Why CRB Workforce?

Why CRB Workforce?

There are over 20,000 different recruiting and staffing firms in America, so why should you trust us to build your team?

It’s a fair question and one that we posed to our Founder and CEO, Sam Brenner, so that he could share his vision for why he created CRB Workforce and the unique value that he believes CRB can deliver for your business.
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Q: How did you get started in recruiting before you launched CRB Workforce?

SB: I think probably similar to about 90% of all recruiters, I really fell into the industry. I had no intention of being a recruiter, but once I started, I realized that it was something that I enjoyed and something that I was really good at.

At my previous company, I was able to advance my career until I was managing my own team and running our LA office. That’s when I knew that this was my passion because I realized that I could make positive changes in other people’s lives through recruiting.

Q: Is that why you decided to launch your own firm?

SB: It was finding that sense of purpose that ultimately drove me to open up CRB Workforce. I wanted to effect positive change in people’s lives, and then a byproduct of that was changing the recruiting industry itself. I know that people have had a lot of negative experiences, and there were some negative connotations around recruiting. I wanted to change the industry from a philosophical standpoint. I didn’t want to be thought of as a used car salesman. Those were the two guiding principles that led me to create my own company.

Q: How did you want to run CRB differently than other staffing agencies?

SB: There were a handful of items that, right away, I knew we could do better, and number one was understanding what we were offering. When I started in the industry, I immediately saw that my competitors were not really aware of what they were selling. They were technical recruiters who didn’t understand the technology, and that was something that I saw as a huge opportunity.

So one of the central policies we implemented at CRB was that everyone who works here needs to know enough about the positions we’re trying to fill to be able to pass the first round of an interview. Anytime one of our recruiters spins up a new search for a data scientist or a JavaScript developer, they should know enough about that position to get on the phone with a hiring manager and excel in a first-round interview.

After that, we wanted to change our approach to technology. I worked in two different sales environments where we really failed to leverage technology. It was pick up the phone and make as many cold calls as possible, and I saw that as being pretty antiquated. So we’ve spent a lot of time, money and energy developing a strong tech stack of platforms that work together. It’s reduced the amount of administrative and manual tasks our team has to do and allowed us to focus on what’s important such as having meaningful conversations with our clients and our candidates.

Q: Recruiting is about much more than matching a skill set to a job description. When
you’re staffing for a client, what tells you that someone would be a good match beyond
their resume?

SB: What we say to both our clients and our candidates is that people want to work with people that they like. That’s the best advice I can give anyone going into an interview. You don’t have to be best friends, but you want to see this person as someone who will have a positive impact on your life. Many people can do the job you’re hiring for, but when you consider how much of your life you spend around your coworkers, you really want them to have the kind of personality that will make you happy to be around them.

Q: What is the key to delivering the best candidates to your clients?

SB: When we talk about making a good match, it’s not just between candidate and client, but also the match between the client and CRB. The clients we do best for are the ones that allow us to be a part of the process and that either gives us or allows us to earn their trust so that we can have an intimate ability to represent them. That’s when we’re able to have a high success rate of not just placing candidates but making sure that they are there for the long term.