CNA International IT

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the Deputy CHRO for a financial company. We have 500+ employees.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

We were looking for some international recruitment for a manager.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They helped us find a manager. He’s responsible, familiar with the local culture, and speaks our language fluently, as well.

What is the team composition?

There were three people working with us.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

My boss worked with them previously and was happy with that experience. He suggested I consider working with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2019 – March 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

It was an excellent decision to work with them. They found us an experienced manager that knew the culture well and had a firm grasp on our language. We worked with other companies in the past for 5-6 months and never found a good candidate. Within a few months of working with this team, we found the best possible candidate. We’re very happy.

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They did a good job. We had some language barriers in the beginning but they fixed it, and communication was good after that. We used Outlook for messages, Telegram for most communication, and Skype for interviews.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The team is very professional. They’re specialized in recruiting for Asia and Africa. They did a very good job of identifying all the issues and criteria we had and finding the best solution to fill that need.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They ask a lot of questions, and they will do a good job helping you find exactly what you need.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I worked as Talent Acquisition Lead at FigLeaf, privacy startup within ZEO Alliance group.

For what projects/services did your company hire CNA International IT?

Recruitment: UX Designer, R&D Engineer, Front-End Engineer We were scaling rapidly and outsourced some of our recruitment to CNA.

What were your goals for this engagement?

We wanted to ease the load on inhouse team and gave some of our positions to CNA for the full cycle. We expected to close at least 5 positions with them.

How did you select this vendor?

We met twice in person and actually interviewed them on their approach, tools, team, values. They were selected from a short-list of up 5 companies. We chose them for customer focus, high level of expertise and empathy about our business needs. The selection was conducted by HRD, myself and Head of Executive Search.

Describe the engagement in detail.

They were in charge of recruiting. We held intake meetings, provided job descriptions, and also we agreed to conduct culture fit interviews ourselves (it was our firm position). CNA were responsible for sourcing, screening and managing candidates through the whole assessment cycle, including offer negotiation.

What was the team composition?

From the vendor's side there were two account managers (one of them CEO, the other of Recruitment Lead) and up to five people working on our openings.

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

We saved time due to CNA doing much sourcing and filling complicated positions for us. We expected more openings to be filled, though it's worth mentioning that the reasons for not meeting this goal were in no way related to CNA, rather bottlenecks in our selection process. Our candidates were happy about their interaction with CNA. Hiring managers didn't interact with them.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We were in contact twice per week. Communication from CNA was timely, precise and very proactive.

What did you find most impressive about this vendor?

Their strengths are in their network and good business sense. They have a profound understanding of common business problems and ways to solve them, also empathetic about addressing them.

Are there any areas for improvement?

What we appreciated about CNA is that one the values they shared with us was candor and transparency. Whenever we needed to fix something on the go, we did it right away and it went smoothly. They are agile learners and there seems nothing solid that would be worth mentioning as an area for improvement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of research and development at CreditNinja, an online-based consumer lending company.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

We’re a two-year-old startup and we needed to build out our tech team. We wanted to start hiring developers in Kiev, Ukraine.

What was the scope of their involvement?

I engaged CNA International IT to help me build out a Kiev based software development team. We wanted them to build out our team of six developers. They are very far from the run of the mill, sand-based recruiters.

They have a network of developers and are really good at tuning in to what kind of developers we’re looking for. We initially started with finding some junior developers and they did that well. Then we let them be our exclusive partner in terms of building out the rest of the team. Now we want to engage them to help us find some project management people. That will be a little unique for us, but I’m confident that they can help me figure out what we’re looking for.

They’ve had a number of clients like us that first approached building out a team in Kiev who later wanted to establish a physical office for the developers in the Ukraine area. That’s another project that I’m going to engage them with. They’re going to help us establish a physical office in Kiev for 10-15 person occupancy. They have experience in helping find an office location.

