Meet the Founder
Tell Us a Little About Ben Jaksich
I’m 38 years old and currently live in New Jersey with my wife and two kids, Tommy (5) and Lila (2). I lived in Nebraska from age 9-24 and earned my degree in finance from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I moved to New York in 2007 and to New Jersey in 2015. Does this make me an official NE guy now?
How did you end up in recruiting?
Great question. I don’t think people grow up or go to school with a plan to pursue a career in recruiting. In fact, the majority of people don’t know what a recruiter is or does. When I moved to New York from Nebraska in July of 2007 I was hell bent on getting into capital raising on the asset management or hedge fund side. As it turns out, the demand for former Enterprise Rent A Car branch managers on Wall Street wasn’t as high as I hoped. When I met the team at Michael Page, they talked to about recruiting within that space and that could be my way in. Seemed logical so I made the plunge and joined.
Tell us more about that job, we hear a lot of things about Michael Page.
It was a great place to cut your teeth in search. The training and brand are top notch plus they work you hard which is good for twenty somethings who need structure or guidance. I was there for roughly two years, met a lot of my now closest friends, learned a lot about recruiting and garnered one hell of a work ethic. Shot out to Joe Carbone, Justin Sutton, and Scott Rickli! I met all three of them during my time and to this day are three of my closest friends.
So then what?
It was a good run but knew it wasn’t going to be my forever employer. I had a short stint with a retained company before Russell Tobin (RT) where I spent close to 10 years. When I joined RT there were five of us and when I left it was close to 200. Over that 10 year span I grew and led the growth stage recruiting team. That team focused on working with early-stage tech companies and we had four practices and 30 people who recruited across sales, marketing, HR, and technology. The team I was a part of and led there was best in class. We had fun, we grew a lot, and worked together in a way that most recruiting companies would never dream of. As I look back on my last quarter which was Q1 of 2020 I think we placed something crazy like 60 people.
Russell Tobin sounded like a good place, what happened?
Sometimes you just grow apart. I loved the job and the team I led but the direction we were going versus the company continued to drift further and further apart over time. It was a hard decision and one I though about for months before ultimately pulling the trigger.
Growing apart happens and that stinks it happened at a place you liked. What were some of your fondest memories there?
There are too many to count. What really made the place special to me were the people. If you look at the alumni that came from there you’ll see nothing but stellar people.
My first hire was Corey Feeley. Corey had no recruiting experience whatsoever and now works at Google. Eileen Sam is another who came to RT with no experience is know an HR executive at Medium. Some other great alums that were a part of the growth team at RT (sorry if I missed you!) include Rylie Carpenter, Steven Fogel, Janani Siva, Chrissy Neafsey, Zoie Esposito, Charles Trent, Jess Forman, Nora Swidler, Julia Povolny, Amanda Riebe, Megan Gallagher, Rachel Friedman, Alanna Miller, and Jake Loskant. To this day I’m still friendly with nearly all of them. I guess that means I was a pretty good dude to work with if they still text me back right?
Of course, there are a lot of good people still there that I’m good friends with including Jeremy Siegel, Corey Getzoff, Alicia Scully and many many more. I supposed Tim Tobin and Leo Russell are ok guys too, ha!
Wow, that’s a big list and it looks like a lot are recruiting within tech still.
Yes, it stinks to lose anybody, but it always makes me happy to see people progress in their career. I think the fact most are still in recruiting means they enjoyed RT and opted to stick with it. It’s also been cool to partner with some as clients since they’ve moved on.
Do you remember your first placement?
Yes, it was with a company called HealthFirst and I placed a bilingual marketing manager. Unfortunately, he resigned on day 80 so he didn’t hit the guarantee period. I guess that wasn’t my first official placement now that I’m saying it out loud.
Oof, that always stinks. What are some of your more notable placements or hires?
Most memorable is probably David Solomon who I placed at Axiom. Not only was David my first sales placement, but it was also my first with Axiom who went on to be a great client of mine. What made it memorable is that David was not a seller before Axiom. In fact, I was meeting him for a different role. After chatting with him I knew he’d be a great for Axiom and it turns out I was right!
One of my other more memorable placements was Charles Trent who led the marketing group when I was at RT. It took me about 8 months to get on the phone with him and that was during the time he was getting married. The email chain looked like:
“ready to get married”
“how was the wedding”
“have fun on the honeymoon”
“how was the honeymoon.”
Needless to stay Charles saw how relentless I was and eventually gave in.
Recently you decided to build your own company and started Husk Talent. What prompted that?
I’ve always wanted to do my own thing and knew I could do it. However, there was always a reason or commission check that kept me staying in past roles. The timing seems right to do it and I feel I’m in the best spot from a professional, mental, and personal standpoint to do it.
What is Husk Talent going to be all about?
Husk Talent is going to be a very niche recruiting company that partners with early-stage technology companies on leadership hires. We will start with sales and marketing since that’s what I know best and eventually branch into the functional areas which includes product and tech. If you do product or tech and want to build something with me give me a shout, we are hiring!
Aside from being niche by industry and function, I also want to focus on senior ICs to manager to VP/Head of type roles. From a base salary this is going to be in the $125-$300k base range.
Will Husk be a retained only search firm?
Tough to say as we are only one month in. I’ve found that a lot of earlier companies are very conscious of their cash position so garnering a full commitment is hard for them to justify. Let’s just say Husk will only take on projects we know we can execute at a high level on and with companies and leaders who have a solid reputation. We are new and if it ticks both of those boxes we should be able to find a way to make it work.
Ben, Husk sounds great and we can’t wait to chat again in five years to hear more about your journey. Good luck on everything!
Thank you!
