Meet the Team: Chris Rosenau (Engagement Director)
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.
Up next, we have a conversation with our Engagement Director, Chris Rosenau. Chris brings years of experience to Flawless from corporate recruiting teams and is the king of recruiting analytics! See more in the interview below.
How did you fall into recruiting?
Like most people, I did not plan to get into recruiting. I sort of just fell into it. I started my career in HR after studying it in college. My first few roles were working as an HR assistant and assisting in scheduling technical staff and building databases. [Editor’s Note: We think this is where Chris started his love of data. He’s our recruiting data king at Flawless.]
When I got to Primera I was soon promoted to an HR Generalist, and recruiting became part of my role. I found myself naturally gravitating to this part of the job. My first real recruiting gig happened at PWC as a Recruiting Manager where I learned to run from ground zero. Although chaotic, it was a blast!
Why did you choose Flawless?
Given all of my experience working internally at large and mid-sized corporations, I had so much information about how organizations think, run, and make decisions, and how they work with external vendors.
There are 3 main things that brought me to Flawless:
I wanted to try the other side of recruiting. It was an opportunity to take everything I knew from in-house to help make Flawless a better partner to recruiting leaders in client organizations.
I previously worked with one of our leaders Chris Gootherts at Microsoft and a few years back we talked about how Flawless would reach a point where my experience would be needed. That time came sooner than I thought, and then I met Anders.
Anders leads me to my third reason - his enthusiasm for the space and the vision he had for Flawless was contagious. The answer was easy; I wanted to be on board.
How would you describe your leadership style?
My leadership style is always a funny question to answer. I want to make sure my employees know their goals, that they have all the tools they need, and that they understand their value. I want them to have their next career move identified and help them figure out how to make that move. I always try to be optimistic and empathetic, but I can also understand where my blind spots might be.
What do you hope to achieve at Flawless?
I want to bring my internal experience to help the recruiters on our team. Until you have worked in the internal recruiting environment, you don’t know exactly what it's like. I wanted to help folks who have worked at recruiting agencies or as independent contractors and provide perspective on what it’s like being inside a corporation. My hope is that they can be more sympathetic to the business challenge and become a more valuable resource to their internal partners.
“I also want to help my team avoid stepping on landmines that I have stepped on before.”
I also want to help my team avoid stepping on landmines that I have stepped on before. You can learn from a landmine, but it’s also great if you can avoid it. I want to be able to help them identify hidden obstacles, navigate through them, and develop consulting skills to become more well-rounded professionals.
How would you describe the difference between the Flawless model and other talent acquisition solutions?
I have a few different angles or viewpoints here.
Our staff is fully connected to each recruiting team they work with to the extent that remote work allows. They are embedded into the client’s business and we are able to get deeper than other models.
Another angle to look at is our focus on professional development for our recruiters. We aim to provide a consistent experience for our recruiters from project to project and grow their careers. We don’t want to set back anyone’s career or compromise client outcomes, so consistent management and shifting to assignments that align with their goals can help.
“We also provide a level of reporting and insight to our clients that isn’t matched by other alternatives.”
We also provide a level of reporting and insight to our clients that isn’t matched by other alternatives. We track our successes and challenges and monitor them weekly. It’s valuable to have this at our fingertips and we’ve made a lot of improvements over the last 9 months. It is a powerful tool for us and our clients, and it doesn’t impose a heavy burden on our recruiters.
What do you think the future of Flawless is?
Our future is to continue to provide exceptional talent acquisition services. Additionally, I see an opportunity to specialize in some areas within technical and non-technical recruiting and take on international engagements over the next year. It’s exciting to think about building out pockets of expertise. I also see us providing recruiting operations services.
That’s all for now, but come back again next time to meet more Flawless leadership.