We’re honored to announce that Sara Riggs has been promoted from Vice President of Recruiting to Senior Vice President and Head of Swoon Staffing.

Sara has had quite the journey at Swoon, and we are so proud to see her rise through the ranks and accomplish everything she has set out to accomplish.

See what Sara had to say about the future of Swoon!

What excites you about the future of Swoon as a whole?

“The opportunity – there is so much opportunity at Swoon, and it’s yours for the taking. Our growth over the past 13 years has been tremendous, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”

What do you think makes Swoon so unique?

“The people – our Swooners are what make Swoon so special. There is so much inspirational collaboration, pride, intensity, motivation, strong leadership, and a strong desire to succeed.”

What are you most excited about with taking on this new role?

“I’m excited to create even more collaboration between Sales and Recruiting. We need each other to be successful. It’s a true partnership – a relationship and synergy that works best together and in lockstep. I’m excited and honored to take this partnership to the next level!”

The next few years will be the most exciting as we all work towards our goal of beating $1B in revenues, and Sara’s leadership for Swoon Staffing will promote that growth and help us achieve our goal.

“Sara leads with sincere humility, a style of leadership that focuses on identifying with others to understand their point of view. She is approachable and genuinely inspires the team with clear direction and goals. She is an incredible mentor for all of us at Swoon as she can execute, implement, and make big things happen, all while keeping everything tremendously fun,” Lori, President.

With the new year comes exciting changes and a new chapter for Swoon!

We are excited to announce that Lori Miller (Kalbfleisch), former Executive Vice President of Sales, is making history by becoming Swoon’s first female President.

Lori’s journey within Swoon has been nothing short of amazing. She began as a Technical Recruiter in Swoon’s sister company at the time, NextGen Global Resources. Then, she transitioned to Swoon and quickly rose through the ranks as the Director of Relationship Management and Professional Recruiting, Vice President of Major Accounts and then the Executive Vice President of Sales.

Swoon has a strong foundation and culture at all levels, and we will continue to grow within our industry because of the people that make up Swoon. Having Lori as our President will push us to our next stage, and we are excited for the journey ahead.

See what Lori had to say about the future of Swoon!

What excites you the most about being President and the future of Swoon?

“This team can make magic happen. Swoon doesn’t seem to set boundaries for what we are capable of, which means the next 10 years will be incredibly exciting and filled with unexpected opportunities! The Swoon team aspires to be an extraordinary organization rather than an ordinary one. This ambition means that not every day is easy, but every day is worth it. Swoon Staffing and Consulting service endeavors to be a benchmark in the industry and among the best in the world.”

What do you think makes Swoon so special?

“It is rare to find a staffing company where contractors, clients, and internal employees that you speak with all say, “I love Swoon.” We have worked hard to put ourselves on the map… and we have caught the audiences’ attention! That is a testament to our talent and what we do here together as Swooners.”

There is no doubt that Swoon will continue its growth trajectory under Lori’s leadership with more success, collaboration, and wins.

“The Women’s Initiative Network (W.I.N.) at Swoon focuses on enabling women’s voices, breaking biases, celebrating women, and championing success with strong allyships. The appointment of Lori Miller (Kalbfleisch) as Swoon’s first female President is monumental and historic for our organization. Most who have worked under Lori’s leadership recognize her passion and determination to represent the Swoon brand with the utmost responsibility and respect. Aside from always driving the business forward with innovation and collaboration, she has always been involved in our community, charity, and DE&I initiatives. We are proud to have many women in leadership positions throughout Swoon and strongly empower each one to keep growing in their careers. Lori sets the bar high as an example of the organic growth we foster here, and we cannot wait to see where Swoon goes under her leadership,” Mark DeDeckere, Chair of Women’s Initiative Network.

Swooner of the Quarter recognizes one of our team members for going above and beyond for the quarter. Swooners submit nominations describing how that individual made the most impact and why they deserve this award.

This quarter’s winner was Emma Mitchell. As a Manager of Major Account Development, she always brings consistent value to both the sales and recruiting team she works with. She never shies away from a challenge and always puts her best foot forward!

