How To Become The Recruiter Everyone Refers

Benjamin Mena [00:00:00]:
Do you realize that 2026 is almost over? Do you realize that COVID was almost 7 years ago? Crazy, right? But here's the thing. I truly believe that a short window of time and a short sprint can absolutely change your life. And who cares what has happened so far this year? That is the reason why Finish the Year Strong, the summit kicking off September 28th through October 5th, is going to help you get there. Is going to inspire you. It is going to motivate you. It is going to teach you. Remember, all the live sessions are free. If you want to get the replays, VIP, or join the Elite Recruiter Community, this is your opportunity to draw on the line in the sand.

Benjamin Mena [00:00:40]:
Make sure that you get registered. And we're going to be doing one more thing this year. Something brand new that we have not done before. We're going to do a Firm Leaders Summit on November 16th to 18th. Same thing. Live sessions are free. Make sure you get registered for both of those. And if you guys want a good laugh, I almost thought about doing the Firm Owners Summit, and then I realized so many of us are leaders no matter where we are in the organization.

Benjamin Mena [00:01:06]:
We are a leader in the firm. So what I switched it up to, Firm Leaders Summit. These are the 2 opportunities for you to get educated, get on board, grow, and absolutely crush the rest of the year and set yourself up as a foundation For 2027. I truly believe in you. I'm excited for you. I'm excited that the impact that you're going to have on your desk and other people's lives because of what you're capable of doing. I'll see you there. Coming up on this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast.

April Ben-Sabat [00:01:43]:
I think it's crazy that people are using like robots to interview people right now. I think that most of the human connection or communication aside from the first message going out should not be automated. I was just like, okay, I'm gonna half hand in my resignation, but like, let me give them a heads up right now so that I have to go through with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:06]:
And then did you start game planning, like what business to start with them?

April Ben-Sabat [00:02:11]:
Uh, so—

Benjamin Mena [00:02:13]:
Welcome to the Elite Recruiter Podcast with your host Benjamin Mena, where we focus on what it takes to win in the recruiting game. We cover it all from sales, marketing, mindset, money, leadership, and placements. Atlas is a CRMx, a CRM that actually understands context. It captures everything you say, hear, read, and write. Every interview, client call, LinkedIn message, email, and WhatsApp automatically. Not because you spent the time entering it. It's because Atlas is always listening. Then it goes one step further and tells you the next action to take.

Benjamin Mena [00:02:50]:
So when you need to fill a role, People Search ranks the best candidates and tells you why. No digging required. The same memory turns BD into a shortlist of who to chase and why. So So you win more clients. Need to see your pipeline? Speak to your dashboards and Atlas builds a view automatically tracking whatever matters to you. Whether you place permanent or contract, Atlas covers both with a new contract suite. That means you never have to chase a timesheet again and live margin visibility on every single placement. And with its new MCP and API, Atlas plugs into your, your LLMs, Claude, ChatGPT, and the rest of your stack.

Benjamin Mena [00:03:23]:
The low-value work that keeps you from billing, Atlas does it for you. Atlas customers right now are saying that they're seeing a 50% higher candidate response rates. A 35% increase in new clients won, 15 hours saved every week, monthly billings jumping 85%, and agencies hitting 150% of their annual revenue target by building their business with Atlas. If you want more information, check out Recruit with Atlas. I am excited about this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast because this guest is going to be speaking at Finish the Year Strong. And as of the recording right now, she actually has the most RSVPs out of every single talk for that summit. Things could change, but at the moment she is leading the pack, and that is going to be kicking off at the very end of September. So you do not want to miss the power-packed week to help you finish the year strong.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:11]:
But here's what I'm excited about: IRL. And for everybody that's like younger than me, you know exactly what that is. My generation is like, what the hell is IRL? In real life. In real life events is— I'm watching Move the Needle For so many recruiters right now. And that's one of the things that we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about how you can make a networking event work, how you can make a networking event a referral engine that brings you business. On top of that, I'm also going to talk about AI because she's actually building her own tools. So when she gets a job order, the AI tools that she has built with Claude literally are giving her the candidates that are ready to rock and roll.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:49]:
So April, I am excited about this episode. Excited to have you on the podcast.

April Ben-Sabat [00:04:55]:
I am very excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Benjamin Mena [00:04:59]:
So I'm just going to dive right in. First of all, you became an accidental recruiter.

April Ben-Sabat [00:05:05]:
I did. I did.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:08]:
Walk me through the position that you had before you became a recruiter. In the interview, what did they ask you?

April Ben-Sabat [00:05:17]:
So during my interview, they asked the classic question, Where are you gonna be in 5 years? And I said, listen, I'm, I'm gonna be owning a business in 5 years. So whether it's with you guys or on my own, that's kind of my plan. And they were into it. They were like, okay, sounds good. Let's do it.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:35]:
And how many years were you there before you actually pulled the trigger?

April Ben-Sabat [00:05:38]:
I was there for 6 years, actually 5 years before I pulled the trigger. Then I stayed for an extra year before going full-time.

Benjamin Mena [00:05:47]:
And this is gonna sound crazy. Who convinced you to start a recruiting business?

April Ben-Sabat [00:05:55]:
It's a funny story. So, uh, it was actually my boss, the owner of the company. We had became very close. I had came to them. I, there was 2 owners. I had came to them. I, I told them, guys, I love you, but I'm gonna start my own thing. And, uh, I hadn't known what I wanted to start at the time.

Benjamin Mena [00:06:16]:
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. You didn't know what you were gonna start, but you actually walked to your boss and said like, hey, I'm gonna go do something. Like, how, like, I've, I, I have literally been working at companies where if I even mentioned the thought of looking, or even, even if I thought I was looking, they would've walked me out the door.

April Ben-Sabat [00:06:34]:
Yeah. Uh, yeah. Thinking back to it now sounds a little crazy. I won't lie. It sounds a little crazy, but honestly, I had developed such strong relationships with, um, these 2 guys that I was very comfortable and I also was a very instrumental part of the company, so I wanted to give them as much warning as possible. And I knew if I didn't tell them, then I might not do it. So I was just like, okay, I'm gonna half hand in my resignation, but like, let me give them a heads up right now so that I have to go through with it.

Benjamin Mena [00:07:07]:
And then did you start game planning, like what business to start with them?

April Ben-Sabat [00:07:13]:
So, I had a bunch of ideas, but honestly, my whole life it was always like, I want to start a business, but I don't know what. So, I just started exploring ideas in my head, but we started— basically, we started looking for someone to help us replace me because I was such an instrumental part. I did a lot of things and I was maxed out. There was no chance that I was going to Recruit another me. So we started looking for a transport-specific recruiter because it's a very intricate industry and I couldn't find one. And I go to my boss and I'm like, hey, like trying to find a transport recruiter, but I can't find anyone. I don't really know who we should use. And he was like, why don't you start a recruiting agency? And I was like, huh? I was like, that's interesting.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:05]:
And that's how it started.

