How one recruiter earned $24k of extra income this month, in addition to his full-time business.
In the world of recruiting, Nick Kimball’s done it all.
Nick Kimball's career in recruiting reads like a grand tour of the industry:
- In-house at Copart;
- Director at Robert Half;
- Technical recruiter at Amazon;
- Building multiple teams at a Series C ed-tech startup;
- Founder of his own recruiting agency.
But wasn't until he'd experienced every type of recruiting that he realized something unique about his approach. While most recruiters dislike sourcing compared to other parts of the process, sourcing is Nick’s favorite part of the job.
Then, he built a business on his love for sourcing.
“At larger companies, recruiters get a chance to recruit deeply for one role. At startups, you recruit for a bunch of different roles which I find more fascinating. I like to look for different profiles so being able to go from product designer, over to graphic design, to back-end engineering is really interesting. So while it can be harder to recruit for startups, it’s a lot more fun.”
After starting his own business, Nick decided to focus on Pre-Seed to Series B companies, where skills can have the most impact. He works with companies as an embedded talent partner, helping them build talent management systems from the ground up.
His journey has also led him to Paraform, a platform he describes as "designed for recruiters."
“After exploring different platforms, I moved forward with Paraform because it's built for recruiters. Every feature just makes sense. It’s very structured. The companies on it are doing amazing things, and there are more and more of them each week.”
He’s been able to grow alongside Paraform as a user, adapting his approach based on hiring manager preferences.
Nick’s made $24k this month, filling a Staff AI/ML Engineer role at Harmonic, the startup discovery engine used by investors including PearVC and Floodgate.
His secret to success? Decreasing submissions.
Nick enjoys meticulously sourcing the few candidates that meet a hiring manager’s exact needs. He's cut his candidate submissions from 15-20 down to as few as 3 per role. Why? Because he believes one of them will be perfect for the job.
For the Harmonic role, Nick shortlisted 5 candidates.
He submitted 2.
And the candidate Harmonic hired was someone Nick knew could be an ideal fit.
“While I may not send over 15 candidates. I'm gonna send over ones that meet exactly what you're looking for. I go on a detailed search where I narrow down the pool to a small number of candidates — ideally, I would submit 3 or 5 excellent candidates that fit the criteria or go beyond them.”
But precision doesn't mean inflexibility. Nick understands that in the fast-moving world of startups, requirements can evolve. "If there's something missing, I'd write a detailed summary of why that is," he notes. “I love how Paraform lets me add additional notes to candidate submissions, so I can ensure hiring managers get the full picture.”
This level of transparency and communication is crucial in building trust with both candidates and hiring managers.
Balancing his own business with Paraform.
Nick doesn’t use Paraform as his sole source of income. But when he wants to take a break from his long-term searches and spend a few hours doing just sourcing, he’ll hop on to explore new opportunities.
“The clients I find on Paraform are cool companies building great products. But I also love the platform itself. It has very well-considered features, like the Slack integration that allows you to get in touch with the hiring manager for any needs, or the intake call recordings, which I find especially helpful.”
After a long career in recruiting, Nick notes that it can often feel like a numbers game. But his success on Paraform proves that sometimes, less really is more.
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