Title: Manager, Major Account Development

Peer Quotes

“She has taken on a whole new team this quarter (managing 3 new people), aligned with new clients, and has continued to surpass her metrics and have the top weekly margin! #ROCKSTAR”

“I’d like to nominate Emma Mitchell. It has always been a pleasure to work with her, however, over the last several months while managing and working with her directly, her work ethic is fantastic which absolutely shows in her numbers.”

“50K Weekly Margin — just pushing the limits of what Swooners think we can do. Inspiring!”

“She is the true definition of a hustler! Constantly out-performing and acting as a true partner to our team. We would be lost without her!”

Emma has taken the bull by the horns and worked diligently to reach new heights. Congratulations on her success, and we’ll be watching with excitement to see her whether through future initiatives.

Women have continued to rise in the face of adversity. They are doing more to support their teams and advance DE+I efforts than their male counterparts (McKinsey). They even take less time off after having a baby or surgery because they fear losing the position that they worked so hard to achieve. However, their work typically goes unnoticed and is unappreciated by most organizations.

Join us in part 2 of A Win for Swoon: Celebrating Influential Women in Business. Where our panel will discuss their career journeys, how to make room for continued learning, balancing work-life, risks they have taken, and advice they have for other women in leadership.

Panel

Catherine Grosz – Manager, Corporate Membership at WBE Canada

Rene Gellerman – President and CEO at United Way Quad Cities

Quyen Pham – Vice President, Swoon Consulting

Sara Riggs – Vice President, Recruiting at Swoon

Tatyanna Sarjeant – Major Account Manager and member of the Women’s Initiative Network at Swoon

Tatyanna: What is one thing you wish someone had told you during your career journey?

Sara: Your career journey is unique to you. It is your journey, do it your way. There will be challenges and things thrown your way, and you may need to pivot, but you cannot let those things hold you back. You are not always going to get it right, which is okay. You just need to learn from your mistakes.

Take your time, do the right thing, lead with honesty and transparency, and keep learning. Make sure you have a robust support system and mentors to help you along the way but remember that you are in the room for a reason, and sometimes you need to be your own cheerleader and go for what you want. Believe in yourself!

Tatyanna: How do you make room for continued learning?

Quyen: Continued learning is essential no matter what you do. So, how do you not make room for it? Earlier this month, I was on a different panel where I talked about the McKinsey study of women in the workplace. In this study, they talk about how when you have a diversity of ethnicity and women in your leadership and executive ranks, as a company, you are outperforming profitability in the double digits. So, it is not only about the feel-good factor or the social right and responsibility. It comes down to dollars and cents. So ultimately, that question comes down to how do we not do it?

The first step is to be naturally curious as individuals, and the second is to be naturally curious about your own unconscious biases. For example, we might think that we are very inclusive. Still, I recommend that everyone takes the journey to look into what unconscious biases you have and how they might be impacting your decision-making. Ask yourself questions like, who you are allying with, who you are working with more closely, who you might bond with more and therefore give them more opportunities. It is crucial to figure that out for yourself as a leader and an individual contributor, no matter your role. It is essential to understand yourself and be aware of it.

I also recommend reading the book, Unconscious Bias because it talks about how it impacts corporations and companies. There is so much information for us to be curious about and learn. From there, understand and identify biases in your workplace and begin to educate yourself in the organization and how unconscious bias impacts the organization. Another vital aspect to consider is tying that back to ROI for your company. No matter what we are doing, we are still businesses, and we are still searching for ways for us to be successful. It is not only the right thing to do because that is obvious, but it is also proven to be a good business decision – to have diversity in your team and diversity in your leadership. It is critical for long-term success for the company, so it is not about making room for diversity but prioritizing it and continuing to educate yourself as an individual and pushing your company to as well.

Tatyanna: How do you balance your work-life and personal life as a leader?

Catherine: Work-life balance is very different from person to person. I want to share how I balanced my work life over the many years of being a single parent. I started back in corporate Canada with an 18-month and a 3-year-old. Thankfully I had a very wise mentor, my mother, who always stressed that the first 5 years of a child’s life are their most informative years and nurture that. I have had many mentors while having a young family that instilled in me that work-life balance is not just a nice to have. It is a necessity because you only get so much time with them.

So, I took on roles within my purview of understanding where my priorities were. My children are my priority, and that is not to say that I did not want to give 100% to my job. It just means that I had a different way of evaluating if a new role was a fit for me or not. I would take on roles, especially leadership roles, where I could give 100% to my family and 100% to my job. Moving up in my career was not always a possibility, so once my children were grown adults, I was able to focus on my career. That was when my work-life balance changed once again. I was able to take on more leadership roles, work more, and put more into my work instead of balancing the two.

