Balancing Acts: Running a Recruiting Firm and Launching a Tech Startup with Brian Gabay

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

Brian Gabay [00:00:03]:
I kid you not. I took my cell phone, I put it on camera mode, on video mode, and we were in the office that day, and I'm like, we love your dance moves. Look, we can dance too. And like, I was just going around my office with my teammates. We're just dancing, dancing. And I sent it to him on LinkedIn messenger. He responded within a second, set up a call, and now we're working together. Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host, Benjamin Men, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:35]:
We cover it all from sales, marketing.

Brian Gabay [00:00:38]:
Mindset, money, leadership, and placements.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:44]:
I'm excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter podcast because how many times have you had just an idea in your head of, like, something you want to do, but at the same time, you also understand that recruiting is the core function of the business that you have. But here's what I'm excited about. My guest today has built his recruiting firm, but is because of his recruiting firm, has been able to launch another company. And he's going to talk about, like, the combination of juggling, but really just the foundation that he did to set himself up so that way he could run the two operations successfully. So I'm so excited to have Brian on the podcast. Welcome, Brian.

Brian Gabay [00:01:18]:
Thank you so much, Ben, for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:21]:
So, real quick, another thing I probably should have added this to the highlight is you started your business and then you actually had to shut it down about two months later. And we're going to go into that story.

Brian Gabay [00:01:31]:
Yeah, that is right. That is right.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:35]:
Well, okay, so before we start doing this deep dive, tell the listeners a little bit about yourself.

Brian Gabay [00:01:40]:
Of course, of course. So my name is Brian Gabay. As Ben mentioned, I am based in New York City. I've been recruiting for probably over 12 years now. 12, 13 years. I started my own business about nine years ago when I was 27 years old. I just turned 36. Time flies.

Brian Gabay [00:01:57]:
It's insane. I don't even know where the time goes. But prior to launching my business, I worked at a couple of recruiting firms. One smaller, one more midsize. So I kind of got a feel for that corporate recruitment world prior, and I just always had that itch to kind of jump in and get into entrepreneurship and start my own thing. And, you know, I took a leap of faith and I went for it. Our area of specialization in recruiting is public relations. So that's our niche we represent and work with a lot of PR agencies across the country and we're a small, nimble team here in New York and we work very hard and you know, and I just, I think personally for me, I just have crazy passion for the recruitment industry.

Brian Gabay [00:02:37]:
I don't know, call me crazy. When I was a kid, I didn't say I wanted to be a recruiter one day, it just happened. But I, I don't regret it for anything.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:45]:
Is the people that are passionate about the space and share the stories. I think it has the most impact, which is phenomenal.

Brian Gabay [00:02:50]:
So.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:50]:
Okay, so let's even get started.

Brian Gabay [00:02:53]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:53]:
How did you end up into this wonderful world of recruiting? Just fall into it.

Brian Gabay [00:02:58]:
I applied to a cold job posting on LinkedIn. I was in sales prior. I was selling life insurance prior. I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, but I love working with people and, and what can I do with keeping that people interaction and sales. But I love helping people too. And I applied cold and that was it. Now the rest was history.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:22]:
Okay, so fast forward, you worked at a few firms.

Brian Gabay [00:03:25]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:26]:
Did you always have that itch in the back of your head, like, just like I needed to go out on my own?

Brian Gabay [00:03:31]:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It didn't happen in instantly. I think in the beginning I was still learning the ropes of recruiting, understanding the business lay of the land, sourcing, you know, client communication. Like in the beginning it was just like I was a junior, junior guy just getting into it. It's like any sales job. Right. It was a hustle, you know, ups and downs, of course, like a roller coaster ride.

Brian Gabay [00:03:53]:
But I would say year two in, I was like, you know what, I'm pretty good at this. You know, I'm like making some placements. I'm like, I'm enjoying it too. It's funny. It's funny. My mother always told me, she's like, brian, work in an industry that people come to you. Because in life insurance prior I was going, chasing people down to sell them life insurance. And then out of nowhere when I started, when I in recruiting, I had candidates applying, emailing me.

Brian Gabay [00:04:21]:
But you know, I, I realized that's it's not so, so fruitful. It's not that easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing this. Let's be real. But it's interesting. I, I just felt the, the instant connection with recruiting. In year two, I started getting that itch. I got to go out on my own and do something and, and build something special.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:40]:
What finally pushed you over the edge.

Brian Gabay [00:04:42]:
What pushed me over the edge? Living with my two roommates in the city at the time. I'm like, I gotta get out of here. I'm like, I gotta get out of here. No joke. It was a two bedroom apartment and we made a third bedroom for me in the middle of the living room. I didn't even have a, a wall that went up to the ceiling. They used to throw things at me over the wall all the time. I'm like, you know what? I really me to get out of here.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:07]:
So it was never like a bad boss. It wasn't a bad experience. You were just like, I need to freaking have control.

Brian Gabay [00:05:13]:
Oh, I mean, yes. But I mean, all jokes aside, at the time, it was, what was this, 2015 or 2016? That's when I started January 2016. So 2015 is when I was really like, you know, really thinking about it. I loved where I worked, but it was just very, at the time, recruiting and recruiting in general. Not only like where I work, just recruiting general was very old school mentality. And I think, you know, cold calling was a thing and everything. Like, I never was the type to cold call when it came to recruiting. I used to cold call and sell in life insurance ad set like prior.

Brian Gabay [00:05:48]:
But when it came to recruiting, I'm like, hey, if I want to talk to Michelle, I also want to talk to Rachel that sits right next to Michelle. And I'm not going to cold call them during the day, you know, while they're at work, sitting right next to each other. It just, I don't know, it just wasn't my thing. I had a different mindset, different mentality, different way to go about recruiting at the time. And I don't think I was able to do it where I was. And I just had this vision. And my parents are both entrepreneurs. They're very hard.

