In an Interview with Dane Palarino, Founder of Palarino Partners: “We Work to be the ‘Rolls Royce’ of the Recruiting Industry”.

“From the beginning, we let our clients and candidates know that the recruiting process is not about us, it’s about them and what they want to achieve. We are simply a vehicle to help them get to where they are trying to go professionally.”

The company’s sole focus is building World-Class Product Management teams for software companies.

Palarino Partners helps companies avoid their most costly expense, a mis-hire, for their most critical function – Product Management. It is well known that a bad hire can cost a company between 5-27 times the placed candidate’s base salary (per Dr. Brad Smart, author of Topgrading).

Bad hires are expensive, tough to recognize, and are often realized at a time when it’s too late – that’s why Palarino Partners prides themselves on getting it right, the first time around.

Palarino Partners was founded in 2010 and is based in Charleston, South Carolina.

Dane Palarino: Interview Highlights

Q. Why was the company set up? And how did you expand your company and its offering over the years?

With over 150 placements that generated north of $100 million in bottom-line revenue for his clients within Big Data & Analytics, Dane recognized the most critical role was the Product Manager. His belief, based on experience and data, was that it didn’t matter how good the Sales, Engineering, or Leadership teams were. If they didn’t have a product, they didn’t have a company – period.

Realizing this, Dane shifted his focus solely on the Product Management function, and Palarino Partners was born. They have become the leading search firm globally for building world-class Product Management teams for SaaS organizations

Q. What kind of responses have you received from your consumers over the years?

Our clients require us to find individuals who can help them solve their problems, and they usually come to us after they have spent months trying to fill the position(s) on their own. We are the team that is called upon to attract and influence the candidates who are heads-down focused, not looking for a new role, and who aren’t applying to job postings. We go and build high-level relationships with these candidates, share our client’s story and opportunity with them, and get them to come up for air to have a conversation with the client.

Our clients confirm that Palarino Partners delivers top talent for their mission-critical Product Management positions, ensuring we become one of their best investments of the year.

Q. What challenges did you face in your initial years?

Our offerings were too broad when we first launched the business, focusing on several different types of roles (C-Level and VP level roles across all functions of acompany – Sales, Marketing, Engineering, Product, etc.). We discovered that being hyper- niched in one function allowed us to go deeper with passive candidates and deliver better quality to our clients, year in and year out. Most of our clients hire other recruiters for different hires within their organization; however, when they have a Product Management need – we get called to exclusively fill these roles. The best example I can give is that most recruiters are like General Practitioners and we are the Cardiac Surgeon (the specialist).

Q. “Earning trust and respect of consumers all around the world is through consistent focus on delivering high quality in all of our actions.” How do you interpret this statement?

We have built the trust and respect of our clients and candidates through the experience we provide for each of them – we work to be the “Rolls Royce” of the recruiting industry. Our business is predicated on serving, and by keeping that at the forefront of our business model, we have gained the trust of our clients and candidates. It’s never about us, we are always serving the client by finding the people who can help them solve their problem, and once we identify the candidate, we make it about their goals before we share our client experience. This helps both parties find value in the introduction and keeps us from being resume brokers – like most other recruiting firms out there.

Q. How do you maintain your customers’ trust and loyalty?

It’s all about listening to what our clients and candidates want, and then influencing and helping them achieve their objectives. From the beginning, we let our clients and candidates know that the recruiting process is not about us, it’s about them and what they want to achieve. We are simply a vehicle to help them get to where they are trying to go professionally.

Q. What do you feel are the reasons behind your company’s reputation?

We deliver the most exceptional service, hands down, in the marketplace to our clients and candidates. We provide white glove service, from beginning to end, throughout the recruitment cycle. Our clients and candidates often tell us that the experience they had during our process was “world-class, and second to none”, and we believe that’s because we treat them much differently than most search firms.

Q. Where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

We see our business continuing to help SaaS Founders build the best products in the world by hiring the best Product Management talent globally. Within the next three years, when SaaS founders think of Product Management hires, they will think of Palarino Partners.

The Dream Team Behind Palarino Partners’ Achievements

Dane A. Palarino, Founder: After a successful career in sales and consulting for corporate America, Dane’s vision when he launched his first executive search firm, DAP Consulting Group, was to focus on making sure that companies did not incur their most costly expense, mis-hire.

Becoming hyper- niched, Dane launched his second recruiting firm, Palarino Partners, in order to best serve the ever-growing competitive landscape in the software sector. Dane’s tenacity and relentless pursuit to deliver excellent service to his clients and candidates are the fundamental components on which Palarino Partners is comprised.

Marli Palarino, Managing Director: Marli runs the business side for Palarino Partners, managing the day-to-day operations to ensure a seamless outcome for both clients and candidates. She spent the earlier part of her career as a marketing manager in the luxury and fashion industries, working for Ralph Lauren, IMG Fashion (where she managed the sponsorships for some of the world’s leading brands at NY, LA and Miami Fashion Weeks) and Mouawad Fine Jewelry. She now brings her premium brand management to Palarino Partners, creating an unparalleled and luxury client and candidate experience – unseen in the traditional world of recruiting.

“We see our business continuing to help SaaS founders build the best products in the world by hiring the best Product Management talent globally.”