I have been hearing from some women entrepreneurs that they have left their corporate Canada senior leadership roles to have a better work-life balance. For example, I recently had a conversation with a woman who told me that she took 6 weeks to recuperate after her son was born and went right back to work. When I asked her why, she stated that she had worked so hard to get into that leadership role that she did not want to get passed up for a promotion or lose the role altogether.

In conclusion, it is safe to say that when balancing work-life, make sure that you know your priorities and understand your support system. For example, are you the key source of income in your household? Is it okay to miss that parent/teacher conference or recital? Whatever it is, work closely with your current employer to ensure that you do not miss out on any upcoming life opportunities.

Tatyanna: What is the biggest risk that you have taken as a leader and why?

Rene: In 2020, during the time of the George Floyd murder and Black Lives Matter, I had to decide how we were going to react. Being the largest nonprofit leader in our community that has been working on closing the opportunity gaps by paying lip service to it but not demonstrating that in significant ways, I knew we had to do something that we have never done before. I could not wait to see what others were doing either, so I gathered our team together, who is not very diverse, to develop a plan of action. We put out a statement immediately, but we also took action to follow that up. This is where our 21-day equity challenge came about, which we still do to this day, and it is now in several communities across the United States. For this challenge, we invited the people in our community to sign up for a daily email to better understand what biases might be, what it means to be an ally, what the realities are in our community and the challenges people of color face. From there, we produced an equity summit. 

I say that was a risk only because I did not know if we would say the right things, and then with the 21-day equity challenge, there were some things that I was sure would bother some of the stakeholders. So I had to balance that risk, and I will say, it paid off. I am proud of our work. Now, our community looks to United Way as being committed to closing achievement and opportunity gaps for people of color.

Tatyanna: What is one piece of advice that you have for those in our audience today?

Sara: You can do anything that you put your mind to. You should get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself because hard work does not go unnoticed. We often talk about that at Swoon – promoting from within, being an earn your stripes organization, and how success breeds success. I genuinely believe that you can achieve it if you put your mind to it. There is a support system to help, guide, and cheerlead you along the way, but do it, improve yourself, and benefit from it.

Catherine: As women, we are emotional beings. I know that I have sometimes let my emotions oversee the constructive criticism I have received in my career. Studies have shown that women are more risk-averse than men, whether in business, their finances, or their lives. So, my advice would be not to be so afraid. Take a step back and look at where you are in relation to where you want to be. Then, ask yourself, what steps do I need to take to get there? If you come across a brick wall, how will you knock that wall out and get to your next step? Once I did that in my career, I had more confidence to say, enough is enough. This is where I want to be, and I will get there.

Rene: My advice would be to stay curious. I was the first person to graduate from college in my family. My mother was an alcoholic and manic-depressive. No one ever predicted that I would end up where I am. I credit that to always being curious, a lifelong learner. I never assume that I know it all, and I value other people’s opinions. Being curious and a learner inspires you to challenge the status quo and take those risks.

On the other hand, make sure to surround yourself with people that can build on you. Madeleine Albright had this saying that there is a special place in hell for women who do not support other women. Sometimes we tend to get a little competitive, and we need to overlook that. I will say I have noticed that about Swoon, everyone roots for each other, which is absolutely amazing.

Quyen: I will emphasize one thing that was previously mentioned, and that is taking risks. As women, we do not tend to take many risks because we have a lot of fear around the unknown. There is a syndrome that we all have, and everyone has, not just women, which is imposter syndrome. It is natural, and I think we have to remind ourselves that everyone suffers from it when doing something new. To be able to see the unknown as something exciting is what we should all strive for – to see that there is a risk and still put yourself out there to go for it. Those are the times that you will learn the most in your careers. Those are the times that you will grow the most, which allows you to discover your strengths and see what you are truly capable of.