Brian Gabay [00:06:16]:
I didn't grow up, I didn't come from money. But they really are just hardworking individuals. And I feel like I just had that just naturally inside of me. I don't know, it's just in my blood. Just really in my blood.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:30]:
So you pulled the trigger and you started working. Yeah, started grinding out. You're too much in and you're just like just getting that, that momentum. The most important thing that you could do is like a recruiting founder. The momentum, of course. And you had to stop everything and hang up the business. Can you talk about that?

Brian Gabay [00:06:48]:
Yeah, of course, of course. So leading up to me starting my business, my father unfortunately was. He was on dialysis he had kidney failure. He was on dialysis for about three and a half years. And during this whole time, you know, up to from 2012 to 2015, we were looking for a donor, someone to donate he or she's kidney to my father. Unfortunately, I wasn't a blood match. Neither were my siblings. My dad's universal.

Brian Gabay [00:07:11]:
He's type O, which you can only receive from O, but you can donate to anyone, which is crazy. Yeah. So three and a half, three and a half years. We're looking, looking. It was the craziest journey of my life, my whole family's life. And we found, I finally found someone off the Internet. I used my recruiting skills, but look, it wasn't the easiest placement. It took over three years to make this placement and she is literally an angel from Atlanta, Georgia.

Brian Gabay [00:07:41]:
She's incredible. Shout out to Jen Wolfe if you're listening to this. She donated her kidney to my dad. Saved his life a year later. At the time, I created this like 5 minute YouTube video explaining the story. It's really cool and emotional. Just tells the whole story about the whole journey. And Fox Network found my YouTube video somehow and they reached out to me and he said, there is a show coming on called Home Free Season two and they wanted me to be in the show.

Brian Gabay [00:08:08]:
The concept of the show is 11 contestants are competing to win a dream home for their heroes. And my hero, of course is Jennifer. And you're going to laugh. I actually said no. I said I can't do it because they didn't tell me the name of the show. I didn't know anything at the time. It was all like confidential. They just said, you'll be competing on a competition show to win something for your hero.

Brian Gabay [00:08:32]:
Long story short, went back and forth. My sister was going to do it this and I'm like, you know what, I have to be the one to do it. Everyone was pushing me to do it and I went for it. Two months. I didn't have a phone, computer. They cut my TV cords in the room. We would be on set for four days and then in a hotel room for two days hibernating. Yeah, it was insane.

Brian Gabay [00:08:55]:
But it was the most amazing experience ever. I ended up winning Jennifer a dream home on national television. And it was, it was insanity. And then I came back and you know, when I left, I had someone that I used to work with help me out and take over the business. Pretty much handle things while I was gone for two plus months at the time. Wow.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:19]:
Well, congratulations on one like putting on the recruiting Hat and actually, you know, finding probably one of the most important placements you've ever made. Are you all of her, Mick?

Brian Gabay [00:09:28]:
Hands down.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:29]:
But then, like, you and, like, were able to help pay her back?

Brian Gabay [00:09:33]:
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:34]:
Reading out all those other people.

Brian Gabay [00:09:36]:
Yeah. And I think that's the reason why I did it, because I was like, you know what? How do you repay someone that did something so selfless? This is a stranger. This, like, restored my faith in, like, humanity. Like, people like this do exist, you know, look, you know, people don't donate to their kidney organs to their family members, let alone a stranger that doesn't know anything about us did this for us. And how do you repay her? There's nothing. But this is the least I could have done. And honestly, it till this day. We talk all the time.

Brian Gabay [00:10:10]:
She's like a fourth. I have three sisters. She's a fourth sister. I consider and absolutely, absolutely incredible. And I would do it all over again if I could.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:20]:
And like I said, great job on beating all the other competitors.

Brian Gabay [00:10:23]:
Yeah, no, it was wild. You got. You gotta. Actually, I didn't win the show, but every week when someone gets eliminated, we build a new home every single week. And when someone gets eliminated, their hero still wins that home. So actually 11 people ended up winning, you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:41]:
Okay.

Brian Gabay [00:10:41]:
And you gotta watch it Home Free season two. You'll see there's some drama involved in it. It's pretty a guy. It gets a little crazy. Tim Tebow is the host of the show. If you. If you're familiar with Tim Tebow, he's the man. Shout out to Tim.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:56]:
He is like, the guy's huge too. But anyways, well, yeah, get back to recruiting. Well, and like, okay, so you got back from the show. Like, you're coming off this high. You got to put the recruiting hat back on. How did you get back in the game?

Brian Gabay [00:11:12]:
Took a really deep, deep breath and I sat down and I. And I went back into it. You know, of course I was on a high and everything, but when I got back, it was actually a story to tell my clients. And even, you know, just conversation who. You know, with candidates, clients. It was a pretty. Pretty cool story to tell. Even with new business.

Brian Gabay [00:11:32]:
I used to tell people at the time, like, look, if I found a stranger to donate their kidney to my dad, I think I can find you your next, like, VP in New York or whatever. It was just a storyteller. I just got into it. I got back into it. I had a lot of pressure on myself, too, because I think that's some just something about me. I'm always like in tunnel vision. It's like me versus me at all times. You know, there's obviously competition out there, but at the end of the day, people are hiring us to find them the best people.

Brian Gabay [00:12:01]:
And my goal is just to find the best people. I don't care if other people find you other people before me, but if I'm going to find you the best person, we're going to end up, you know, winning the race in a sense. So I always compete against myself and I'm just, you know, I just came back after the show and I just went a full, full speed and I didn't, I didn't start my business just to be a one man shop at all times. I started my business to build something, to grow something, to have employees. I used to walk around co working spaces one day I want that office with all those employees and you know, really like building something special. And that was a goal in mind and you know, just hit the ground running.

