About Us

Our Philosophy

At the heart of the matter for us is the belief that people aren't just assets, but that talent and experience lead to improved corporate performance. We believe that all managers, directors and executives should be responsible for strengthening their talent pool, and not just rely on HR. We believe that employers shouldn't just recruit for vacant positions, but should always be pursuing talent at all levels of the organization. We believe that diversity matters, not profiling. Perhaps most importantly, we believe that talented, diverse, experienced candidates should be presented to interested employers for a fee that makes sense for everyone.

Our Background

"We're marketers and we've been there."
These two traits form the foundation of our success.

First, we're marketers. We're experienced at finding ways to identify and connect products and services with target audiences. We use research, critical analysis, strategy and implementation, communication channels, and above all, people. We come from B2B and B2C worlds, but the common denominator is finding and meeting the needs of people.

Second, we've been there. FiveChairs evolved from a small group of folks who had all been without a job at some point in their careers. This gives us a unique perspective from both sides of the table: as hiring decision makers, and as experienced job seekers looking for new professional homes. This shared history drew us together to seek something better than what we saw in the marketplace. After all, experience is often the best educator.

The Need

In our respective quests for jobs, we utilized executive recruiting firms, placement agencies, and online job networks. None had the right balance between our needs and the needs of employers we were targeting – someone always seemed to have a bad taste in their mouth. So we started doing some homework, to try to really understand the world of recruiting and placement, (and we found some amazing things!)

We found things such as high fees; stagnation in creativity and strategy; pricing that didn't equate to real value; empty marketing slogans; ineffective background checks, or ones that didn't happen at all. Take, for example, one of the largest, nationally recognized executive recruiters who provided trustees with one choice for a large university presidential candidate, only for him to leave a year later because of a pattern of misconduct that could have been uncovered with simple background checks we were able to do on Google.

We found 20%-33% fees for finding and placing human resources, either from contingency or retained firms or employment agencies pricing that was established in the employment boom of the 1960's! We found talented people who didn't exactly fit a firm or agency's "profile" of a "good" candidate, so someone's idea of prescreening meant good people were never seen. We found more than 30 different types of pre-employment screenings available, many under- or over-utilized, but seldom matching the needs of the employer or doing justice to the candidate.

We could go on and on. In short, we found an industry begging for innovation and revolution.

So, we got to work! We met, talked, read a lot, asked a lot of questions, interviewed, commiserated, laughed, drank gallons of coffee... you know, the typical stuff people do to incubate an idea. We looked for a better way. The FiveChairs' way.

Why We're Different

We're different because we believe FiveChairs is the easiest, most cost-effective, efficient recruiting method you can find.

For talent seekers, we're different because you pay a fee of 8.9%, a fraction of the 20%-33% employment fee you pay with traditional agencies. This just makes sense–it has value for us, for talent seekers, and for talent. It's using technology, such as permission-based email, to deliver information about today's talent directly to decision makers at all levels of the organization. It means an opportunity to see, review, and get connected to several diverse, talented, professional people at one time – five candidates are presented in each email flight.

And FiveChairs allows you to have direct communication with candidates: to negotiate, handle background checks as they should be, according to your company's own unique criteria, all elements that end up bearing a huge price tag. You can set up an interview, you can negotiate, you can sense talent when you see and hear it. Why pay us for that?

For Talent, FiveChairs is a breath of fresh air. It means we don't interpret "you" to talent seekers; you stand squarely on your experience, your skill set, and your persona (translated through your photo in one of the FiveChairs seats... very unique. It means never having to apologize or feel under the microscope because your employer is paying exorbitant fees for your placement. It's a way to introduce yourself to hundreds, sometimes thousands of decision makers within minutes - a task that would otherwise take months, saving you valuable time in finding your next job.

We use terms like revolutionary, unique, easy, and cost-effective to describe FiveChairs. Now do you see why? It just makes sense doesn't it? Remember what Southwest Airlines did for the airline industry? Well, we hope to do the same thing for the recruitment/employment industry. In the words of respected author and lecturer Joe Calloway in his book of the same title, we've "become a category of one," turning the commoditized into something completely different. We'd like to think we're doing the same thing for talent and talent seekers alike.

FiveChairs is Not For Everyone

FiveChairs is a unique matching system for talent and talent seekers at a fraction of the cost of typical recruitment/employment agencies. However, we don't try to be all things to all people. We've taken a lot of time to look under the recruiting hood, and found many things that don't seem to make sense to us. However, for those who require a high degree of hands-on expertise for specific top-level executive recruiting, current solutions may in fact work better than FiveChairs. If you are unsure about the skill set you need to hire and need a great deal of personal consultation in addition to recruitment, again we are not the right choice. At the other end of the spectrum, you can pay a fee for posting a position online and receive hundreds of resumés that run the full length of the experience gamut. If sorting through dozens of resumés is your idea of fun (and there are some people who enjoy that!), then our service is probably not for you.

For more information about FiveChairs, or for questions or comments, refer to our Talent Seeker FAQ's, Talent FAQ's, or Contact Us.