Stephen Rath's Page

Hometown:

Fishkill, NY

Recruiting Specialty or Niche Market

IT, Engineering

Geographic Coverage Area

National

# Years of Recruting/Staffing Experience

12

About Me:

Originally from NY state, I graduated college in 1985 from State University of New York at Potsdam with a degree in Computer Science. I spent my first 12 years working and consulting for IBM, Coca-Cola Company, and Georgia-Pacific. I functioned in various roles such as programmer/developer, team lead, manager, BA, and QA. When I developing programs I coded in PLAS (combination of PL/1 and Assembler - similar to C at the address level), C, VB, and Access. I also wrote code modifying data in DB2, Oracle, Access, and SQL Server databases.

In 1997 I had the opportunity to change careers and enter the staffing agency world - placing people like myself to work with clients in the Atlanta metro area. I started my staffing agency career with a company called Carson Associates (now part of Spherion). It was with Carson Associates where I cut my teeth on the Sales/Account management side of the business. I was responsible for managing the Coca Cola Account as we were one of several vendors working exclusively with KO. It wasn’t long after Carson Associates was sold to a publicly traded company (Norrell) that I was joined MATRIX Resources as a Sales Representative responsible for opening new business. After several years with MATRIX (2 President Clubs and performer of the month), I joined Comprehensive Computer Consulting, Inc. (CCCi), an established Atlanta staffing agency founded in the 70’s.

In 2004 I took my knowledge of the staffing agency world and applied them directly to my clients as a corporate recruiter/staffing consultant. I have worked with the following companies - Hanna Strategies, Home Depot, Manhattan Associates, International Game Technology, and Genesis10.

What has made me successful in my career as a Recruiter/Staffing consultant in the IT industry has been my unique combination of my technical background as a Developer interlaced with my knowledge and skill of a recruiter. I have always maintained an edge over my recruiting colleagues in my dealings with hiring managers and candidates. Understanding the needs of a hiring manager has allowed me to translate that need into viable candidates. Also understanding the needs of candidates and establishing a bond of trust, has helped me maintain relationships beyond the current requirement and create a future referral base.

One of my many memorable experiences involves an Atlanta based company called Hanna Strategies (HSL) which was recently acquired by Autodesk. I was charged with growing the company from 65 to 100+ within 6 months. I was the recruiting face of HSL and ended up hiring 38 technical engineers from all parts of the country. I was responsible for managing the entire recruiting life cycle from sourcing to candidate offer as well as implementation a best practices program and ATS implementation. My enthusiasm in being a part of HSL growth was evident in my dealings with prospects and candidates. I still have contact with those I placed at HSL several years ago.

Finding "A" prospects/candidates is the most time intensive part of recruiting cycle while the technical screening phase, although important, could be developed into a repeatable function of the vetting process, thus requiring less man hours to implement while effectively weeding out those less technically astute. I possess a strong software methodology background to bring truly qualified candidates to the manager for review and have successfully demonstrated such skills with my previous clients.

My Website:

http://www.bluewaverecruiting.com

Favorite Quote:

"If you always give your best, then you'll have nothing to worry about" - Dad