Meet the Team: Chris Gootherts (Senior Vice President)
Every recruiter seems to have an interesting story of how they got into recruiting. In this series of posts, you’ll learn how our team found their way here, how they approach recruiting, and other fun facts.
To continue, we have a conversation with our Senior Vice President, Chris Gootherts. Chris has been in the talent acquisition world for more than twenty years and loves to share his knowledge and see the team and clients thrive in high-growth markets! See more in the interview below.
How did you fall into recruiting?
“I started my career as a touring musician.”
I love the way you worded this question because nobody plans to be a recruiter in college, we fall in through some back door. I started my career as a touring musician, and after my career stalled I met with a recruiter and asked if I could get a job as a programmer. He said no. But he recommended that I try brokering talent because of my knowledge of the music industry. And that’s how I got into recruiting in the bay area in ‘93!
What moved you towards leadership?
As they say, “Some are born to be leaders and some have leadership thrust upon them.” At Microsoft, leadership was thrust upon me. Within 7 months of being a recruiter, I was asked to start a new division of recruiting for China. What was so great is that I got the opportunity to lead it from HQ. The leadership role gave me the opportunity to be trained in management and leadership within Microsoft which has some of the best training programs in the world.
Why did you choose Flawless?
“What drew me to Flawless, was that Anders and I aligned when it came to integrity, transparency, and optimism.”
After my role at Microsoft, I went on to be the Head of Recruiting at Apple for China and then moved over to Amazon to lead three divisions of recruiting there. I had 10 years of big corporate life and that was all I could handle. My family had forgotten what I looked like. About a year after I left Amazon, I was introduced to Anders (Flawless Founder). For six months our two firms cooperated, and then I closed my firm to join Flawless with Anders in 2018. What drew me to Flawless, was that Anders and I aligned when it came to integrity, transparency, and optimism.
What has been your biggest accomplishment thus far at Flawless?
My biggest accomplishment at Flawless thus far has been maturing the organization into a company that can bend and not break within the marketplace. We have structured offerings for our clients and have been able to make changes through time to help us accommodate and be more flexible with our offerings. This has kept us sustained as a business even amidst a dramatic downturn in the economy.
What do you hope to gain/achieve at Flawless in the coming years?
My goal is to disrupt the RPO industry with the model that Flawless has built. This is currently taking place and will accelerate over the next few years. I believe many companies will have a solid, lean internal recruiting team that can sustain attrition and evergreen requisitions, and supplement with embedded solutions like those Flawless offers to handle any spikes in hiring demand.
How would you describe the difference between the Flawless model and other talent acquisition solutions?
There are many different options out there: contingent recruiting, RPO, contract recruiters, and managed embedded solutions. I’ll give the downsides of each before I give why ours works.
The downside to contingent recruiting is you are paying top dollar for the candidates you hire. And the recruiter is not always dedicated to your specific needs as they can have 5+ others. RPO is a heavy solution for a light problem. It’s inflexible, long-term, and very expensive. With contract recruiters, they are often on an island with less support and resources than other recruiters.
Our Flawless solution is one where the client partners with one of our embedded recruiters dedicated to their work full-time. We provide tools, training, and management, which makes an effective supplement to great internal teams.
What do you think the future of Flawless is?
“The future of Flawless is one that supports more clients across more locations and industries than ever before. ”
Flawless is currently about half the size of our peak because of the downturn in the market, but we expect to quadruple in size by the end of 2023 as the market recovers. During the current downturn in the tech industry, we are focused on sectors that are hiring. As a fully-remote company, we have the flexibility to partner with incredible clients regardless of their location and hire great recruiters to support them. The future of Flawless is one that supports more clients across more locations and industries than ever before.
Join us next time as we meet Chris Rosenau, Enterprise Engagement Director.