Episode 44 – 1600 Executive Placements with David Perry – Part 1

Ottawa headhunter, David Perry Ottawa headhunter, recruiter, and author of seven books including: Hiring Greatness (Wiley, 2016), Executive Recruiting for Dummies (Wiley, 2017) and Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters 3.0 (Wiley, 2011) David Perry had an unusual start—both as a recruiter and in life.

The son of an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy, David was born in Quebec City with heart complications that should have ended his life before it started. But against all odds he survived one-of-a-kind heart surgery in Denver Colorado in 1971 developing a doggedly optimistic strength along the way. And although David’s keen understanding of both business and people was obvious from an early age, (he started his first company at age 8 and sold it to a school mate when he was hospitalized for 9 months) it wasn’t until a few years into a career as a manager for Consumers Distributing that he accidentally stumbled into his first search.

It was the beginning of an ’empire’ for the Ottawa headhunter. As managing partner for Perry-Martel International, David has billed more than 60,000 hours during 35+ years of recruiting and executive search projects which have totaled more than $400M in salary.

His first hire, years ago, set the tone for a career and business that could politely be described as unconventional. Stepping into a new role as store manager at the former Consumers Distributing, David was brought in to deal with ongoing management and labor issues. It wasn’t long before under-performing staff threatened to quit their jobs collectively, so David … Read More