Benjamin Mena [00:12:41]:
You had the vision, you had the work ethic. You start putting into work. How did you actually start growing?

Brian Gabay [00:12:45]:
Yeah. So our recruitment specialization is public relations. And why'd you choose that niche? So my first job, the job that I applied Cole to on LinkedIn, they happened to specialize also in like marketing, communications PR. And I handled a lot of the PR placements at the time. And yeah, it's not really it chose me. Honestly, I didn't choose it, I just fell into it and I was, you know, building a name for myself in the industry. And then when I actually went out on my own, people already knew me, you know, in the PR industry. So it was kind of, I don't want to say easy, nothing's easy.

Brian Gabay [00:13:23]:
But it was kind of organically a good match and fit to kind of specialize and continue specializing pr.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:28]:
When did you make the decision to fully like hire somebody for your team?

Brian Gabay [00:13:33]:
So I started the business in 2016. 2018. This is another, another bump in the road happened. It seems like every time I start something there's a bump in the road. 2018 happened. I interviewed this guy taking a leap of faith, making up my first hire, paying a salary. It was the scariest thing ever as a new business owner. So say the guy would say he was starting on Monday, no joke, no joke.

Brian Gabay [00:14:02]:
On Saturday I was playing basketball and tore my ACL in meniscus. He couldn't walk. I was on crush it. I was gearing up for surgery in the next three weeks and I remember Meeting him at like a Whole Foods in crutches as kind of like onboarding him. Yeah, it was insane. Can't catch a break. I also had to take some time off and this guy just started. Is operating my business within the first week.

Brian Gabay [00:14:28]:
Yeah. Insane.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:31]:
Is he still part of the team?

Brian Gabay [00:14:33]:
No, no, he was with us for a couple years and Covid happened. We had some restructuring going on. We can get into that. But always something, right? That's life. There's always something. You just gotta. You just gotta keep your head up at all times.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:47]:
Okay. So you, you know, you're growing the business and, you know, things are. And we'll talk about some BD stuff shortly, but sure.

Brian Gabay [00:14:54]:
Of course. Worse.

Benjamin Mena [00:14:55]:
When did you hit the point where you realized you could actually, you know, you're. You're founder, you're the face of the business. Like that, you know, typically the recruiting owner is the ring maker.

Brian Gabay [00:15:04]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:05]:
When did you hit the point where you realize, like, you know, I have this idea that's in my head that I just can't stop thinking about that I know that could do. But how did you, like, when did you hit that point where, like, I think I can actually start working on this idea while also fully working on the business?

Brian Gabay [00:15:19]:
Oh, yeah. I'll get into the background of how this kind of rooted. So basically a couple years ago, I lived on the financial district by the seaport. And it was like a stressful week with work and everything. And I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna leave my phone at home and I'm gonna take a stroll and just walk to the seaport and just sit something. I don't. I. I feel like I should.

Brian Gabay [00:15:40]:
We should all do that a lot. You know, if you do it, that's fantastic. But just to plug out for a minute, as recruiters, we're constantly on our phones, emailing, texting, whatnot. So I went, I just sat down and I started pondering and I'm like, what is the most frustrating part of my job? For me personally, everyone can say different, you know, different things. For me as a recruiter, scheduling, scheduling, interviews, I was so frustrated with just the back and forth, the manual work of scheduling interviews. I think at the time it was high volume. We're constantly going back and forth. I'm like, there's got to be a better way.

Brian Gabay [00:16:15]:
So I thought about this crazy idea of how things can be easier for recruiters and, you know, just simplify the interview scheduling process. Long story short, I ran back to my apartment, I wrote this all down on a piece of paper. I still have it with me, squashed by a banana in my backpack. But I still have that initial piece of paper. And I didn't start it right away. I was just thinking about it, brainstorming, strategizing. Because I was working a full time running a recruiting agency, which is a beyond a full time task. So it was very hard, but in baby steps.

Brian Gabay [00:16:48]:
Slowly, slowly, I partnered up with a development team and it took over a year to kind of come up to where we're at today with a finalized, you know, product, which we can get into after. But essentially, to answer your question, it took about, you know, 32 years ago till I think right now I'm actually ready to, at a point that I can actually split my time perhaps 50, 50 between both businesses in some sense.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:14]:
And I mean to do that you gotta have like a highly functioning team. And this is gonna sound bad. You're also not, it sounds like you're probably also not doing everything yourself.

Brian Gabay [00:17:23]:
Oh, yeah, no, of course not.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:25]:
So how do you get over the hurdle of, I hate to say this, delegation.

Brian Gabay [00:17:29]:
Yeah, it's probably one of the harder things to do to give up, you know, and to be able to delegate more to your team and giving up that control. As a recruitment business founder, you know, we started this. We planted the seeds or our clients we brought in. Everyone knows you're the face of the business. But if you're, if you're going to actually continue to grow and you want to continue to shine and continue developing, you have to give up some control and you have to delegate more. You have to put more trust in your team. But because at the end of the day, we can't do it just by ourselves. We need a team behind us to really help, help us get to where we eventually want to be.

Brian Gabay [00:18:11]:
And at the end of the day, if you're successful, everyone wins, you win, and your team wins too. And that's really important to me. So delegation is definitely key to get to this point for me personally.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:21]:
Okay, so combination of delegation. But you know, the sales and clients are the lifeblood of our business.

Brian Gabay [00:18:28]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:28]:
You know, you can't change lives, you can't fill positions if you have nothing to work on or a combination of like while, you know, adding another plate that you're spinning.

Brian Gabay [00:18:38]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:38]:
What are you doing business development wise, or how did you develop your team to do bd? So that way you now have multiple plates spinning.