April Ben-Sabat [00:08:06]:
That's how it started. That's how I, I, you know, I started thinking about it. There was a lot of things that aligned. It was a service-based business, low startup cost. I had been recruiting for the company for the last 6 years. I was the unofficial HR. Um, so I was just like, you know what, maybe this could work. It was a portable business.

April Ben-Sabat [00:08:30]:
You know, I could work from anywhere. I could get clients from anywhere I wanted. I'm huge on traveling. So all of these things lined up and I was like, and the, the fees were pretty good. But yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:08:42]:
I gotta ask this. Well, first of all, did you end up, uh, making that placement at that to replace you at that company?

April Ben-Sabat [00:08:48]:
Uh, did I end up what?

Benjamin Mena [00:08:50]:
Did you end up backfilling yourself at that with that company?

April Ben-Sabat [00:08:53]:
So a bit of a sad story. I did not because we actually declared bankruptcy. We declared bankruptcy a year, a year later. Which kind of forced me into the full-time recruiting agency, whether I was ready or not for it.

Benjamin Mena [00:09:08]:
So one of the things that you told me is initially is like you said to yourself that you don't know what 80% of a recruiting agency actually does when you got started. What was the 20% that you did have and why did you think that was enough?

April Ben-Sabat [00:09:23]:
So I think the 20% that I did have was dealing with people in general. I had become I was the right hand, but I was the problem person. So anytime there was a problem in the company, I got called, which gave me insight into all of the different departments within companies, how different people within different positions think and work and how they show their frustrations. So I would say dealing with people and figuring out how to manage people and reading them, even if they are not being communicative or any of that, I would say that's probably The 20% I knew. Of course, I did interviews, but at the time I thought recruiting was you post an ad, you go through the candidates, and you pick one, you pick the best one, and that's it.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:14]:
Anybody could do this job, right?

April Ben-Sabat [00:10:17]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:10:20]:
So when your time ran out and the company kind of forced you To make that full-time jump. Did you ever, and that early, that like, as this happened, did you ever just like second-guess yourself? Like, hey, maybe I need to go back and find another job. What was that struggle like? And what kept you focused on this vision of building your own agency?

April Ben-Sabat [00:10:45]:
So 1,000%, I thought to myself a million times, you know, the bank account gets low. And you start stressing, you start wondering, am I really cut out for this? Is this the right business? And me not coming from a recruiting background, there was so much to learn that I, I second-guessed myself at least for the first 2 years. But you know what? Clients started coming, I started getting referrals, and I realized that I had proof of concept. People were buying my services. I created value for people. So I was just like, I am not I'm not going backwards. I'm not gonna go get another job again. I had told myself when I quit the first, uh, the, my full-time job, I told myself, you know what, I am never going to make a new CV and I'm never applying for another job, so I better figure out how to make this work.

Benjamin Mena [00:11:37]:
I gotta ask, you know, how did you start figuring out how recruiting works? Was it trial by fire? Did you find a mentor?

April Ben-Sabat [00:11:47]:
So it was definitely trial by fire. I got my first position. I think it was a bookkeeper. It was a bookkeeper for an industrial manufacturing company, and that went well. So I closed that position. Great. But there was a lot of trial and error, and I actually ended up joining a recruiting community, and I think that's when I started to really learn the backend of things on the actual strategy and technique. Because before that, it was literally, honestly, I was really lucky because people were actually applying to my ads.

April Ben-Sabat [00:12:24]:
So that's like a huge thing. I was actually not doing outbound recruiting at all for, I would say, at least the first year and a half, 2 years. So I'm honestly, now that I think about it, surprised that I was successful and that I survived during that time because I, I'm sure a lot of people listening to this know that you need to reach out to people to find the perfect person, and most people that are qualified are probably not actively searching. So there was a lot of trial and error, a lot of figuring things out. I kind of wish I had a mentor, but when I ended up joining the recruiting community, it definitely changed a lot for me, and I ended up connecting with a lot of different recruiters. That I then now become friends. And now we, we still meet weekly and trade, you know, stories and tips and give each other advice. So I honestly, I would say building a community around you is one of the most important things you could do if you're not coming from that industry.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:26]:
And I absolutely love that because I think community is one of the, the secret weapons that can really help you be successful. But I want to jump into this, like, You're saying like, you told me in the pregame that networking events created a referral engine and like most of your business has actually become referral, come from referrals.

April Ben-Sabat [00:13:43]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:13:45]:
But like, walk me through, cause like, I think networking events can be hard, you know? And this is the reason why I wanted to like have this conversation with you. You mentioned in the pregame that your early struggle was you were literally just like doing networking events all across the city of Montreal. This is where a lot of listeners are like probably in the same situation. They're grinding without direction. So walk me through your calendar of your first 6 months of events. Like what, how many events were you going to, what kind, and how did you pick them? And this is like the first 6 months before you really started like figuring it out.

April Ben-Sabat [00:14:18]:
Okay. Um, so how did I pick them? I literally went on Eventbrite and I just searched business networking, you know, very simple. I was just like, hey, I need to just get out there. I don't know where to find these events. So I just picked anything that seemed like maybe there would be business owners there. That is like basically the only qualifying factor. I was like, ideally there's business owners there. Um, and I show up and in my head I was like, show up, meet them.

April Ben-Sabat [00:14:47]:
Hopefully they hire me to do their recruiting. Not that simple, but I would say that it was really just, yeah, any event that possibly had business owners. I was like, Okay, I will attend. And I was, I was doing, I was working my 9 to 5 and I was showing up to breakfast networking events, networking events after work, just really like whatever I could get my hands on. And honestly, whatever was free at the time, because like when you just start out, you don't have a bunch of budget to be paying for all of these fancy networking events. Uh, so yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:22]:
I mean, I've, I've paid for some that I walk in and like, why did I pay for this?

April Ben-Sabat [00:15:26]:
Exactly. But like, honestly, I almost feel like paying for it is a gate to like know that you're about to walk into some sleazy car salesman transaction.

Benjamin Mena [00:15:37]:
It's, I, and I'll tell, I'll talk about some of mine later, but like when you started figuring it out, the second you walked in the room or within the first few minutes, how did you tell that this was gonna be a waste of time? And how did you tell that this was, could be something great?

April Ben-Sabat [00:15:56]:
So I would say that before I went to every event, I had to hype myself up about it cuz I always wanted to cancel. I always just didn't wanna go. I was like, oh my God, another networking event. But I also knew that if something was deterring me or making me scared, it was probably cuz it, I was just uncomfortable and I just had to kind of jump headfirst into it. How did I know if they were a waste of time or not? Honestly, you never really know till the end, and even then it's not super clear. So one thing that I learned was just like going with an open mind all the time because something— you could show up to a room and it looks really drab and like maybe you look around and you're judging everything by its cover and you're like, nah, none of these people are gonna be my clients. But I realized that you really don't know who you can meet. Um, but more importantly, I would say that it's never really about who you meet that's gonna become your potential client.

April Ben-Sabat [00:16:59]:
It's about the connection you form with them. And if you're memorable, they will hopefully slash most likely refer you to their business owner friends when their business owner friends are complaining about their staffing, their hiring, all of that stuff.