They give me good intel in terms of how the process should look in establishing an entity in Ukraine and what the rough estimates are for upfront costs and ongoing costs. It's really great because it’s my first time trying to establish an offshore office, but as the business grows, we’re going to grow out that team more and more.

What is the team composition?

There are six developers and a development lead. My main contact was initially with the account manager. I then spoke with a woman who gave me a lot of feedback about the onboarding process. There were maybe four or five people in total who I interacted with when it came to scheduling candidates.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

We’ve been trying to hire Kiev-based developers since the inception of the company. We weren’t able to build a pipeline of candidates because it was just me and my dev lead in Kiev and we have a regular day job.

My dev lead started getting hit up by recruiters. I told him to reach out to some of them and tell them he’s happy where he works but his boss wants to talk to them about building out a team in Kiev. He then connected me with CNA International IT and we got on a Skype videoconference call.

How much have you invested with them?

$10,000-$49,999.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2018 and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We went through a lot of candidates and they stuck with us through hitting the goal of getting six developers. We had=ve a good steady pipeline of candidates. We get great weekly summaries so I know the status of every candidate. We have some really good talent.

We picked up a guy who is a junior developer starting his freshman year of college and going to be working full-time with us. He’s already had three years of paid professional Rails development consulting experience. At no point in time, once the pipeline was full, did it ever dip down below six people. It was closer to 10-12 people in various stages. 

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

The main account manager sends out a weekly summary of what’s going on. He also has great suggestions as to how we could tweak or improve the recruiting pipeline. It’s not my first time doing recruiting.

I’ve worked at a number of startups building out entire organizations. It’s nice to get feedback from them in terms of what works for candidates they’re seeing. They tell us if we need to tighten up and get them scheduled as quickly as possible.

They make suggestions like setting up a Skype channel so our admin and their people scheduling the candidates can talk directly if there’s a need for urgency to get a candidate scheduled. All that is handled very well. We do bi-weekly calls on Skype to make sure we’re dialed in on the goals and to discuss how the pipeline is looking.

The primary form of communication is email. One thing I really like is that we had an open line on Skype. In the middle of my day, if a candidate wasn’t getting scheduled or was having trouble connecting with my admin, they’d send me a message over Skype asking me to bump it along. The reason the Skype channel is so effective is that it makes the time difference much easier to manage. They’re very responsive. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Unlike your average recruiters, they really care about the fit. After they’ve done a placement, they’re still following up with the candidate and giving me feedback about our onboarding process. There have been some instances where they give us very good feedback about a person, they placed with us. I’ve gone back to my dev leads and managers below me and tell them they need to make adjustments in terms of onboarding new people.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing they need to improve. They really do a good job.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t engage with them and expect them to do all the work that the hiring managers are responsible for. They’re really good at logistics, being aggressive, getting feedback, and getting the candidate to show up at the interview.

What they can’t do is force your interview team to be on time or to get the interview scheduled. That’s on you. They work best when the hiring manager and the interview team are just as good. Ideally, you should know what your interview recruiting process looks like before going into the engagement.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the senior manager in the technology department at SPS Commerce, an EDI provider based in Minneapolis.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

We were experiencing difficulty with our hiring infrastructure and were trying to fill our positions faster to have a better pool of candidates to choose from.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided recruiting for software engineers, senior software engineers, and QA software engineers. They've helped us to fill four positions, so far, and they also help us with the technical part of the interviewing process. They’re able to fill most of our positions faster than we normally could.

What is the team composition?

We had one point of contact, which was our connection to their full team.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

CNA International IT was recommended to us by a colleague.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working together in 2018 and our collaboration is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The candidates all passed the probation period successfully, and they are contributing to the team. I would say CNA International IT does the job pretty well.

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

It’s nice to communicate with them. Even if we have a misunderstanding, it’s resolved very quickly. We communicate via messaging applications and phone, and we also use a Trello board for all project-related communication.  

What did you find most impressive about them?

