Stephen Ripley, BetterUp

I tell my connections, “If you’re open to opportunities, these are the people (recruiters) you need to call.” I had an amazing experience with Ken Leiner Associates. I would say individualized service, exceptional coaching, and honest feedback are three things that stood out. Ken was really, really engaging and very, very personalized, which made a huge difference… and was very deliberate and honest. He does a great job of helping you prepare to transition, and what to expect, with a lot of good career advice. And his associate Amy Shepardson was absolute dynamite as well.

Ken Leiner Associates was working with a company I really wanted to work for: Better Up. I’m in my mid-50’s. I’d been working for 20, 30 years, at a dozen jobs or so and had never used a professional recruiter before. So, I was going from a role where I was leading a team to being an individual contributor – and going from a company that was pretty well established to kind of a startup. The forethought around what it’s like to transition from one opportunity to another was really very, very valuable. Ken was strategic in the sense of how you look at this big picture and Amy was an exceptional coach through the second part of the process, which was my interface with Better Up — a great coach in helping me prepare, without being someone who just gave me all the answers. She was very much about, like, what you’re thinking about for the job, where you are in their process, what they’re looking for, how things go, where you did really well or where you could’ve done better. Amy was just fantastic.

It’s that personalized connection – you’re not a commodity; you’re not a piece on the chessboard. Ken was invested in me being successful after I got there. And he called me eight months into the job to check in and see how I was doing. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. Absolutely love it! Yeah – it’s great.