Importance of Being Genuine

My grandfather ran his business with care and treated his team like family. This didn’t change when he was off the clock—he was the type of guy who would take hours to walk down the block, because he would stop to talk with everyone about their lives, families and careers, and never shied away from lending a hand to someone who needed it.

Unsurprisingly, I’m cut from the same cloth, and while the endless conversations may annoy my kids, my 15-year career in search is a natural extension of that desire to make personal connections.

At Townsend, 85% of our work is repeat business and a large reason for that is because we take the time to “get under the hood” and truly know our clients and candidates as people.

Every client we’ve ever worked with has a unique makeup and personality that can’t be learned solely from a prospectus or website. Talking with multiple people at all levels in an organization is the only way to really know how it operates—it takes time, but that investment allows us to find the right candidates that match a company’s culture and vision.

Two professionals might have similar resumes on paper, but it’s their intangible attributes—their motivations, their attitude, their values and humility—that ultimately sways the final decision one way or another. The cost of a mishire is too big to forego the time and effort to achieve this level of personal knowledge. 

As noted, it is commonplace at Townsend for a professional we placed years ago to return—elevated in his or her career—to engage us in a search, all because we stayed in touch, retained memorability, did right by them and left a lasting positive impression.

It’s no secret. In search and in life, when you’re genuinely interested in people and actively invested in their success, the results follow.