Success Story: Charlie

We tell stories every week about the candidates that we are working with.  Here is a story about one named Charlie that I recently spoke with about his experience in the job search.

"I worked at UPS for over 6 years and did incredibly well while I was there."  

At Treeline we have a huge network of sales professionals.  Many of these sales professionals choose to join our network to stay in the know.  Our network of sales professionals want to be constantly educated on new opportunities and new sales strategies.  Whether you are hiring a sales person or selectively considering new opportunities the network is invaluable.

In this case we were on an exclusive search with a cutting edge software company focused on transportation spend management systems.  I contacted Charlie directly in an outbound recruitment campaign and was mainly interested in his background because he had worked with UPS for a considerable amount of time and held several different roles within the company.  I spoke in depth with Charlie about our organization and our sales community, as he had never heard of Treeline before.  After a brief conversation about who Treeline was and what our network entailed, Charlie was eager to join our network and start working on his career search and hear more about the potential opportunity we had.

Charlie and I had invested about an hour of time together and in that conversation I had discovered that he had left UPS about a year ago and was currently working as a Financial Representative.  He was very unhappy with his current role that he had been in for over a year and he found himself struggling both financially as well as professionally.

I consulted with Charlie to clearly define his strengths and helped to educate him on present market conditions.  We discussed the industries that are succeeding and those that are struggling and spoke about several opportunities I had identified as a potential fit.  One of those opportunities happened to be with our software client.  After researching the firm's website, Charlie was interested in an interview.  So I was off to the races to introduce Charlie to our client.  With a strong understanding of Charlie's personality, his story and his career successes, I was successful in getting Charlie that interview. 

Charlie and I spoke in great length before the interview, not so much about my client, but about Charlie's background.  Because of our years of success, Treeline understands better than anyone that it is important to be able to define and articulate your strengths and more important to make sure that you can speak to them.  I consulted with Charlie about his strengths and helped him see what they were.  In many cases it is refreshing to see yourself through a different set of eyes.  It helps to truly understand your own strengths.  Charlie took the bull by the horns and continued to find success in each of his interviews.  He went through a very difficult interview process which lasted just over 60 days.  He met with the sales director to the lead representative in his region and was then chosen to move forward and met with the CEO.   The interview process had gone smoothly up until that pivotal interview with the CEO.  Needless to say that last interview did not go so well.  The CEO chose to pass on Charlie.

Charlie was down, but certainly not out.  "[After I was bounced from the interview process], I turned to Treeline recognizing my pitfalls in the interview.  I am driven and very hungry and I was not ready to give up.  Sean supported my cause.  He believed in my background and with that support and my own conviction to win, I turned it around and got my foot back into the door.  I emphasized why I was the right fit and the CEO later told me he was impressed at how aggressive and thoughtful I was with my follow up."

Charlie reconnected with the CEO and managed to schedule an interview with the VP.  With Charlie's determination and my direction, Charlie's interviews went extraordinarily well.  So well that the client hired Charlie.  Charlie is now in an incredible new career with a great company and even managed to get a raise in pay.  This opportunity has changed his life both professionally and financially.  The opportunity has enabled him to love his career and enjoy his life once again. 

These are the stories that I like to hear.  Join our network and experience it for yourself.