Benjamin Mena [00:17:15]:
So how long did you go to networking events before you started seeing that ROI from the referrals?

April Ben-Sabat [00:17:22]:
Like, I would say probably at least a year. I would say a year, but now we're 4 years in and it's consistently paying itself off. And I didn't realize it would do that, to be honest. I just kind of kept going in blind. I didn't know that later on people would still remember and still refer me. Um, so I would say at least a year before I started to see random referrals come in from someone that I met 5, 6 months ago. Maybe they were a lawyer and then they joined a charity organization, then they ended up on the board of directors, and then the, the board of directors needed someone and he was like, ah, I know a great recruiter, I'll give you her number.

Benjamin Mena [00:18:07]:
So you're talking like it was a full year of you going to networking events before we actually saw it, or like, or start seeing it Why? Like, what kept you going through that gap? Like, at what point did you be like, I'm gonna keep doing this, or like, this isn't worth my time?

April Ben-Sabat [00:18:24]:
So I would say one, I realized that I started to have fun at them. You know, like you can see networking events a couple different ways. You can see it as some boring event where you have to go and shake hands, or you can see it as an opportunity that is opening you up to so many different types of individuals that you would've never met before. So I really enjoyed being around people that were putting themselves out there for business purposes. I mean, business purposes or whatever they were there for, but I would say probably business because you realize that a lot of those people have the same mentality as you and the same mindset. You know that they're also searching to probably better themselves, grow their network, grow their business, whatever it is. But in Montreal, it's an amazing city, but I would say it's not like a business hub like Toronto, Miami, you know, New York. So I was really enjoying being around those people and I started getting invited to new events and getting invited into new rooms that I would have never known about.

April Ben-Sabat [00:19:32]:
And I was like, okay, you know what? Even if I'm not necessarily getting a direct client from these events, I think that it's helping me grow professionally, so let me just keep showing up. Also, what else am I doing to kind of maximize my time? You know, like you're not working, you could be working from 5 to 10 PM after work, but it's like you might as well just literally grind and do everything you can to go potentially put your business forward.

Benjamin Mena [00:20:02]:
So stupid question. Pretend I'm walking, I'm a newer recruiter walking into a networking event. What was your pitch like? How do you like introduce yourself? Because, and I'm sure you're probably gonna say something like you just be like a human being, but like walk me through real quick, like the conversations that you would have. Because so often it's that first or second conversation when you walk into a brand new room where you know nobody are always the hardest.

April Ben-Sabat [00:20:27]:
Yeah. So I would say usually Stand at the door, take a deep breath, go in. And then I honestly usually look for someone that locks eyes with me. So either they're alone and I just kind of lock eyes with them and I'm like, let me just walk up to them because they're alone. They're probably feeling the exact same way that I am. And I think that's something that people forget a lot of the time is that all of these people are in the same boat as you are. All of these people are humans. And, you know, talking to random people you don't know.

April Ben-Sabat [00:20:57]:
Is usually a stressful scenario unless you're this crazy, you know, like outbound person. So usually try to either one, lock eyes with someone, just go up to them. I usually go with, what brings you here? That's like my first question. Like, how did you find yourself here? Or what brings you here? And if there's no one alone, then if 2 people are talking, I will literally do some like side move and be like, I'm just gonna shimmy my way on in here. Please continue your conversation. And then it's usually like they start laughing and they're like, oh no, it's fine. You know, what's your name? What do you do? But I really like, I, I try and focus on the other person and just kind of get to know them because again, we're all in the same boat. We're all just here, you know, trying to get to know each other.

April Ben-Sabat [00:21:44]:
I think that's always the first step.

Benjamin Mena [00:21:46]:
I know some people are like, hey, I can't do this by myself. I need to go find a wingman or a wingwoman. Is it worth it bringing another person to a networking event?

April Ben-Sabat [00:21:55]:
Of course, when I started networking, I think I went to my first networking event with my old boss and he was kind of like trying to force me to get 17 conversations in. He had a KPI for me. He was trying to, you know, give me some advice. He was like, we need to meet at least this many people and we need to like get their contacts. But I realized that I was really using him as a crutch. I was kind of following him around like a lost puppy. I didn't, I didn't know what to do, you know, and he He would introduce himself, he would start talking. I was just kind of like the person on the side.

April Ben-Sabat [00:22:28]:
So one thing that I definitely did, I wanted to kind of like train myself how to be alone and how to just be comfortable being alone. So I challenged myself one night. I decided to take myself out for dinner at a very nice restaurant in Montreal, and I told myself that I couldn't use my phone. I couldn't pull out my phone the entire night. And I just had to figure it out. But honestly, it really helped me just be comfortable in my own skin. I think especially in this day and age, everyone is just like, I'm uncomfortable, let me pull out my phone and scroll so it doesn't look like I'm lost. But I sat there.

April Ben-Sabat [00:23:06]:
I mean, I sat there. I did sit at the bar, so I didn't sit at a table alone, to be fair. But when people see you alone, it's a lot of the same thing. It's, again, These people are in the same scenario as you. They're just like, ah, this person's approachable. Maybe I'll start talking to them. But I met a couple people that night, and I think it definitely helped me just be more comfortable showing up alone. And to bring back to your original question on, you know, most people wanna bring someone, I really find that one, you're less approachable if you're with someone.

April Ben-Sabat [00:23:43]:
You're likely gonna get into conversations with that person, you know? You know, so people are less likely to come up to you, they're less likely to join your conversation, and you're just gonna meet less people. Honestly, you're just not gonna feel that, okay, I have to go talk to someone cuz I'm standing here alone. That's obviously not happening with when you're with someone. So I told myself, you know what, I need to, I need to go to all of these things alone. Slowly but surely, I would say my friends that were also scared to go to networking events started being like, I saw you were at an event. Can I come with you? But I had kind of like, I learned by that point on what I need to do and what I don't. And I also set ground rules for them. And I was like, we are not staying together the whole time.

Benjamin Mena [00:24:29]:
So you, like we talked in the pregame that you never actually sell at these events. You're not like, hey, I am the recruiter. I'm here to recruit for you. You're more just being a conversationalist. So like, walk me through this. You meet a stranger at a Tuesday networking mixer. But they refer a client to you 8 months later. Like, walk me through the everything, the links that happened between those moments.

April Ben-Sabat [00:24:52]:
Yeah. I never wanna sell because people don't like to be sold to. And it's also just like, people need recruiters when they need recruiters, but they don't always need a recruiter. They just need to know one. And I'm also a big believer of people can't buy your service if they don't know what you do. So one, obviously just showing up, that's super important. But I would say that usually my conversations and how they go at these networking events is I meet someone, I ask them, what brings you here? And then, uh, they start talking about it. They usually mention what they do or how they ended up there, which is related to what they do.

