Boulevard Recruiting

As we say goodbye to 2024 and welcome 2025, let’s make this year all about joy—something that’s at the heart of what we do at BLVD! 🌟 2024 had its share of highs and lows, but at the end of the day, let’s remember what truly matters: JOY! At BLVD, we define joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” It’s that moment when everything clicks—whether it’s a big win or those small, everyday moments that make you pause and say, “This is it.” Kind of like that perfectly frothy coffee drink you’ve gotten attached to (yes, we see you ordering it every day—even though you swear you’re cutting back). So, what brought you joy in 2024? Was it a project milestone, a good chat with a friend, or maybe that sweet cup ☕️ of caffeine you just can’t seem to quit? Joy doesn’t always come in grand gestures—it’s often hiding in the smallest, most familiar things. Joy is already out there, hiding in the little things (and maybe in your morning latte). Let’s make 2025 the year we focus on joy 💜 So, how will you invite more JOY into your life this year? ⬇️

New year, new goals—but first, let’s give 2024 the love it deserves! 💥 Did you pull off the impossible and close that dream role? Nail a pipeline so targeted it felt like startup sorcery? 🪄 Or maybe it was the sheer joy of watching a candidate accept an offer for a role that could change everything—for them and the company? Whatever your win, big or small, it deserves a mic drop. 🎤✨ Recruiting in startups is not for the faint of heart. It’s fast, relentless, and packed with moments that remind us why we do this. Every hire shapes a team, a product, and sometimes even a future. So, what’s your proudest recruiting moment of 2024? And what goals are you already chasing for 2025? Drop your wins, goals, and stories below! 👇

As we’re nearing the end of the year, we wanted to spend some quality time together as a team — what’s better bonding time than having some friendly competition with each other?! 🔈: We had a live Quiz Host guide us through 4 festive rounds 🎞️: Holiday Trivia Categories included Winter Facts, Holiday Movies, Winter Holidays Around the World... and more! 🎁: The team with the highest point scored Amazon Gift Cards aka the gift that keeps on giving! Congratulations to the team #resting-grinch-faces showing up and showing out!! Don’t sleep on Alysse Hotz, MFA, PhD with an opportunity to hit a buzzer ⚡️ ….and a special shout out to Jessica Mofford for sharing her rapping talents 🎤 with the team and blowing us all away with her rendition of It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year…("There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting, and carolers out in the snow”) ☃️ Thank you to the hosts at Confetti for such a wonderful event — they really know how to spread the holiday cheer 🎄💚

At Boulevard, one of our main company values is excellence. For us, striving for excellence in our roles means being resilient and persevering through the inevitable failures that come in scaling businesses. As recruiting partners, we demonstrate unwavering resilience in a multitude of ways — one example is seen in what’s referred to as a “candidate post-mortem”. A “candidate post-mortem” in recruiting refers to when the hiring panel does a deep dive into a candidate’s overall interview performance and process to identify: - what are areas of opportunities 💭 - how can we better evaluate in the future 🔮 - what went well ✨ 💡 In the post-mortem, take the time to have a thought-provoking conversation and dig into: - Did this candidate's skills and experience align with the role requirements? - Do we need to make changes to the process? - Are we assessing for the right competencies? 👉🏻 Keep in mind: it can be easy to perseverate over what went wrong or how we could have prevented this because it can feel defeating when you “hit a wall” — especially when you thought this candidate was the right match for the team. However, in these moments, it’s so important to also discuss the positives that even got us this far. What can be the positives? ⭐️ - Learning experience: As Winnie the Pooh says, “What’s wrong with knowing what you know now and not knowing what you don’t know until later?” Trial and error is so important in recruiting because this can lead to: better candidate experiences, stronger calibration, and improved interview processes. - Progress is progress: Reminding ourselves that we are having this discussion because we had candidate(s) we were excited about! This is an accomplishment in it of itself. - Structured interviewing: These discussions show us that the process is working — we’re getting the signal that we need to make sure the people we’re hiring are not only going to add value but are also going to be set up for success. How to move forward? 🚀 - Keep building momentum: schedule a sourcing jam and start rebuilding the pipeline 💯 - Collaborate with the team: keep sharing profiles to ensure tight calibration 🤝 - Resilience: keep persevering and exploring all the possible solutions 📝 We’d love to hear from other recruiting leaders in the industry. What have you learned when doing a candidate post-mortem?