Brian Gabay [00:18:46]:
Right, right, right, right. Well, good thing is the, you know, the beginning phases of my, you Know, since I started BSA until, you know, until probably the whole journey with business development, we've actually organically grew from word of mouth. We're an initial area of recruitment in public relations specifically. There's not a million PR recruiters out there. There's ton of finance, accounting, you know, not like such a broad industry. It's very much of a specific targeted industry. So business development, knock on wood, hasn't always been something that I had to always chase, you know, throughout my journey. It's been, you know, we have a ton of clients that been with us from day one and they're still with us.

Brian Gabay [00:19:28]:
And a lot of it has been just natural word of mouth growth. Obviously there's been plenty of points of, you know, slow times that we had to pick up the pace. But I would train my team how to go the approach of business development, how to reach out to people, what to say, things of that nature and kind of help help them get to a point that they feel very comfortable and confident with business development. But the good thing is when we're reaching out to PR firms, we have a pretty good track record. So it's easier to go after business development within our field because we can say we work with your competitors, we help place this, we can name drop, whatever it is. And people feel already comfortable with us that we already know the lay of the land.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:09]:
You know, if you weren't narrowed down in a niche, do you think you'd be able to take on a second project?

Brian Gabay [00:20:14]:
That's a good question. I think so, because I think just my structure model would be a little bit differently. Different. I think I would have specialists in each sector to kind of dominate that area. I used to work at a mid sized recruitment firm. It was completely multi divisional and they represented so many different sectors and industries and they usually had one person kind of owning that function. To answer your question, I think so, yes. It would just be a different, a completely different business model, you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:40]:
Okay, and one more question on that, like, is there people on your team that are kind of concerned about that or how do you like, you know, approach it like with your team or is it just you've given them more power and more reward?

Brian Gabay [00:20:52]:
I should ask them if they're concerned about that. Imagine like, well, this is, God, do it crazy. No, I don't think so. I'm very involved. You know, we have our team meetings every Monday morning. We regroup and strategize for the week. We're talking on teams nonstop, daily. I'm constantly updating everyone.

Brian Gabay [00:21:11]:
So right now, most of the client communication goes through me, but I have another individual on my team that handles also a lot of the client contact and communication. So she's really like, delegating and really updating the team on, you know, new roles and things of that nature. So there's been a lot of help. But, you know, I'm managing. I'm managing. A lot of the leg work is done on the development side. So right now, for me, it's more about selling and getting it out there. I hate we're using the word selling.

Brian Gabay [00:21:40]:
You know what I mean? Getting really, creating buzz and getting it out there, bringing value to people. When you know you have something special, you know, everyone should have it. It's kind of like, how do you make that happen? You know what I'm saying? So that's my mission right now, but at the same time continuing to build and keep my recruiting business in a stable place that we can going back.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:59]:
To the recruiting business. Like, you know, it sounds like you have a freaking awesome team.

Brian Gabay [00:22:03]:
Yeah, yeah, they're.

Benjamin Mena [00:22:04]:
They're awesome. It's like the secret sauce right there. But how did you, like, recruit those people? Like, you know, there's a lot of recruiters out there that are just like, hey, I want to grow a team. And it's just the struggle of, like, you know, maybe I, you know, wrong person, this or that or this or that. But yeah, it sounds like you found some rock stars. Like, what was the secret of finding them?

Brian Gabay [00:22:21]:
Yeah, I remember when I was looking in the beginning, I always said, I just want a good person. A good human being that comes from a good family was like, just good, you know, good strong work ethic. Just good human beings. And I feel like anytime I interviewed anyone, I would ask them some key questions to really get to know them. Not really. Do you want to source? What's your research skills? Have you been on LinkedIn? I don't really ask those questions typically. I've really asked them, you know, who are you? Tell me about your family. You know, not to get invasive or anything, like, personal, but really just kind of like, I just want to get to know them.

Brian Gabay [00:22:54]:
And that was my always my strategy in hiring these people. Every person that's here right now came from actually funny. One of them was a former client. So, yeah, it's pretty wild. And another person actually worked with me in the beginning. She was my second hire, and she left after Covid to explore internal recruiting and actually boomerang back this year in April. So there's a pretty cool story for each person that's here right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:23:21]:
This second project that you've been working on, this idea that, like, it was just, you know, you unplugged, had an idea, wrote it down. It's now hit in development phase. You know, where do you see the future of, like, that business along with the recruiting business going, oh, huge.

Brian Gabay [00:23:37]:
Because first of all, Arrange was built basically to solve a problem for us. You know what I mean? We are the user case, we are the customer. We are recruiters. I saw the gap in the industry, so we're basically solving a problem for us, you know, so I think they both obviously go together well. And yeah, I feel like, you know, we're gonna keep. We use a range right now internally and schedule interviews, and it's the biggest game changer ever. I don't have really baggy eyes. Oh, may I'm Ty.

Brian Gabay [00:24:10]:
It's Friday, so today. But I used to have really big baggy eyes from just scheduling interviews, but those days are gone. Good thing.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:18]:
So real quick, explain what a range actually does. Like, you talked about the. The pain and scheduling interviews because, you know, here's a problem that I have, like, in my space is like, you know, working with the managers. But the problem is, like, I can't really get access to their calendar because they're on, like, some cleared systems that the government controls. Like, how do you, like, juggle? Like, what does it do?

Brian Gabay [00:24:40]:
I'll tell you right now. Great question. You ready for this? Drum roll. Boom, boom, boom. Here we go. So to keep things super simple, right, you have a client, you have a candidate, and you need a separate meeting for both of them, okay? You go into your arranged dashboard, probably under 10 clicks, and your user experience as a recruiter is completely done. You click on your candidate, you click on your client, and you can click on the method of how you want to arrange it. Right now, we have three different methods.