April Ben-Sabat [00:25:33]:
And I keep asking questions about them. But one of the things I think I do in the background is I try to figure out how could I potentially help this person, just depending on what they do. If they tell me some elaborate title that I don't understand, I literally look at them, I go, okay, and what does that mean? And I'm just, I'm not scared to, I would say pe— some people are worried about looking like a fool or not knowing everything. And the reality is, is that no one knows everything. You know, no one understands every single position. And we're also recruiters. It's good for us to learn about different positions and what people do. So I'll usually start off with that and I'll ask them, okay, what type of either clients do you have? Like, who are your clients? What type of people? Or what type of problems do people come to you with? If it's like a very intricate position or the person is really bad at pitching themselves, so I'm just confused when they're telling me what they do and I have no idea what they mean, I'll just kind of continue to figure it out because I'm like, unless I really fully understand what they do, I can't refer clients to them and I can't, you know, help them out in any way.

April Ben-Sabat [00:26:47]:
Sometimes people even pitch me what they do and later on, depending on how the conversation goes, I go, all right, you gotta work on your pitch though, cuz I had no idea what you did when you started off. But I, I would honestly, like, what I do is I really focus on the person I'm talking to and I kind of put selling as the last thing on my mind because you just need to build relationships. That's realistically what networking is. And I would say sales is a byproduct.

Benjamin Mena [00:27:16]:
Do you ever have like a follow-up process? Because it's one of those things like so often you go to a networking event, we'll just picture this like a Friday night, everybody's had LinkedIn QR code. I've walked away and I'm like, Who did I actually meet? What was their card? Crap, I didn't screenshot their LinkedIn profile. Like, do you have like an after-event game plan that you walk through so that way they still remember you 8 months later?

April Ben-Sabat [00:27:37]:
So I would say that when I first started networking, I did-ish. Again, I was kind of figuring it out on the fly, but honestly, no, I do not have a post-networking list. The first conference I had gone to, I did that. And I did follow up with everyone. It actually didn't bring me anywhere. Um, I won't lie. Every single time that I've, let's say, gone through my list of everyone I've met and, uh, messaged them, hey, it was so nice meeting you last night, had a great time. I almost think that's the same as just like giving them your business card and walking away.

April Ben-Sabat [00:28:14]:
It's like it doesn't really say anything. So one thing I would say is that if you are gonna follow up with someone, You should think about something specific that they said or something you guys bonded on, and you should bring that up. Hey, it was really nice meeting you last night. Love talking about the Habs game, which is a, a team in Montreal. Hoping to catch you at the next one. You know, like something that will bring you together, something that's honestly not related to your business or selling at all. Just like focusing on the little details and making them realize that you also listened to this conversation and you were present during it. Instead of just, hey, I am just trying to sell you something.

April Ben-Sabat [00:28:53]:
Here's my contact so you can contact me when you need my services.

Benjamin Mena [00:28:58]:
But what do you— I gotta ask you, like, what are you doing different? Or how, like, is there something deeper in the conversation that you're having with people for them to remember, hey, I actually met a recruiter at XYZ networking event 8 months ago. April was her name. Let me get you in touch.

April Ben-Sabat [00:29:14]:
I think that because I'm not trying to sell people, people are very disarmed. I really think that's one of the things, and they're not scared that if they contact me that I'm gonna try and sell them again. I think that's another thing. People don't like to kind of get in that sales cycle or get caught in the, do you have any objections? Why won't you go forward with a service? You know, like I think we've all been on these, uh, SaaS calls or something where someone's just like, why don't you buy my service? So I think because I'm not actively always trying to sell something, people aren't one scared to reach out to me. I've had people reach out to me, potential clients, honestly, just for hiring advice. And I was happy to give it because if I give that hiring advice and they're still unlucky or they can't find anyone, they're likely gonna come back to me and they're gonna— realistically, people work with people they like. It's almost never for the skills, you know, it's either people they like or they became like, they, they got referred from someone. So I wouldn't say that I try to be someone people like, but I really just focus on the person.

April Ben-Sabat [00:30:24]:
I focus on actually building a real connection or a real relationship. And don't get me wrong, there's definitely a bunch of people that I met once and I never spoke to again. But, um, I would say definitely always try and add them on LinkedIn. And then my kind of style is I just post a lot on LinkedIn. So then I'm gonna be in their face, you know? So even if they didn't remember me from that networking event, they now have a picture of me on their feed, me talking about recruiting. So like, how can you forget when I keep reminding you even though I'm not going directly to you?

Benjamin Mena [00:31:00]:
I think that's something a lot of people forget. And you know what they say, only 1% of recruiters on LinkedIn, not even just 1%, 1% of active recruiters on LinkedIn actually post on LinkedIn, but Like how many touchpoints is that on a weekly basis where they're seeing you in the feed? Like, so please, if you're listening to this, please post on LinkedIn constantly.

April Ben-Sabat [00:31:18]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:20]:
But okay.

April Ben-Sabat [00:31:20]:
I've actually, I've been stopped at a gala and someone's like, are you April? I'm like, yeah. And they're like, I see your posts on LinkedIn all the time and they're great. And I was like, I was with a potential client and I was like, wow, this looks so good on me right now. You know? But people do forget and I'm just like, just get your face out there. Stop caring what people think and just. Just post.

Benjamin Mena [00:31:45]:
So I've been seeing a lot of recruiters talk about doing their own in-person events. I actually did a podcast last night with somebody in Canada talking about setting up their own events. I actually just 2 weeks ago did a podcast where a guy brought 24 CFOs into one room. You now started hosting your own events, kind of like because you got a little frustrated with not everything going the way that you want or some empty networking events.

April Ben-Sabat [00:32:09]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:32:10]:
What did you engineer differently for your events versus what you saw at other ones that you've attended?

April Ben-Sabat [00:32:17]:
So great question. And honestly, I created the events with the people that are scared of going to networking events in mind. It was almost solely for those people. So I was trying to figure out, okay, one, how can I get these people out to the event? 2, how can I make it so easy for them to meet other people and connections that will be valuable and genuine. What I did is one, I acted as if it was a very highly curated crowd, which it was. So I didn't give an open invite. I didn't do an open like Eventbrite or anything like that. I just kind of started promoting it on my social media and stuff.

April Ben-Sabat [00:32:56]:
And I was like, whoever knows an entrepreneur that wants an invite, reach out. And I started off just inviting a bunch of people I knew. I tagged up with 2 other entrepreneurs. And so we all kind of combined our networks. But I think the differentiating factor that I did, I one gave everyone the disclaimer. I was like, tell your friends to come if they're responsible. So there was 2 categories, either entrepreneurs or people responsible for making their own sales. So like building their client base or their book of business.

April Ben-Sabat [00:33:29]:
And I was like, tell them it's not going to be a boring networking event. That's not what it's about. Just tell them to show up. And I asked 3 or 4 leading questions before they came. So I asked, one was something you're interested in that you don't know much about. What's something that you wanna discuss? Kind of like those types of questions. And then what I did, and this took a lot more time than it would now with AI, but I took everyone's responses and what area of work they were in. And I tried to basically find a match for them.

April Ben-Sabat [00:34:04]:
And when all of the guests came, I told them there was a game that was going on, and everyone had a word on the back of their lanyard, on the back of their name tag. And so you had to go in the crowd and you had to figure out who matched your word. So let's say like one person had sun, the other person had shine.

