Taking Trading Partner Relationships to a New Level, Part 1

Enjoying success in Top Echelon Network is predicated upon finding other recruiters in the Network with who to work.  Simply put, creating Trading Partner relationships results in placements.

The way in which recruiters create these relationships is largely up to them.  Every once in a while, two recruiters form a relationship that’s unique in nature, but one that produces the same desired results—and placement.

That was the case with Maria Hemminger of MJ Recruiters, LLC and Dave Sgro of True North Consultants, Inc., and ironically enough, the two of them modeled their relationship after that of another pair of Network Preferred Members: Angela Marasco of A. Marasco Recruiting and Bob Vogt of Vision 2020.  According to Hemminger, she talked with Marasco at the 2009 Fall Conference, and Marasco described the way in which she and Vogt were working to produce contract splits and literally sharing the same client.  Basically, each carried out specific duties and relied on one another expertise.

After talking with Marasco (and also with her business partner Joanna Spaun), Hemminger, who works in Manufacturing, decided that the area in which MJ Recruiters was not the strongest was that of Information Technology.  The firm had turned down IT job orders in the past, and that’s something that Hemminger and Spaun didn’t want to continue doing.

“I asked Joanna, ‘What if we had a partner that we trusted enough?  Then we could take that job order, and we could go on-site with that Trading Partner to meet with the client.  The other recruiter could go over the technical part of the opening with the client and we could continue to manage the process.”

In the way that Hemminger envisioned the scenario, the other recruiter would be a true partner in the process.  However, since the client belonged to MJ Recruiters, Hemminger would still manage the process and the meeting and verify items such as the requirements of the position, education needed, experience needed, etc.

After some consideration, Hemminger and Spaun came to the decision that Dave Sgro of True North Consultants would be a good candidate with who to partner on IT searches.

“We had done splits with him in the past, and we had met him at TE conventions,” said Hemminger.  “We met him at the Chicago conference in 2006, so we’ve known him for four years.  We had worked with him before and were comfortable with him.”

So late last year, Hemminger called Sgro and told him what she and Spaun had in mind.  Sgro thought it was a great idea and agreed to do it.  All that was needed was an IT job order, and MJ Recruiters, LLC received just such a job order in April of this year.

“This order was from a company I had called on for 10 years, but had never worked with before,” said Hemminger.  “I had been communicating with them on an ongoing basis, and it was a premier employer with no turnover.  But they had an aging staff, and they needed a computer programmer/analyst.  So I told them that we could do that.”

(Be sure to read next week’s Pinnacle for Part 2 of this article, in which we’ll detail how Hemminger and Sgro put together a unique split placement and built a foundation for future business together.)