Brian Gabay [00:25:07]:
Let's just start with Matchmaker. It's called. You click on Matchmaker and you click on Arrange. You're done. You can follow now everything on the back end on our live stage tracker so you can see what's going on, see who's done what. And until ultimately the interview gets arranged, you're always still in control. What happens once you click Arrange, Right? Both your client and candidate will receive an email white labeled by your recruiting company. Okay, so basically saying, congratulations, you progressed to the interview phase with the company, your client, blah, blah.

Brian Gabay [00:25:36]:
For the candidate, click here to provide your availability. Both parties click on the Link to provide availability, a super user friendly form pops up. They provide their availability. They can also connect their calendar to show the times that they're free so they don't have to toggle back to different calendars. So everything can be done in this one form. It's very user friendly. So they provide, the client provides, the candidate provides. They're done on the back end.

Brian Gabay [00:26:00]:
You can actually see when each person shared their availability so you can know what's going on. An invite goes out instantly to all parties with the candidate's resume attached with all the details, the zoom details, everything that's needed to be on the calendar invite. Not only does everyone get that invite, they also get a confirmation email with all the details. They can cancel, they can reschedule. They never have to go through you to reschedule this anymore by the way. So you're always removed from the process. It's incredible. Now not only does everyone get an invite, but you as a recruiter, it also pops up on your calendar because you connect your calendar to arrange, so it's on your work calendar, it's on your arrange calendar.

Brian Gabay [00:26:38]:
You're cc'd. You're always in the mix of everything, but all you did was literally six clicks. You never had to email anyone, never have to get back and forth communication, never have to manually send out invites. But the cool thing about this, not only that's great for you, you're giving your clients and candidate a red carpet treatment from working with you. It elevates your brand on all the forms that they fill out. Your logo is actually on there. So it looks like you are actually proprietary scheduling technology that you've created and the user experience both client, I can't tell you. I have like, the clients are like, this is amazing.

Brian Gabay [00:27:12]:
Candidates are like, this is insane. This is so easy. You know, it's smart automation and transparency. People are still able to provide their availability with that transparent human element involved as well. So there's a personal touch all around. It really saves so much time and makes things so pleasant for everyone involved when coordinating these interviews.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:34]:
So real quick, you know, this sounds amazing.

Brian Gabay [00:27:37]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:37]:
What if, what if my clients, because of like the government space that they're in, are not allowed to like integrate their calendars?

Brian Gabay [00:27:44]:
Sure, great question. So when I schedule it, there's an option, you know, those less than 10 clicks. So one of the clicks is choose video meeting mode method. Do you want your client to connect their Zoom or their Google or do you want to connect yours, your Google or Zoom? So in that Case from clients that are a little bit more confidential. If you just choose that you're going to use your Zoom or Google or Microsoft Teams link, whatever, you just click on that, you connect yours. So the invites will have your Zoom details, not theirs. So they're not connecting anything. They're only providing availability.

Brian Gabay [00:28:17]:
Or if your clients like to receive availability versus providing, you would just do the candidate first method, which is the candidate fills out, provides availability, and the client just receives it, clicks, and that's it. They can also add as many hiring managers as they want. If it's a panel meeting, it's awesome. It's very thought out.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:37]:
It's your secret sauce. Like, why do you want your competitors to also have it?

Brian Gabay [00:28:40]:
My competitors, Hey, I built it for everyone. I built it for my competitors. So it's all good. You know what it is? A lot of people have ideas, but not everyone executes. You know what I mean? And I'm grateful that I had this idea and, you know, here I am, completely finalized product. We're ready to go to market, and we're just at an execution phase right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:03]:
When it comes to other people that have an idea that's in the back of their head that they just can't get out.

Brian Gabay [00:29:09]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:10]:
But they know that the core of what their business is and how they make money is recruiting and being a great recruiter.

Brian Gabay [00:29:15]:
Right.

Benjamin Mena [00:29:16]:
What advice would you give to those people that are like, you know what, in 2025, this year, I want to still be a great recruiter, but I want to execute on that idea.

Brian Gabay [00:29:24]:
Do it, do it. Honestly, what is stopping you? You know, really think this through. Time just keeps moving. And if you think ahead in five, ten years from now, where do you want to be? You know, if you have something so special in your mind, if you're not going to do it, someone else will do it. Take the time, sit down, strategize, come up with a business plan, Put your thoughts to paper. First things first. Play around with the idea. Ask people for feedback that you trust and start executing.

Brian Gabay [00:29:59]:
In this day and age, there's so many resources, there's so much tools and just things that can just help you really get more and more confident that your idea can be something really special, you know, so just utilize your resources, but at the end of the day, you just have to do it. It's just like going to the gym. No one wants to shoot. If you show up, that's the. That's the hardest part. You just gotta show up and you gotta show up. It's the same idea. People talk and this before you know it, two years goes by.

Brian Gabay [00:30:29]:
They never did it. You just literally have to do it. Just do it. There's no secret, there's nothing else I can tell you. Just do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:30:37]:
So just do it like in action phase. Like how did you during these development times of like both companies, like how did you time block your calendar for both to keep on working?

Brian Gabay [00:30:46]:
Like they are wild, wild. Early morning calls with the dev team typically helps. So I'm usually done by, I would say around 10:30ish. And that could be like a two hour dev call. Usually they're pretty long. And then after that focus on recruiting for the basically the rest of the day when I have some like time downtime, I'll play around like testing, blah, blah, blah. But to be completely candid, now that we're a point in 2025 that we're really going to market and really need to get this out there, I'm going to have to juggle my calendar more, more so than ever and really find a way to kind of streamline the demo process because it's very time consuming to go on these demos myself and conduct, you know, these conversations with, you know, prospects and whatnot. So my goal for Q1 of 2025 is kind of like automate the demo experience so I can really just send people, you know, maybe videos, tutorials so they can get familiarize themselves with Arrange.