Benjamin Mena [00:34:25]:
Okay.

April Ben-Sabat [00:34:25]:
And like, you need to find this person in the crowd of like, 40, 50 people. And the secondary thing is if you think your words match, cuz there were some that could go with more than one, if you think your words match, you have to figure out why you think you were matched together. So I think that really helped everyone. One, there's a game, so like no one's worried about like, oh, I don't wanna go talk to this person. I don't wanna bother them, whatever. It's like, no, I have to find my word. You know, like, I have to find my match here. Um, so they went out and everyone was talking to each other.

April Ben-Sabat [00:35:00]:
Something else I did was I was like, when you find your match, you need to take a picture with them and you need to send it to us. And whoever found their match first was eligible for a prize. We had like, I don't know, a $50 prepaid Visa gift card. It was, it was nothing, but it gave people incentive to actually do the game. So they had to take a picture with themselves. It was creating content for us too from our networking events. I was like, perfect. Just everyone get pictures with each other, send them to us.

April Ben-Sabat [00:35:27]:
Your pictures are timestamped, so we'll know who did it faster. And then if they already found their match, I told them that they had to go help other people find their match, which is something I do at networking events. When I meet someone and I hear, oh, you're in real estate. Ah, this guy is also in real estate. You should go talk to him. So I kind of tried to do that. And it really made it something where everyone ended up talking to each other. People were having fun.

April Ben-Sabat [00:35:54]:
I also tried to make sure the age range was within, let's say, 15 years, everyone there. So everyone's kind of in the same spot in terms of maybe some people are more successful than others, but everyone's kind of in the same like area of life. And honestly, yeah, it worked really well. People really loved it. And I honestly just really enjoyed watching everyone connect and the people that are scared to go to networking events. I love to see them kind of like thrive in this environment with a bunch of people they didn't know.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:27]:
So you've had 2 of these now and you have people begging to come to the next one.

April Ben-Sabat [00:36:31]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:33]:
So you have this working, you have a referral network that is bringing you business and it's like real quick, how much percentage of your business is referrals?

April Ben-Sabat [00:36:44]:
I would say 90%.

Benjamin Mena [00:36:48]:
Okay, so 90% of your business is referrals. You have this working, you have people knocking on the door coming to work with you. You want to blow all this up?

April Ben-Sabat [00:37:02]:
Blow up is a strong word. I feel like Montreal, I've been here my whole life and I spent the past 4 years kind of networking my way through And at this point, I, I really have my friends or people going, oh, April, she knows everyone. If you need something, go to her to find, you know, this person or that person or a service provider. But so, so when you say blow everything up, I'm guessing you mean I'm moving and I'm trying to move into a new market.

Benjamin Mena [00:37:31]:
Moving to a new market, immigrating to a new country, like new niche, new network, like Why break something that works?

April Ben-Sabat [00:37:42]:
So I got kind of bored, if I'm being honest. I have been working in the legal space and I was very lucky to land some, some big law firms to work with, and they've been great clients. So I was never planning on, let's say, turning any new business down from them. Great thing about recruiting is obviously you can do it from anywhere. So I decided, okay, let me kind of quote unquote dominate the Montreal network, um, and the Montreal kind of recruiting scene. And I'll keep that and I'll keep that going. And now that I've kind of worked my way through Montreal, let me go take on the bigger brother, which in Canada everyone's like, the US, it's the American dream, you know? But honestly, I've also noticed huge differences with the clientele in the US versus Canada. And people are just ready to spend in the US.

April Ben-Sabat [00:38:34]:
People are serious about making money. They have more money. And in, in Quebec, where I'm located, highest taxes in North America, it's not really supporting entrepreneurship. They want you to create companies, but they want you to stay in Quebec. So a lot of things drove me to that, but honestly, one of the biggest things is I just wanted to be around driven entrepreneurs. That's one of the reasons I created the networking events. I have just been kind of searching for that circle and I've found amazing people here, but almost everyone leaves when they become successful. They leave because of the taxes, because of the environment.

April Ben-Sabat [00:39:17]:
And I was like, you know what? I'm ready for the next step and I don't think I can reach it here. So I was, I'm jumping in headfirst into a new way to acquire clients. A new niche because I decided legal didn't necessarily have the urgency that I want in my clients and the market is really hard here. But in legal, it's an interesting industry because everyone can always take over someone else's work. Whereas let's say financial controllers, usually there's just one in the company and usually no one has any idea what they do. So I was like, you know what? I think this is the way. And yes, I'm taking a risk and I'm putting a lot on the line. But we're gonna go for it.

April Ben-Sabat [00:40:01]:
We're gonna see what happens.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:02]:
Well, let me ask you this. Like you have, you've, you've built a playbook once. What is the playbook that you're looking at now that you're in a new market, in a new country, and you're starting almost from a new niche? You're starting almost from ground zero again. Are you just, are you gonna duplicate your playbook or are you actually looking at your playbook a bit different?

April Ben-Sabat [00:40:22]:
So I can't duplicate it, let's say, in the sense that I can't network my way into all my clients if I'm not physically located in the US. Yet. And yes, I'm planning to move there, but I obviously wanna build up my client base before I move. So the playbook has been thrown out the window and I am doing all of the other things. Luckily, I had already started posting content on LinkedIn, which has gotten me clients already. Um, so I am doubling down on the content.

Benjamin Mena [00:40:51]:
Mm-hmm.

April Ben-Sabat [00:40:52]:
But I am kind of like going back to the drawing board. And back when I joined that recruiter community, there was all kinds of different playbooks. Let's say lead gen playbooks on cold emailing, cold calling. Both of those things are not really my thing because I don't, I would not respond to a cold caller, a cold email, so I don't really want to use it on other people. But what I've decided on, I think it's going to be a mix of working on SEO content, And honestly, just trying a bunch of new things. So I might start Meta ads to kind of get people in, but I am really going against the grain. So it's almost like I'm relearning how to acquire clients. And I know I have that fallback of, yeah, I can show up and I will, but that's not the option right now.

April Ben-Sabat [00:41:45]:
I can't just be in the US permanently networking. So I am honestly relearning everything and I'm gonna see what works and what doesn't work and we're gonna, we're gonna learn and take it from there.

Benjamin Mena [00:41:58]:
One of the things I know that you've learned is AI.

April Ben-Sabat [00:42:01]:
Yes.

Benjamin Mena [00:42:02]:
So you built, and we talked about this in the pregame, you built yourself your own sourcing agent that you put the job description in, it vets a shortlist out, it does the outreach in your voice. And you're not a developer. Like, walk me through what a search looks like from start to finish right now.

April Ben-Sabat [00:42:22]:
So I have been perfecting this and I would say honestly, I used it yesterday and I was like, wow, okay, I think this is finally ready to pass on to my recruiter because I wanted to make sure it was perfect before giving it to someone else and, and letting her toy with something that maybe she doesn't, she doesn't fully understand or just like kind of knows what it does wrong. So right now, I honestly, I don't even necessarily have to put the job description in because it's connected to my ATS. So I can just say, hey, new position, this company, financial controller, go find me a shortlist. That's literally it. And it goes and first it checks my own database. So it checks my ATS, checks all of the candidates through that. Which to be honest is so much more efficient than someone checking it themselves because I find almost all of the ATSs were never built great and it's really hard to source from your own ATS, which it should not be. But unless you perfected the tags and everything like that, it's pretty hard.