In a situation where we had no internal professional to interview candidates, CNA International IT provided an interviewer with excellent skills in the area and organized communication and scheduling between the parties. 

Introduce your business and what you do there.

LoveCrafts is an IT firm headquartered in London, UK. I’m a business manager in the Kiev office.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International?

My task was to build the Kiev office from the ground up. There was nothing in place, so I worked with colleagues in London to set up the office, hire staff, and build business processes. A big challenge was to find technical staff for our development processes. We had to hire a lot of programmers and testers, and I didn’t have that much experience sourcing these people.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We provided them with a list of our openings, then they worked with our CTO to find candidates. They found around 15 technical people for our office, including front- and backend developers, testers, and some senior roles. We sourced all the non-IT positions ourselves, although I’m sure they could’ve handled those as well.

The process was a collective effort, with lots of interviews involved. CNA did the original screening, reached out to possible candidates from their network, and found a lot of developers. They presented us with a list of suitable candidates, to whom our hiring manager talked. If someone fit our profile, they would be put in contact with our CTO or CEO for another interview, of which there would be three or four, with the final one involving a meeting with our team in Kiev.

What is the team composition?

They had different people on their team responsible for certain positions. We preferred email communication, given that our company is split between London and Kiev. Their account managers responded to our requests swiftly, but with well-thought-out and researched messages. We understood why they needed to take a bit more time to respond at times, and we appreciated it.

How did you come to work with CNA International?

My colleague had recommended CNA International to her as a reliable talent agency. I met with them, and they made a good impression on me as a professional company.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in August 2016, and the collaboration is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They focused on the IT positions that were hard to find, and they did a great job. CNA has helped us find two of our lead programmers, who’ve brought an immense amount of value, not only to the Kiev office, but to the whole company. They’re both senior people who are great leaders and have helped build the Kiev office to be as successful as it is.

How did CNA International perform from a project management standpoint?

They never made empty promises and managed our expectations well; they were honest about the whole process. If our budget wasn’t enough for a certain position, they would present us with data from the market and let us know how much other companies were offering. Conversely, they also looked for resources below the budgets we set. They had the integrity to let us know when we didn’t need to pay as much as we were offering. Everyone appreciated this attitude and their values.

They have people on staff who speak really good English, which was important as there was a lot of back-and-forth on any changes in the requirements. They sometimes felt like a part of our company, especially when there were many urgent positions to fill.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their values and professionalism are impressive.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They need to keep up the level of service they provide. It’s not easy to offer that to all clients, and they’ve had their challenges, like any other business. There are many different recruitment agencies in Kiev, which can make it hard to compete at times.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to work together. The expectation that a company can give an open remit to the recruitment agency and just wait for a final result, is just wrong. To find the right person, constant collaboration is needed.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a software company that provides an enterprise solution for restaurant chains of all sizes, primarily in the US. I’m the tech and development manager.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

Our company had grown, so we needed more and more people. I was involved in the hiring process back then, but it was taking too much of my time on top of my other responsibilities. We decided to involve a hiring company in the process, and we went to CNA.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They provided several candidates to us, and we interviewed each one, explained our expectations, and went back to CNA with feedback. They improved their selection based on that. Shortly, we reached a good agreement, and they provided adequate candidates for us to interview.

What is the team composition? 

The process was handled by me and a senior developer on our side using a Skype group with CNA.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

I Googled “IT recruitment companies” and found CNA, along with a few others. They had the most appealing presentation.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with them from June–November 2018.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

After a learning period in the beginning, they provided adequate candidates for our descriptions. We were able to fill all our vacancies within a short timeframe. They’re the first company we’ll go to when we open new positions.