Brian Gabay [00:31:45]:
But the good thing about Arrange it is so user friendly. I can bet anyone that tries it out within 20 minutes, you're going to master it. Like it's really so simple to use.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:58]:
So like you got two businesses.

Brian Gabay [00:32:00]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:00]:
But you're kind of like me. You also have a young one at home.

Brian Gabay [00:32:04]:
Yeah, I do.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:05]:
And you know, everything that you do is, you know, you love the recruiting space, you have passion for our industry, you have passion for your team. Yeah, but we've had conversations offline. I know family comes first for you. Like how do you juggle all that with a tiny human at home too?

Brian Gabay [00:32:19]:
Yeah, it's been really hard. But you know what, you know, it's such a blessing working remotely because you know, I'm in my office all day long, you know, working on both businesses. But I'm so grateful that I can just go upstairs and help out and give my son a hug and play with him for a little bit. Even if it's just for five minutes at a time. I can do that in increments. You know, obviously I gotta eat right. So when I eat I'm usually with him and playing with him. So it's been working out really well.

Brian Gabay [00:32:50]:
I'm in the office about once, once a week. Typically, I go in and we meet up with my team in person. But other than that, six days a week, I'm home, you know, and no matter how busy you are, you gotta prioritize family. Your son's up there and my son's up there. He gets so smiley when he. When he sees me. And that, to me, is worth everything. So I will continue to be always present as a father and juggle both, arrange and bsa.

Brian Gabay [00:33:17]:
You know, at the end of the day, I'm doing this for him, you know, deep down.

Benjamin Mena [00:33:23]:
Well, before we jump over to, like, the quick fire questions, is there anything else you want to talk about? You know, the foundation, you know, time blocking, juggling both the organizations, even, like, what recruiters should be doing when it comes to business development. Kind of like what you've been doing.

Brian Gabay [00:33:40]:
Yeah, yeah, no, of course. I actually recently started doing business development in a different way, which I found really fun and creative and kind of stands out a little bit. To give you an example, there's this PR agency founder that always posts videos of himself, like, dancing on LinkedIn. Like, dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing. And we've never worked with him before, so I'm like, you know what? This guy seems like a cool guy and fun and full of personality. Let me try something a little bit different. I kid you not. I took my cell phone, I put it on camera mode, on video mode, and we were in the office that day, and I'm like, we love your dance moves.

Brian Gabay [00:34:22]:
Look, we can dance too. And, like, I was just going around my office with my teammates. We're just dancing, dancing and dancing. And I'm like. Then after we did that fun little Spiel for, like, 15 seconds, I'm like, hey, you know, wanted to introduce myself. You know, we do a lot of recruiting in your area. Sorry that you're hiring. We would love to help, and maybe we can, once we make a placement, we can all dance together.

Brian Gabay [00:34:45]:
Something like fun and, you know, fun and creative. I sent it to him on LinkedIn messenger. He responded within a second, set up a call, and now we're working together. Stand out, do something a little bit different. People think so much on what to write. How can I get into their, you know, 300 character limit LinkedIn connection? Yes. But everyone does that. So I think the video game is actually pretty, pretty cool.

Brian Gabay [00:35:10]:
And I've been liking it recently. And you don't have to think it through so much. Just do it raw. Just take your phone, just introduce yourself. Hey, what's going on? Blah, blah, blah. I saw this, saw this for this. And send it out. Make it personalized to each person.

Brian Gabay [00:35:22]:
30 to 45 seconds of max. That's it. You're done.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:27]:
Love that the secret's being different. Well, we're going to dance our way over to the quick fire questions.

Brian Gabay [00:35:33]:
Let's do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:35]:
Okay. So like you said that you like to find people in this space that are just great people.

Brian Gabay [00:35:41]:
Yep.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:42]:
And are you teaching them recruiting?

Brian Gabay [00:35:44]:
My recruiting team.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:45]:
Typically, when you find somebody, are you teaching them the recruiting world?

Brian Gabay [00:35:48]:
Oh, yeah, of course. Yeah. Initially, in the beginning, especially, you know, how to recruit, you know.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:53]:
So let's take it back to, like, the first conversation that you would have with your next new hire.

Brian Gabay [00:35:58]:
Sure.

Benjamin Mena [00:35:58]:
They never have been in the recruiting space before.

Brian Gabay [00:36:01]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:01]:
What advice would you give to them that they will have a successful career in our space?

Brian Gabay [00:36:07]:
You're gonna fail a lot. A lot. There's gonna be times that you're gonna make a placement and they're gonna. They're going to quit within a week. There's going to be times that you're going to get a job offer for one of your candidates and they're going to decline it. There's going to be so much time, so many times of failure. But the pros outweigh the cons. Most people quit quickly.

Brian Gabay [00:36:32]:
You need patience in this industry, and that's how you come up on top. Sense of urgency, resilience. Just staying focused is key and being able to roll with the punches. Because if you're not the type that have thick skin and can't deal with failure, you know you're going to end up as a Statistics. The best recruiters are the ones that failed the most.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:56]:
Same question. But for somebody that's been in the block, like somebody listening to this podcast, like they've been recruiting two decades in, based on everything that you've been doing and the success that you've seen and had, what advice would you give to them? To you? Keep on going in this game.

Brian Gabay [00:37:10]:
Keep on going. You got to the point you've been doing this for a long time, so you must be good at this at this point. Right. So clearly you've had a lot of wins and successes in your career, because otherwise you probably. You probably would have quit, you know, this industry, you know, a long time ago if you never got a taste for success. Because that's the addicting part of this Industry is when you get that taste of success, you want to experience it again, so you want to keep going. My best advice to you is that we're entering 2025 and technology is all around us, AI is all around us. And, you know, embrace the technology.