April Ben-Sabat [00:43:29]:
So it'll search my ATS first, then it'll go external. The external side was a little bit harder to master because LinkedIn keeps their data pretty locked down. And, uh, they're pretty strict about that. So I found, let's say, 3 external other kind of data sources, and now it has become something where it can go, it can vet the candidates for the hard requirements. If there's preferred requirements on there, it'll put them first and it'll give me a shortlist on Excel dropped into my Google Drive. That has candidate's name, the LinkedIn profile, and notes on what to flag for me or my recruiter that's reading the shortlist. I will like double-check the first 5, and if it seems really accurate, I'm like, okay. So I just send the shortlist to my recruiter and she'll start the outreach.

April Ben-Sabat [00:44:28]:
But it is at the point where I can just tell my agent, okay. Add these all to my automation software, adds the shortlist to a messaging sequence. And honestly, it just, it's, it starts everything. I just like, I have some guardrails on it, so I go and double-check the messaging to really make sure that it's in my voice. But I have given it all of my LinkedIn content and I've given it basically What my voice tone is. So it does really write like me. But for the first, I would say for the first couple months, I definitely had to review it, give it more guardrails, tell it, hey, we're never gonna say quick question. We're never gonna say like tend to, or there's so many things.

April Ben-Sabat [00:45:17]:
But once it learns, honestly, I'm, I'm really impressed with what it can do. And I'm, I'm just excited to see where things go because I keep hearing about more and more stories and then I implement them myself and I'm like, this is amazing. I don't even know how people are doing it the regular way anymore.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:37]:
So did your ATS have an MCP or did you have to build something yourself?

April Ben-Sabat [00:45:42]:
So my ATS had an API connection. Um, okay. But it just released an MCP.

Benjamin Mena [00:45:49]:
Okay. I've talked to a few people that have tried building stuff and I'm like, Just wait, just wait.

April Ben-Sabat [00:45:56]:
Yeah. Or switch ATSs, you know, like do, do some, but no, luckily my ATS is really API friendly. So there's a lot of things you could do on the backend. I think they built it with that in mind, but almost like I don't touch my ATS anymore. I don't even open my ATS. It's just a database that sits in the background.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:17]:
So you're literally working with a headless ATS right now?

April Ben-Sabat [00:46:21]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:21]:
Awesome. What's your ATS?

April Ben-Sabat [00:46:23]:
It's Recruiterflow.

Benjamin Mena [00:46:24]:
Okay. So you actually originally built this in, uh, N8N, and then you rebuilt it in cloud. What, like, what broke? And also, what would you tell a recruiter deciding to build something of their own instead of buying a tool?

April Ben-Sabat [00:46:38]:
So I looked at all the tools and there's some great tools out there, but almost all of them promised the world and fell very flat. And when I had the demos, I asked them the hard questions and people could not answer me. And I could tell that they had no idea what they were talking about. And they probably weren't a recruiter and didn't understand the recruiter pain points. So what drove me to build my own, let's say, machine is that I just couldn't find what I wanted on the market. And I knew it was possible. I have some friends that are developers, so I started looking at, oh, maybe I'll have them create the software for me, maybe I'll resell the software. You know, like everyone's mind goes to these things, but I started building in N8N because that was the way to do it a couple months ago, which I still can't believe that we're advancing this quickly, that N8N is now kind of obsolete and Claude Code can do everything and more.

April Ben-Sabat [00:47:38]:
But when I started building in N8N, So it wasn't, it wasn't super simple. N8N still is a bit of a technical side of things. And when I started building, Cloud Code also wasn't the, like what it is today. So I kept telling it to do stuff and then I, I started by vibe coding my website. So I just rebuilt my website and I would tell it to do stuff. It would make mistakes. It didn't understand why things were breaking. I would go on the webpage, they didn't work.

April Ben-Sabat [00:48:09]:
I was just like, okay, so. I started by using ChatGPT and Claude side by side, and I would create the code with one and deploy with the other. So deploy for non-technical people is just kind of like release it into the interweb to make it work. So I started building on N8N, but obviously when I'm running a recruiting agency at the same time, I am not doing this full-time. So it took me a couple months to really get to the point Where I was ready to deploy. And at that point I realized, oh, like there's one, 7 other softwares I have to connect to N8N to make this work. And the original reason I started building on N8N is because in Claude before you had to prompt it to be able to have something run by itself. It wasn't like an automatic machine.

April Ben-Sabat [00:48:59]:
You always had to be saying, hey, start this, do this. So N8n is something that you could automate and it could keep automating on a schedule or just kind of like continuous loop. And so I realized that Claude Code had finally advanced to the point where it could do everything. And I kept asking Claude Code, I was like, is it, should I just build this whole thing on you? You know, I was like, should I just, is this what, should I keep it on N8n? Should I not? And they're like, there's this and this that you have to take into consideration. But I would say literally a week later I asked the same thing and Claude Code was like, no, we can do everything if you wanna do it here. And I was like, how long is it gonna take? I already did all this work on N8N. And they're like, honestly, not, not too long, which is crazy. I'm talking about it like it's a person.

April Ben-Sabat [00:49:48]:
But that was the reality. It was N8N became obsolete so quickly because Claude Code and AI, I know other people are using Codex and everything like that. AI has advanced so rapidly, and I think that the, like Anthropic and the other companies, they know what people need and they are responding to it so quickly because they obviously have AI agents doing it for them and everything is just moving at the speed of light right now. So definitely things are advancing. Something you built yesterday might not have to be built today. But I think it's definitely worth it to try and know how to build these things because everything is really at your fingertips right now.

Benjamin Mena [00:50:32]:
I think it's super funny cuz I, I remember using Cod months ago and I was like, we really can't, it literally told me, it's like, we can't really do that. So you, I recommend go using Lovable or something like that.

April Ben-Sabat [00:50:44]:
Yeah, I never touched Lovable, but I heard a lot about it. But because I had a developer friend set my website on like VS Code, basically like a terminal where you could code. I was just like, nope, I'm not touching Lovable. I'm already set up. I'm just gonna talk to this AI. They're gonna teach me how to code and I'm gonna figure it out because it'll be very valuable.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:05]:
So you've told me something that I think it's easy to believe if you live in a bubble. You said that you were feeling behind.

April Ben-Sabat [00:51:16]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [00:51:17]:
Like, how did you realize that? Then how did you realize that you, you really weren't?

April Ben-Sabat [00:51:22]:
Yeah, I was feeling behind and you're referring to kind of like I was feeling behind because I felt like other people were already doing what I was doing. That's what you mean? Yeah. So I was definitely, I think I realized this while talking to my friends that are not. So there's a bunch of people that aren't touching AI. They're using it to chat with, which it's also incredibly impressive what it can do by chatting. But every time I thought about a new idea to build or softwares, stuff like that, it's like, well, I'm not going to build that software because for sure someone's already thought about it and they're already building it. So why would I waste my time doing that? But I really realized that because I'm living in a bit of a bubble with a bunch of people that are technical, in my head, everyone knows how to do this and everyone is playing around with this. But I think that there's 2 things that I forgot.