There will be times in your career when you will fail, and that is okay. Taking risks was something that I struggled with as I am a little risk averse. Being an Asian woman in a leadership position, I did not want to take risks because I thought I might lose everything I had fought so hard for. However, one of my mentors told me something that helped me overcome that sort of fear that I had. If you get something 60% right, you will be successful, and that is okay because that 40% that you do not get right, you are going to learn from, which is even better for you to continue to grow and move forward. So, I have always taken that mentality of just taking the risk because if I could figure it out 60% of the time, I would get it right, and that will be just fine. So, I would say, women, men, whoever it may be, take the risk because that is how you learn and grow. 

Click here to read the first part of our WIN panel discussion!

Swooner of the Quarter recognizes one of our team members for going above and beyond for the quarter. Swooners submit nominations describing how that individual made the most impact and why they deserve this award.

This quarter’s winner was Julia Haas. As a Talent Acquisition Specialist, Julia has absolutely crushed it this quarter. In the last two weeks of December, she placed 4 NDC Recruiters (which is pretty unheard of). She does it all with the best attitude, always happy and ready to help!

Title: Talent Acquisition Specialist

Peer Quote

“Julia has worked tirelessly on finding solid talent for my team. She has stepped up so much over the last few months and assisted in taking on tasks for other team members. She really owns the process of TA and working with hiring leads. She is open to feedback and direction. The NDC would not exist without her work.”

Julia chose a career in Talent Acquisition because she loves getting to connect with so many amazing people from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences each and every day.

“It’s so rewarding getting to represent Swoon and guide candidates through our interview process, potentially placing them into their dream career with us!”

See why she Swoons here:

“There are so many wonderful pieces of Swoon that I get to talk to candidates about every day. From the fun, driven, collaborative company culture we have fostered to the endless growth opportunities, all while working alongside some of the most hard-working people I know. So there is never a shortage of amazing things to speak about when it comes to why someone should join our team.”

We asked Julia what her professional and personal goals are, and she sums it up perfectly!

“Our team has some big goals now and for the future of Swoon. Right now, we’re expanding our newly established office in Phoenix, Arizona, while also hiring across departments for various sales and recruiting positions. As we keep growing, we want to continue bringing in top talent team members that are passionate about their work within Swoon and developing an inclusive, dynamic, and driven team culture.”

“I want to continue learning and growing every day. I love that Swoon supports our individual career growth and actively works with us to make that happen. I can’t wait to see the goals and milestones we’ll continue to reach as a company, and I am excited to be a part of it!”

We are excited to announce that Swoon has been named one of Chicago’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For!

To receive this award, companies are evaluated based on various categories. The categories include compensation, benefits and employee solutions, employee enrichment, engagement and retention, employee education and development, recruitment, selection and orientation, employee achievement and recognition, communication and shared vision, diversity and inclusion, work-life balance, community initiatives, and strategic company performance.

“The Best and Brightest is a powerful community of elite leaders who share ideas and practices and have proven they are employers of choice. Best and Brightest winning companies have also been a voice for important actions in creating a sustainable culture that works, ensuring the wellbeing of their employees comes first,” said Jennifer Kluge, President and CEO, Best and Brightest Programs.

We are honored to have received this award for the second year. Thank you to our wonderful human resources team, leadership team, and all of our employees.

Introducing our Q4 – Swooner of the Quarter, Maggie Becker!

What is Swooner of the Quarter?

Swooner of the Quarter recognizes one of our team members who went above and beyond during that quarter. Swooners submit their nominations describing how that person made the most impact and why they deserve this award.

Maggie Becker

Title: Senior Direct Hire Recruiter

Why she was nominated:

Maggie is the missing piece to the Direct Hire team! She is a team player, a strong resource, a recruiting Rockstar and is always super positive. Not only has she won Top Duck once in her short time here, she has won it twice for all of her hard work and dedication!

Quote from nomination:

“From day 1, Maggie has knocked it out of the park and led by example. She truly is the definition of the ideal Swooner. She never shies away from hard work and always fights to find that perfect candidate.

In her short amount of time here, she already has a placement on the board and more offers coming! She works well with clients, listens to their needs, and provides solutions to overcome objections. She collaborates well with sales, sharing her search updates and brainstorming strategies. I can’t wait to see what 2021 brings for her!”

We are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded with ClearlyRated’s Best of Staffing Diamond award for the 6^th consecutive year!

What does this award mean?

This award is given to companies who have proven their commitment to go above and beyond in support of their clients. To earn this for 6 consecutive years means that our clients recognize our exceptional service year after year. We know that excellent service is an ongoing journey and not something that just happens overnight.