🌟 Recruiting Round-Up: A Weekly Tradition for Growth and Connection! 🌟 At BLVD, staying connected and collaborative as a remote-first team is a top priority. That’s why every week, we host our Recruiter Round-Up—an optional meeting that brings our team of talented recruiters together to: ✅ Celebrate wins ✅ Share learnings and challenges ✅ Reflect on mistakes and growth opportunities ✅ Level up our skills and strategies as a team But it’s not just about business. We believe strong teams are built on strong relationships. That’s why we kick off every session with a fun icebreaker to help everyone unwind and connect. From sharing quirky facts to hypothetical dilemmas, it’s a chance to spark laughter and bond beyond our work. 🧊 Last week’s icebreaker? “If your life were a movie, who would you cast to play YOU?”🧊 Now it’s your turn—what’s YOUR answer to this question? Drop it in the comments! 👇 Let’s keep inspiring and supporting each other as we grow. 💬  #Recruitment #TeamBuilding #RemoteWork #GrowthMindset

As recruiters, understanding what drives a candidate to seek a new opportunity is key to creating meaningful connections and making the right match. Whether it’s the promise of a better paycheck, the quest for balance, or a fresh start at a company with cultural alignment, each motivator tells a story. By digging deeper into these motivations, we can not only find the perfect role but also empower candidates to take the next step in their careers with confidence. 🌟 What motivates you to change jobs?  1️⃣ Better compensation  2️⃣ Work-life balance  3️⃣ Career growth opportunities  4️⃣ Culture 👉 What’s been your biggest motivator in the past? Vote and share your story in the comments

Think the holiday season is a slow time for hiring? Not always! For candidates, it's a golden opportunity: ✨ Fewer applicants mean less competition for open roles. 🎯 Companies are motivated to close out hiring needs before the new year. 🤝 Networking during holiday events can open unexpected doors. For employers, it’s a prime moment: 💡 Many talented professionals start considering new opportunities for the year ahead. 🚀 A strong hire now ensures a smoother start in Q1. 🎄 Creative outreach stands out when others are hitting pause. Ready to make a move or open a role? Connect with us at Boulevard Recruiting!

As we head into Thanksgiving week at Boulevard Recruiting, we're reminded of the values that guide us every day: excellence and joy. Excellence is what drives us to connect great talent with great opportunities. Joy is what fuels the passion we bring to every search, every hire, and every relationship. We are so thankful for the purpose in the work we get to do, our amazing team who inspires us daily and our clients and candidates who trust us to help them grow and succeed. What are you thankful for this holiday season? Let us know in the comments!

When startups ask us the number one step they can take to hit hiring goals faster, we tell them: First: hire us 😉 💅🏼 Second: operationalize your hiring practices with the right tools so you can automate workflows and track candidate data seamlessly. Tools that automate sourcing, outreach, and scheduling are key to running an efficient hiring process that drastically improves the candidate (and hiring) experience. Being able to easily access pipeline data to deliver valuable insights on search health can also mean the difference between letting an ineffective search drag on for months and landing the perfect hire in the budgeted time frame. At Boulevard, we’ve seen it all — and we definitely have our favorites — but we know there isn’t a one size fits all solution for every organization. If your startup doesn’t have a sourcing tool or ATS yet, we’ll provide you with comparative recommendations that meet the functionality (and price point!) your organization needs. If you already have tools and you’re not maximizing their potential, we’ll help you level up to ensure you’re getting the data insights needed to run an effective search and reducing manual workflows so you can spend more time building meaningful relationships with top talent. 📣 Shoutout to #Ashby for being BLVD’s preferred all-in-one sourcing and ATS of choice! Drop a comment if you love the sourcing, automated scheduling, and advanced analytics tooling the Ashby all-in-one recruiting platform has to offer as much as we do! 🥰

When you boil it down, recruiters are, at heart, expert matchmakers. Hands down, the most rewarding and exciting thing about working in startup recruiting is finding that perfect match. 💞 Finding the perfect match for a mission-critical role may seem like it requires a lot of luck and even magic. For recruiters, making that placement certainly does feel like magic, but we know that it’s not luck, rather methodical practices and data-driven processes, that make that magic happen. At Boulevard, our commitment to #excellence means that we’ve systematized the magic of match making into repeatable processes that consistently deliver the best results for our startup partners. At the start of every engagement, we gather copious data through intake meetings — both quantitative and qualitative — to fully understand the product, team, role, value props, and motivating factors that drive the team’s efforts. We learn about founding stories, company successes, and future goals so we can gain a strong understanding of exactly what type of person thrives in this environment and will take the company to the next level. We conduct market research and build profile archetypes to understand who’s out there (and where!) that could be a strong match. Once we start engaging top talent, we listen carefully, and ask probing, open-ended questions — not just a checklist of hard skill requirements for the role — to understand each candidate’s experience, motivations, and career goals. If we sense proper alignment during early conversations, we’re positioned to pre-close because we have many datapoints to understand who is excellent. Throughout the interview process, we stay in lockstep with our candidates and hiring teams with regular check-ins to ensure candidates remain engaged and excited, and collect feedback from all parties to optimize experience for everyone. When it’s time to extend and close an offer, we’re confident we’ve done everything in our power to drive a positive outcome. We won’t say that there isn’t a bit of luck involved at the end of the process, but when the perfect match lands, our team at Boulevard knows we’ve done our best to make that magic happen. 🧙🏼🔮🪄