April Ben-Sabat [00:52:17]:
One, there's the people that have no desire to touch AI to actually build things. And 2, there's also the older generation that don't even know the capabilities. I think most people don't know the capabilities of AI, but I realized I was living in a bubble because I was sitting at an entrepreneur dinner and we were talking about it and we're all like baffled at all the things we can do. And we're all kind of trading stories about things that we've built. And then I kind of go back to my regular friend group. Most of them don't own businesses, and I'm talking about the things I've built, or they're saying things, and I'm like, you know, you can build an app in like 10 minutes for that. And they were like, what? I was like, yeah, yeah, it's really easy. Like, you just have to go on and you tell them what you want to build and it'll build it.

April Ben-Sabat [00:53:02]:
And they're like, are you serious? And I was like, oh my God, people really don't know. And I was just kind of like, I was just thinking that everyone is in the same headspace as me and kind of like understood everything. But I am very grateful to have, uh, the view on life that I have right now, I would say.

Benjamin Mena [00:53:25]:
So for recruiters listening, and I know a lot of recruiters haven't built stuff because from the vantage point that I see with the podcast, still recruiting during the day and the amount of, uh, networking conversations that people hit me up about that I can't do 'em all. For the recruiters like listening who haven't built anything, like what's something that they should build maybe this month or over the next few months that pays for that learning curve of utilizing and building with AI?

April Ben-Sabat [00:53:54]:
So great question. And I was talking to someone else building a lot of stuff and I looked at him and I go, how many hours do you spend building? I was like, because it's really impressive, but 100% a sourcing machine without a doubt. I had started off by just building something for my emails to take care of my emails, pre-draft emails back, all of these things. But what is really going to make you money in your business? And you need to stop and kind of take a look back at your business and see, obviously it depends what your issues are, let's say within your business right now and what's the biggest bottlenecks. But I would say one of two things. I haven't done the BD side in terms of AI, but I would say definitely a sourcing machine because it's just next to none. I am still baffled on how fast it can produce a super accurate shortlist. Like I look at everything and I'm like, I don't even think a human could have found these people.

April Ben-Sabat [00:54:54]:
Maybe in 2 weeks, maybe after scouring the internet, having your recruiter scour the internet literally full-time for 2 weeks. But you usually have multiple mandates to work on. There's no chance that you have time to physically read all of these profiles, even if you're using like a scraper. What I found was obviously automation and AI are 2 different things, and when you're using a scraper, it can't infer things like, oh, don't shortlist a job hopper, like something simple like that. It's not— one thing pulls information from a profile and just gives it to you, and AI really uses intelligence to figure out, okay, is this a good candidate based on all of the criteria that I've taught it? So I would say definitely building a sourcing engine. Yes, there's going to be a learning curve. Do it over a weekend. Honestly, you get a bit of a rush when you see things like actually start to work.

April Ben-Sabat [00:55:52]:
It's really impressive. And then as long as you actually stick to it, Just don't start building something that you're gonna leave half done. That's like the biggest thing I would say that a lot of people are doing right now. They get really excited by a project, they build it halfway, and then they get maybe tired, overwhelmed, or just busy with work and they stop. I would say definitely at least see one thing through so that you can see the fruits of your labor, and then it's probably gonna want to make you build literally everything else that can be automated, which I don't think you should automate absolutely everything in the company.

Benjamin Mena [00:56:30]:
What's something that you refuse to automate?

April Ben-Sabat [00:56:33]:
So I think it's crazy that people are using like robots to interview people right now. I think that most of the human connection or communication aside from the first message going out should not be automated. Because people are becoming obviously one, more and more aware of this is AI. This person didn't take the time to write to me or anything like that. But I've gotten so many messages. I actually got a message from a potential candidate the other day. We had hit them up on LinkedIn for a position and they wrote back. They're like, hey, I'm not looking right now, but I'll definitely contact you next time I am because your competitors are really annoying.

April Ben-Sabat [00:57:16]:
And I was like, I started laughing and it's one of the biggest wins you can get as a recruiter, especially in a super cutthroat space like legal. There are so many people reaching out to them every day. And what I've found is I've gotten this feedback from numerous people that because I was genuine, that's why they answered me. So I will never automate the communication once someone is kind of like speaking with you. I can't lie, we definitely send out first messages that are automated, but do not automate your communication because those candidates or client, like definitely not clients, but both, they're just gonna drop off. They're gonna be like, if this person is doing this, they're— a lot of the time you just, you don't, you look kind of stupid. You know, you might make a mistake with automation and then people are not gonna trust your attention to detail. But yeah, I would say an AI can't sense empathy.

April Ben-Sabat [00:58:12]:
They can't sense when someone is lying. They're just gonna take the information that someone else spit out to you and they're just gonna infer it through that. But emotions is never gonna be able to be replaced by AI. And so if you can either make someone feel something or connect with them, the AI's never gonna be able to do that. Love that.

Benjamin Mena [00:58:36]:
Well, before we jump over to the quickfire questions, I know we've talked about the game plan for networking events, you building your own AI agents. Is there anything that I should have, or a question I should have asked you, or anything you want to go deeper on?

April Ben-Sabat [00:58:50]:
I would say honestly, just in, in terms of networking and posting content, all I would just say to your audience that's listening is, is go for it and stop being scared of what people are going to think about you. Because those people that are judging you are probably not doing anything big anyways. And it doesn't really matter what people think because it's gonna, it's gonna work out. It'll work out in your favor. And you know, you can be cringe. If people want to hate, they're gonna hate and it's okay. But you gotta put yourself out there to get business. You have to put yourself out there.

April Ben-Sabat [00:59:28]:
You have to put yourself in rooms that make you uncomfortable. And I'm just like, I've seen it firsthand that it has made me grow so significantly as a person that even if, let's say your business fails, I think that you'll be in a better spot.

Benjamin Mena [00:59:46]:
So jumping into the quickfire questions, let's just say you've got another agency owner that gives you a call and they're just like, hey, right now I have zero clients. I'm trying this networking events. My first networking event I'm going to is Thursday. Like what, what should I do?

April Ben-Sabat [01:00:01]:
I would say to that person, show up as your best self. I think people can always sense when you are discouraged, you know? So when people are showing up to networking events cuz they're so desperate, especially if they've never been to networking events before, put on your best self and tell yourself that this will drive the needle forward because the mentality that you have has to be very good. You have to be in a good space and people will sense your energy. So one, don't ever think that, you know, a networking event's not gonna bring you anything cuz you have no idea who's in that room. And even if you show up to an event and it looks horrible, stay, stay and talk to people. Do like put on your best face and just go for it. And after you've done it for a while, then you can decide. But I would tell that to them and then I would say just like, try and help the crowd out.