“After one of the most turbulent years in modern history, winners of the 2021 Best of Staffing Award have proven their commitment to go above and beyond in support of their clients and placed talent,” said ClearlyRated’s CEO and Founder, Eric Gregg. “These service leaders have demonstrated their capacity to be agile, to be precise, and to prioritize the client and talent experience above all else.”

Thank you to our team for their dedication and their ability to constantly go above and beyond for our clients and contractors!

Written in conjunction with Joe Matalone – Executive Vice President, Chris Thrall – Director of Talent Solutions and Colin Harris – Business Development Lead.

With many companies starting to kick up their hiring initiatives again, they need to figure out the best hiring process for their company.

Since COVID-19 left many furloughed, the talent pool has grown substantially. Something that we haven’t seen in years. Below, we will discuss direct hire, contract-to-hire and temporary processes and the best situations in which to use them.

Recap of Definitions

Direct Hire Placement: A staffing agency adds permanent staff directly to another company’s payroll.

Temp Staffing: A candidate is hired as a solution for unpredictable workloads, project work, seasonal peaks and other short-term needs such as a leave of absence. They are employed by the staffing agency and all positions have an established timeframe.

Contract-to-Hire: The selected candidate begins their employment contract on the staffing agency’s payroll, not the client’s. They are placed in a short-term position for a set period, with the possibility of being hired as a full-time employee at the end of that contract.

Advantages

Direct Hire:

• The candidate is sourced as a full-time employee from day one. This allows you to avoid the annuity costs associated with contract/contract-to-hire employees and your new hires feel that they are part of the team right away.
• Direct hire roles are more attractive to passive candidates. Thus, allowing you to see a higher number of highly qualified candidates.
  • This is evident because you can offer better perks and benefits packages to attract the type of prospective candidates you are looking for.
• Typically, there is stronger employee commitment. These employees often have a better sense of stability and security within the company that they are placed in.

Contract/Temp Employees:

• Saves your company time and money. These employees allow you to get the help that your company needs quickly without the cost and effort of recruiting and hiring full-time staff members.
• Offers flexibility by helping companies fill openings quickly that are caused by seasonal demand or employee absence. This way, companies can meet demands while not overstaffing or requiring current team members to take on more tasks.
• You can tap into skills that you currently don’t have inhouse. This way, you can quickly complete projects that your current team members don’t have the skills or experience.

Contract-to-Hire:

• The ability to experience a trial run. You can “try before you buy” and minimize the risk of an employee not being a fit long-term. 
• There is more budget flexibility.
  • These positions can give a company the time to work a new full-time employee into the budget while still getting the work done.
  • Contract-to-hire employees are typically not eligible for benefits until they become a full-time employee. However, in most cases, they get the option of receiving benefits through the staffing agency they are working with.
  • The employees are typically only paid on an hourly basis for the specific hours worked rather than a fixed salary.
• You can save on specialized skills that you don’t already have in-house. Contractors can help you complete projects that require skills and experience that your full-time staff doesn’t already have.
• Contract-to-hire can help you accommodate growth. We can’t always predict when growth or expansion needs to happen, and this can be extremely difficult for your full-time employees to take on additional work themselves when they have a full workload already. During these times, you can leverage contract staffing to complete the necessary extra work.

How Does Contract-to-Hire Work?

When you use a staffing agency to fill contract-to-hire positions, they will handle many of the front-end recruiting tasks, such as:

• Sourcing candidates
• Reviewing resumes
• Conducting initial screenings

Once a candidate has moved through these stages, they will be passed along to the client for final interviews. The company will then make the final decision with insights and guidance from the staffing agency if needed. Once a candidate is selected and accepts an offer, they will begin their employment contract on the staffing agency’s payroll rather than the client’s.

The duration of these contract-to-hire positions varies from one month to being indefinite. However, they will usually run from three to twelve months. In most situations, the client will have the opportunity to convert the contractor to a full-time hire in a manner that meets their needs.

Why Would a Company Dismiss the Idea of Hiring a Contractor?

When it comes to a company dismissing the idea of hiring a contractor, a few things come to mind.