Brian Gabay [00:37:49]:
Not every tool is going to be right for you, but be open minded to it. Be open minded to, you know, there's a lot of people out there reaching out with new tech tools or whatever it is, but sometimes it's worth a listen and just kind of hearing things out because I do feel like most recruiters that are going to get ahead of the game in the future are going to be utilizing a lot, you know, and relying on technology more and more than ever. So just be open minded to it, that's all.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:17]:
Yeah, I mean, that's one of the things we've always been talking about on this podcast, like, what can you automate so you can get back to focusing on the relationships?

Brian Gabay [00:38:24]:
Right, right. Or starting new companies.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:27]:
You know, we're starting. Or starting a new company.

Brian Gabay [00:38:29]:
Yeah, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:38:31]:
What book has had a huge impact on your career in life?

Brian Gabay [00:38:35]:
I would say probably the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, if you're familiar. Great book. It really taught me triage, basically, what am I going to do right now to make the most use of my time? You know, so really time management, working smarter, not harder. And, you know, obviously I don't work four hours a week, let's be real. But I wish, I mean, that would be amazing. Maybe one day. Right. But the point is it really taught me to make things, you know, when you start your day, focus on the priorities first, tackle them, get it done, and then kind of segue into the rest of your day.

Brian Gabay [00:39:15]:
So time management and efficiency and it. And that book really kind of helped me just strategize and be the person I am today, I would say. And how I look at my career, go about my career, and I feel.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:25]:
Like this is going to be an easy answer for you. What is your favorite recruiting tech tool?

Brian Gabay [00:39:29]:
Oh, God, I'm kidding. Obviously. Arrange, come on, arrange all the way. Stop scheduling, start arranging.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:41]:
And when it comes to, you know, you start your career, like literally cold calling for life insurance, which I feel is one of the hardest jobs out there.

Brian Gabay [00:39:49]:
It's so hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:50]:
Like nobody wants to talk to you.

Brian Gabay [00:39:53]:
Yeah, it's insane. It's very hard.

Benjamin Mena [00:39:55]:
And then you, you been recruiting for a bit, had success, then you decided to launch your own firm and then you shut it down because you helped win a home for one of the best placements you've ever made.

Brian Gabay [00:40:05]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:05]:
For a hero in your life, then you've grown in scale like you had a vision to grow. You hit that vision. You had another vision to build a tech company. You've hit that vision. What do you think has been a huge contributor to your personal success?

Brian Gabay [00:40:17]:
Oof. I think it's really just what I really want out of my life in the future. When I retire one day when I'm in like my. I'm thinking mid-60s, whatever, mid-70s, when I'm older, I want just to live a first of all, healthy, comfortable life. And I want to be able to give my children the things I never had in my life growing up, you know, and that motivation is just really inside of me, instilling me. And I just. I'm like a machine. I just don't stop.

Brian Gabay [00:40:49]:
And the self motivation being okay with failure, actually embracing failure. I actually. It's called me crazy when I fail in recruiting or whatever, when things like I get feedback, whatever it is, I actually, in a sick way, I love it because I know I'm step closer to that win. I know it's coming because it's just like anything in life, when you go down, you go back up. So that's really what contributes to my, you know, to my success.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:20]:
I mean, you're self driven, self motivated, like, you know, totally. But at the same time, I also know you, like, you're in the recruiting space. You have some pretty shitty weeks, I'm sure.

Brian Gabay [00:41:28]:
God. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:29]:
How do you. How do you get through those?

Brian Gabay [00:41:30]:
Oh, yeah. How do you get through those? Okay, I'll tell you how you get through it. You go into your fridge, you take a cup and you pour some cold brew in there and you put some whipped cream on it that I have. You call me crazy right now. I swear to God. Cold brew with some whipped cream, maybe some cinnamon, and just give it a little shake. Go back to your desk, put on a song called Jubo. J U B E L.

Brian Gabay [00:41:56]:
Okay. And just get back to work. That is my reset when I'm sinking. I do that probably every single day because there's always downturns. And every day is different. Every day is like you're in the battlefield and you're gonna go through those downs. I'm telling you. Cold brew, whipped cream, little bit cinnamon, give it a little shake, put on Jubel, you're like a new person.

Brian Gabay [00:42:19]:
At least for me it works.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:21]:
I'm gonna have to look up that song once we're done Here.

Brian Gabay [00:42:23]:
Oh, it's fantastic.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:25]:
Well, and okay, next question. I'm going to ask this two different ways.

Brian Gabay [00:42:28]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:28]:
First is going to be like, you know, the very beginning of you starting your recruiting business. Or we'll say maybe not the very beginning. We'll say like once you get past the first few months and you're back in the game again, everything that you know now with how, like what you've done, the working with clients, working with your team, if you could go back in time and have a conversation with yourself, a cold brew, what advice would you give yourself?

Brian Gabay [00:42:52]:
You're going to be very proud of the person you are. If you don't quit. You're going to be very proud of yourself. There's going to be a day that you're going to look back and say to yourself, wow, I built this from scratch.

Benjamin Mena [00:43:07]:
Did you almost quit?

Brian Gabay [00:43:08]:
Oh, yeah. Especially in the beginning. I would say the first, like year, year and a half was probably the scariest, hardest times. I had no income, I wasn't making placements, I had some fall offs, actually. I had to like literally give money back. And I was highly considering going back to another recruiting agency, as in, you know, and just starting back up again. The biggest thing is that when you do this, you have no one else to lean on. When I worked at those firms, I used to lean on my boss.

Brian Gabay [00:43:42]:
I always lean on my, the CEO. I used to lean on my coworkers. I had support and everything. When you do this on your own, you have to lean on yourself. And that's the scariest part. You can't stop, though. That's the hardest thing. It's like you just can't stop.