April Ben-Sabat [01:01:00]:
Try and help the people that you meet out and they will remember you and they will likely come, come to you when they do need recruiting.

Benjamin Mena [01:01:09]:
What's a book or something that you've learned from that's had the biggest impact on your career?

April Ben-Sabat [01:01:15]:
That's a great question. I would say a book that I really liked was Before Happiness by Shawn Achor. And one of, one of the biggest ones, it's kind of based on research. So it'll say a theory, but it'll also say the research to back it up. And one of the examples he brought on was about the Ritz-Carlton and their policy for customer service. And it was like, long story short, it was about how smiling at someone brings up the mood. And I think I'm like a naturally smiley person, but hearing this, so the Ritz-Carlton had that in their kind of customer service book and hospitals ended up adapting that same thing because they were like, maybe this will work. Maybe it'll actually cheer people up.

April Ben-Sabat [01:02:07]:
And half the doctors were like, I'm not doing that. This is stupid. It was basically like, as you approach someone, if you're in a certain amount of feet away, You smile. If you're closer, you say hi, something like that. So they implemented it at some hospitals and it worked. And like, they could see the morale was better. They could see people were happier. And it's something so simple, but I think it really applies to people that are in a people business like us.

April Ben-Sabat [01:02:35]:
Like recruiting is all about people. And it sounds weird to say, but you know, like our product is human capital. That's literally what We're doing. So I think that just being mindful that you're always talking to a human and these people are people with lives behind them and you wanna be, you want to always remember that and not treat them like they're products.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:00]:
Awesome. Absolutely love this. I got a few questions before I let you go.

April Ben-Sabat [01:03:04]:
Yeah.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:04]:
And I know people get a chance to see your session at Finish the Year Strong. But for anybody that wants to connect with you or follow you before that, how do they go about doing that?

April Ben-Sabat [01:03:15]:
So you can definitely find me on LinkedIn. I would say that's probably where everything is all the time. I live on LinkedIn, so definitely connect with me on LinkedIn, shoot me a message. I will try to get back to everyone. Recruiter inboxes are always insane, but always happy to chat with people. And give any advice that I can.

Benjamin Mena [01:03:41]:
And I should have asked this earlier. I completely forgot, but you also got business from Instagram.

April Ben-Sabat [01:03:47]:
Yes. That's the most, this is the most shocking one. And honestly, people ask me how I got into legal and I go, I kind of got into it through Instagram. So when I started the company, my old boss was like, you have to put yourself out there. You need everyone to know that you're a recruiter. And I was like, oh God, I'm gonna be that like super cringe person that's talking about their career on their social media, their personal social media and Instagram and everything. But this is a perfect story on how it paid off for me. Um, so when I started the company, obviously every job thing that I got, I would post it on my Instagram story.

April Ben-Sabat [01:04:28]:
People unfollowed me. It is what it is, you know, like that's not what they wanna see. That's okay. But I had a friend that was working at a law firm. She posted a story saying, looking for a legal assistant. And I had just interviewed someone that was looking for a job and they were a legal assistant in the past. So I told them, I, I messaged my friend and I was like, hey, I might have a legal assistant, but like, obviously it's through my recruiting agency. And she was like, okay, hold on because it's a lawyer I'm posting this for that I know.

April Ben-Sabat [01:04:59]:
Let me send this to her. So she sent it to the lawyer. The lawyer ended up getting in contact with me, so I had a phone call with her. She was dealing with hiring herself because she was about to go either on mat leave or come off of mat leave, and she was returning and she was just done with the type of people the HR was giving her. So in law firms, they really give a lot of power to the lawyers cuz they just want them to be happy. They are their billers, you know, like they just wanna please them. And it's very hard to find staff, so they're just kind of like, whatever you can do, sure. You know, so the lawyer contacted her HR after she spoke to me.

April Ben-Sabat [01:05:39]:
She's like, I guess she was like, okay, yeah, this, this girl seems legit. She comes as a referral. So the HR got in contact with me and honestly, that client, it's a very big law firm, upwards of 500 employees. And, uh, I've been working with them for over 2 years now. And they're a great client of mine and I, I love them. And I'm just like, I am so grateful for her.

Benjamin Mena [01:06:04]:
A huge law firm client from Instagram. And I guess they're probably calling it like yapping videos now. I know I'm old, I'm millennial.

April Ben-Sabat [01:06:13]:
Like, I guess so. Um, but yeah, I think that people are always underestimating and it's also, that's why referrals have been a huge part of my business is that When you get a referral from someone, you're already basically vetted. So that's why I love networking and referrals so much. And obviously when you give, you also get, you know, maybe not from the same people, but like what you put out there is what you get back. And these referrals, you know, like I just, I came from a trusted person, so all of their guards were down. Everyone was just kind of like, oh yeah, this is a recruiter. They didn't know that I had only been operating for a year at the time. Like they didn't.

April Ben-Sabat [01:06:57]:
And it's funny, I actually got a confidential email I shouldn't have gotten from that law firm recently. And they were onboarding their new talent head and they sent the 4 recruiting firms that they were working with in this email, including me. And they accidentally sent it to me and I saw the other firms that they were working with and they were huge firms. And I was like, you know what? Let's go. I'm gonna give a pat to myself on the back. Because I weaseled my way in there, but it's not about how big you are. It's about the people you know.

Benjamin Mena [01:07:31]:
Ah, I think this is the per— that's the perfect thing to end on. Like so many of us, we just sit behind the computer all day long. We just sit behind making the calls, doing the things that we've been doing for a year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Maybe this is the time to go out there. Maybe this is the time to go try something new. A thousand percent. But also, yeah, this is a chance to go build something new. And like I said, make sure you sign up to see her session at Finish Your Year Strong.

Benjamin Mena [01:07:57]:
But this is your year, recruiters. I believe in you. Let's make it happen. Atlas is a CRMx, a CRM that actually understands context. It captures everything you say, hear, read, and write. Every interview, client call, LinkedIn message, email, and WhatsApp automatically. Not because you spent the time entering it. It's because Atlas is always listening.

Benjamin Mena [01:08:16]:
Then it goes one step farther and tells you the next action to take. So when you need to fill a role, People Search ranks the best candidates and tells you why. No digging required. The same memory turns BD into a shortlist of who to chase and why, so you win more clients. Need to see your pipeline? Speak to your dashboards and Atlas builds a view automatically tracking whatever matters to you. Whether you place permanent or contract, Atlas covers both with a new contract suite. That means you never have to chase a timesheet again, and live margin visibility on every single placement. And with its new MCP and API, Atlas plugs into your, your LLMs, Claude, ChatGPT, and the rest of your stack.

Benjamin Mena [01:08:53]:
The low-value work that keeps you from billing, Atlas does it for you. Atlas customers right now are saying that they're seeing a 50% higher candidate response rates, a 35% increase in new clients won, 15 hours saved every week, monthly billings jumping 85%, and agencies hitting 150% of their annual revenue target by building their business with Atlas. If you want more information, Check out Recruit with Atlas. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Elite Recruiter Podcast with Benjamin Mena. If you enjoyed, hit subscribe and leave a rating.