• Contractors can be more expensive than hiring a full-time employee, depending on the situation.
  • It’s more cost-effective to pay for a full-time employee than a contractor if you are going to keep them on for 2-3 years in some cases.
  • Operating expenses (OPEX) are the cost of doing business, such as employee wages, utilities, insurance, and rent required for the day-to-day functioning of a company (including employee wages). In contrast, a capital expense (CAPEX) is an expense that a business incurs to create a benefit in the future (such as an IT project to upgrade a system that could require contractors to come in and complete that project). OPEX and CAPEX are treated quite differently for accounting and tax purposes and could be the reason for hiring one over the other.
• Companies don’t want to lose intellectual property. However, as a company hiring a contractor, you can have a written agreement executed before the commencement of the employment relationship. This agreement can assign to the company any and all intellectual property created by the employee during their employment with the company.
• Companies don’t have a history of hiring contractors and are unaware of the process – this is where we can come into play and help you understand the best path for your needs.
• Companies have budgetary challenges and might not be able to afford the contractor fees on top of the full-time employee fees if they choose to hire after the contract is up.
• Employees miss out on getting proper integration into the company culture.
• A company is challenged to bring in revenue, thus putting projects on hold that they could bring in a contract-to-hire to complete.

Why is Direct Hire Skyrocketing During COVID-19 and Not Contract-to-Hire?

At the beginning of this recession, we thought that we would see an increase in contract-to-hire over direct hire placements. When asked, Joe Matalone – EVP, had a great response to why he believes that direct hire placements are skyrocketing now.

“I think we can find our answers here in analyzing the U.S. stock market and employment data at the beginning, middle and present times of COVID-19.

Beginning of COVID-19: What we saw in the very early days of COVID was simply confusion at all levels as it came at us so quickly – which frankly jolted the global markets. Millions were furloughed during the pandemic, with a record 20.5 million U.S. jobs lost in April. However, some companies were and still are hiring thousands of new employees to keep up with shifting consumer demands and spending habits. That being said, some employers may have cut too deeply (particularly in the departments of Talent Acquisition) and have now realized that they need to hire again and hire quickly to maintain any competitive edge. Suddenly, there is a fresh wave of talent that the employers have not seen in many years due to the historical run of strong overall employment numbers.

Present Day: Fast forward to the present; it feels like the market is tightening again in specific skillsets, most notably in digital and technology, which were more resilient to the downturn. It’s almost as if we’re not in a recession any longer.

Final Thoughts: I think this will be the fastest end to a recession ever! Some areas of the market will take longer to recover, such as travel/retail/hospitality. Some employees that had been placed on leave, laid off, or maybe not treated so nicely during the last few months are looking and have options. You add in the embracement and acceleration of hiring remote workers now, and the talent pool gets very large.

During economic downturns, candidates are unwilling to leave their current “permanent” position for anything but a direct-hire position. When the country is in the middle (or hopefully tail end) of a pandemic, benefits such as health insurance are top-of-mind for everyone.”

Joe Matalone – EVP at Swoon

Conclusion

It’s important that you take a look at what is best for your company at that time. What works for one company might not necessarily work for yours. Will your company benefit more from having a direct-hire placement for a full-time employee, a temporary contractor or a contract-to-hire so that you may “try before you buy”? There is no right or wrong answer. It all just comes down to what you think will be the best, and if you have any questions along the way, we are always here to help!

Introducing our Q2 – Swooner of the Quarter, Shanda Coppage!

Swooner of the Quarter recognizes one of our team members for going above and beyond. Swooners submit nominations describing how they made the most impact.

Shanda Coppage

Title: Training Manager, Talent Development

Location: Chicago

Why She Was Nominated: Shanda was nominated by numerous Swooners for Swooner of the Quarter – Q2 because she is constantly going above and beyond and has amazing work ethic and determination!

During the pandemic, Swoon invested in our team and hired 30 new Business Development Managers and summer interns. Shanda was an integral part in onboarding all of these individuals remotely – something Swoon has never done. She worked around the clock to make sure all the new hires received any and all support they needed. She did an amazing job and we are so lucky to have her!

Quote from Nomination: “Shanda has revamped so much of the training material to be remote. I also can’t imagine the DuckU (our internal training classes) weeks spent with all our new BDMs. She is always ready to help point the new recruiters in the right direction as well as provide resources for them to further their learning. Shanda has really gone above and beyond this last quarter!”