeld has moved on to other projects. One of those projects is Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. You can watch that show on Netflix, which didn’t even exist when the original Seinfeld show was on the air.

But I digress. The purpose of this blog post is to tell you that I have joined the Seinfeld show and your Network membership together.

Seinfeld: see the humor AND the value

Every recruiter wants to make more placements. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a good economy or in what appears to be a shaky one. (In fact, recruiters are even more motivated to make placements in a shaky economy.)

However, you still can’t make these placements without job orders. More to the point, you can’t make these placements without qualified job orders.

To help illustrate this point, I’m going to draw upon Seinfeld. (In this case, the original show, not the man himself.) In an early episode of the show, Jerry laments to a rental car clerk in the following fashion when she informs him that the car he reserved is not available:

“See, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation, and that’s really the most important part of the reservation, the holding. Anybody can just take them.”

As funny as that is, I’m going to paraphrase what Jerry said and put more of a recruiting (and Top Echelon Network) spin on it:

“See, you know how to take the job order, you just don’t know how to qualify the job order, and that’s really the most important part of the job order, the qualifying. Anybody can just take them.”

When you take job orders from your clients and share them with your split recruiting partners, they must be qualified job orders. That means they must contain all of the relevant information and that information should be included in everything that you share.

The following scenarios also apply:

1. You’ve filled the job order and the search is complete. If that’s the case, then please take the job order off the Network.
2. One of your clients has halted the search and/or withdrawn the job order. If it happens to you and you’ve shared these job orders with the Network, then please indicate the change in status or take the job order off the Network.

If you’re not qualifying (and/or updating) your job orders properly, then you could be wasting your time. Even worse, if you’re not qualifying (and/or updating) your job orders properly and then you’re sharing them with your trading partners, then you could be wasting their time, too.

The importance of Quality

As I’ve mentioned recently, Quality is one of the Four Pillars of Top Echelon Network. As a TE member, quality should be part of everything that you do.

This includes all of the information you share with other Network members. And this especially includes the job orders you share.

So don’t just take the job orders and share them. Qualify them, as well. And increase the chances that you’ll make more Network split placements this year.

Now have some coffee.

And remember, if you have questions about your Top Echelon split network membership or about how you can enjoy more success in the Network, I encourage you to contact me.

You can do so by calling 330.455.1433, x156 or by sending an email to drea@topechelon.com.

Top Echelon offers a free monthly webinar as part of its Expert Recruiter Coaching Series.

These webinars touch upon a variety of recruiter-related topics. These topics deal with both job candidates and clients. As always, our goal with these webinars is to help professional recruiters and executive search consultants just like YOU make more placements.

We record these webinars for those recruiters who can’t attend the live presentation, and we’re now pleased to offer the video from our most recent webinar by Gary Stauble of The Recruiting Lab.

The title of that webinar (and corresponding training video) is “How to Build a Candidate Firewall.”

Below is the official description for this training video:

— — —

Candidates rule at the moment, and boy, do they know it. Counteroffers, turn-downs, and fall-offs are all on the rise. To deal with this, you need to “tighten the screws” on your intake process to ensure that you work with serious people.

Now more than ever, it’s vital that you skillfully install firewalls to ensure you don’t waste your precious time on flaky candidates. And Gary Stauble of The Recruiting Lab shows how to do this during the most recent webinar video in Top Echelon’s Expert Recruiter Coaching Series!

During this FREE training video, you’ll learn:

• How to avoid wasting time with “tire kickers”
• How to quickly gain trust and influence with candidates
• Exact language tracks for cornering an elusive candidate
• How to ensure your candidate is honest from the get-go
• Specific language tracks for creating trust and influence
• How to handle uncomfortable conversations
• How to test a candidate for seriousness
• How to uncover painful career wounds
• How and when to use “nuclear questions”
• And much more!

The job market is tight for talent and red-hot for recruiters, so don’t waste any time. Watch this FREE video and find out “How to Build a Candidate Firewall”!

Watch this FREE training video!

Recorded versions of our Expert Recruiter Coaching Series webinars are posted on our website as free online recruitment training courses in the Top Echelon Recruiter Training Library.

Keep an eye out for the next free webinar in our Expert Recruiter Coaching Series!