Brian Gabay [00:44:00]:
You just gotta keep going. Leaning on yourself is. You learn so much about yourself too. You learn who you are as a person, like on a very deep level. You learn how you handle struggle more than you'll ever like, more than anything any, no, no college can teach you this. No, I don't think any, anything can really teach you this. When, just when you're in a position of relying on yourself with everything you.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:25]:
Got that year that you wanted to quit, you wanted to go back, potentially go back to another agency, what was the biggest thing that you evolved from or like, what's the biggest thing that lesson or mindset that you had to learn to keep on going.

Brian Gabay [00:44:38]:
I think the biggest thing would probably be what are you going back to? You know what I mean? Like, if you do quit, right. Would you ever do this again? For me, it's if I'm Quitting. I'm never trying it again. That's my mindset, you know, same question again.

Benjamin Mena [00:44:51]:
But, you know, are we looking back at arranged, like, your first few minutes in, if you got a chance to go back and talk to yourself, then with the developments, troubles that you probably had, you know, taking longer than you probably want.

Brian Gabay [00:45:03]:
Oh, yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:04]:
Investing more than you probably felt like you needed to.

Brian Gabay [00:45:06]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:07]:
What advice would you go back and say to yourself kind of towards the start of the second project?

Brian Gabay [00:45:12]:
Get it out there as soon as possible, even when it's not perfect in your eyes, and just get as much feedback as you can before you start investing more time and money into it. I think that would be the best advice I can give myself in that situation. I think my user case is a little, like, different just because I get obsessive with adding new cool features to a range, just because it's things that I would want as a recruiter and I would like to see because I'm a customer myself. But I think you can do all this without going 150% and, you know, putting all the bells and whistles. You can get it out there as a very basic product and just build around feedback.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:55]:
You know, you talk to a lot of recruiters online I know you're best friends with is somebody I know pretty well. We have great conversations all the time with recruiters, and I'm sure, like, they ask you questions like, how the hell are you doing bd? How are you doing this? Like, why? Like, why are you having fun dancing on videos and getting clients that way? But is there a question that you wish they would actually ask you and what would be that answer?

Brian Gabay [00:46:15]:
Ooh, good question. I wish they would ask me. What inspires you, you know, to keep going, even on the most challenging days? What inspires you to keep going? Because I think all my recruiter friends, anyone in the industry can say that in. You know, there's even, like, Instagram pages of recruiters, recruiter memes that are like, recruiter, life is very hard. Like, you know, we're like, in the. We're, like, in our hospital bed with our laptop and phone recruiting. Like, it just goes to show that people, like, are very stressed in this industry for a reason. Because we're dealing with human beings.

Brian Gabay [00:46:51]:
You know, you can love human beings as a recruiter. You want to work with you and you want to help people. But when you're actually in this industry, you start, like, questioning everyone, like, why? You know, you start like, I don't want to use a hate Word. But you start like disliking human beings, right, Just because you deal with, we deal with a lot of nonsense, you know, when we work so closely with people, you know, in the recruiting space. So I think that would be a question like we all can relate to struggles, we can all relate to challenges, but what inspires you to keep, you know, to keep going. And I think that really sums up everything we spoke about in terms of like that inspiration, that long term vision, the pressure, you know, when it, when it all falls on you, when you're leaning on yourself and how you can't stop and you have to keep going. That all inspires me.

Benjamin Mena [00:47:36]:
Oh, that's awesome. Well, this has been an awesome, phenomenal interview. Before I let you go, two things. First of all, how can people follow you?

Brian Gabay [00:47:43]:
Sure, of course. Just go to our range. No, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Follow me in many ways. In many ways. So you can follow me on LinkedIn, of course, Brian Gabbay. But going back, let'sarrange IO is the arrange website.

Brian Gabay [00:47:59]:
If you want to check it out, we're offering a free 30 day trial to anyone that wants to test it. Use it, all the bells and whistles, completely free for 30 days. And honestly, send me a DM. I'm an open book. I'm here to help. You know, look, I'm still growing, I'm still learning. I'll never stop, we all will never stop learning every single day. And I'm just, I'm on this journey with you guys.

Brian Gabay [00:48:22]:
We're all in this together, honestly. And you know, just be the best version of yourself every single day. That's all you can ask for. If you can do that, you're in for a treat.

Benjamin Mena [00:48:31]:
Well, I think you just summed it up what I was going to ask you, but is there anything else that you want to share with the listeners?

Brian Gabay [00:48:40]:
I mean, I think you know that. But overall, sum this all up. Recruiting is a very, you know, tough, tough industry, but it's so rewarding. So, you know, just keep going, keep showing up every single day. Help people, help people get better. If you do that, you're going to just become a proud recruiter and a better recruiter just by helping people. And being proud is it just makes you feel good. And when you feel good, you can recruit better.

Brian Gabay [00:49:13]:
But don't ever forget to put whipped cream in cold brew and a little bit cinnamon and give it a little shake and juvel and hit reset and get back to work.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:23]:
That's the secret. Get back to work. But this has been an awesome interview, Brian. Like, you know, I know we initially came on to talk about the structure and the foundation that a recruiter has to do if they want to spin multiple plates, if they want to chase multiple dreams while still having the core recruiting business, but, man, we got deep. I still, like, love the story that you recruited somebody that saved your dad's life, and that person has now become a sister.

Brian Gabay [00:49:45]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:49:46]:
And you wouldn't have wanted a house, which is even better. So, kiddo, is that. But, man, talk about an awesome interview. And for the recruiters out there listening, it's 2025. Make this the year of abundance. Do something different. Maybe dance real quick on a video and send it to a client if they're doing a lot of dancing.

Brian Gabay [00:50:00]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:01]:
But this is the year to do something different. Put in the work and make the 2025 the year of abundance so you can go chase your dreams.

Brian Gabay [00:50:07]:
Cheers to that. Cheers to that.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:09]:
Thank you, guys. And keep crushing it.