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

Our previous hiring company wasn’t performing well in terms of timing and management, which is why we looked for a new one. CNA was very different; they always made us aware if we’d missed something.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their humanity was the most impressive thing. The team isn’t out just to make money; they also tried to be our friends.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Anyone can improve, and we’ve discussed this with CNA. They heard us and implemented the changes to the search that we wanted.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

It’s important to have an open conversation. We’ve had a good collaboration with CNA in which they answered all our questions and provided more information than requested. There’s nothing specific that another client should know.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the head of research and development at P-Product, an IT company. We’re a software development services provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

We needed help with IT recruitment for outsourced projects. We tried to use an in-house recruitment office, but the technology stack was very difficult to manage on our own.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CNA International IT recruits senior-level developers for our projects. They give us resumes and CVs of potential candidates; the team also addresses any questions, issues, or concerns. The team conducts the initial interview. They vet candidates’ English language skills and competencies with specific technology stacks. We do the secondary interviews to assess candidates' personal qualities, as well as technical and soft skills. The main account manager specializes in certain technology stacks like .NET, machine learning, computer vision, and mobile development. We currently have two open positions that the team is recruiting for.

What is the team composition?

Each account manager leads a certain branch of software engineering. They have a number of researchers, but we communicate with the main account manager only. We communicate with the head of the company, the business development manager, and the finance manager.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

One of our former remote recruiters recommended CNA International IT because they specialized in senior developer positions.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in June 2017 and the partnership is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The partnership has been great because the team has optimized our internal process and built out missing workflows. The team redeveloped our existing recruitment process and their CRM system to keep track of candidates and provide timely feedback. Most of the candidates have successfully passed our customer interviews.

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

They’re organized and responsive. Every question or request we send gets a reply within 30 minutes. If the team needs more time to research a question, they let us know and estimate the extra time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re effective because they don’t forward candidates that lack skills or reliability. We’re completely satisfied with the results of their work. If certain specialists don’t exist in our market, they’re transparent and tell us that is the case. We can then choose another region to find the right candidate.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I can’t think of anything.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

The team should give faster feedback because each company conducts interviews on their side. Likewise, if the customer provides fast feedback for each interviewed candidate, it will increase customer satisfaction with CNA International IT.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a talent acquisition specialist for an IT firm. We are an open-source database and performance solutions organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

We wanted to staff our company with skilled resources from Eastern Europe.

What was the scope of their involvement?

CNA International IT made full-time direct hires for our company’s technical openings. We put specific and robust requirements in place for ideal candidates. These positions included engineering and database administration. As a global remote organization, we held lengthy interview processes to ensure the candidates would fit with our collaborative approach and work-from-home environment. Several internal stakeholders were involved in the interview process.

What is the team composition?

I worked with one of the owners and a business development representative.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

My company hired them before I joined the organization. They knew our founders and I continued that relationship.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $10,000–$15,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2016 and the partnership ended in February 2018. We’ve since handed over European staffing to our in-house team.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

CNA International IT was completely engaged and ensured that candidates’ skill sets matched our requirements. They had a close relationship with their candidates, which helped us assess each potential hire. What’s more, the team delivered for the Eastern European market; I would hire them again for that region. They maintained our trusting relationship with open communication, no matter how the process unfolded. That strong bond between teams was important for a staffing partnership.

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

We communicated via Skype, phone, and messaging to offset the volume of email in my inbox. The team was professional, prompt, and responsive. They used email only as a secondary point of contact.

What did you find most impressive about them?

CNA International IT took pride in their work and ownership over the process. Their staffing approach included recruitment events across Europe. The team didn’t just find candidates; they created a whole culture around the tech space.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No. We are in a niche field with a small market of talent and expertise. There’s nothing the team could have done to increase that pool because we expect candidates’ skill sets to be exceptionally deep and wide.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Set up a video chat with CNA International IT to understand their process and the relevant talent pool. That interaction will create a great foundation for the rest of the relationship. They work hard for all of their clients.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operations manager for an audio system manufacturer. Our main product is an audio plugin for producers.

What challenge were you trying to address with CNA International IT?

We needed digital signal processing (DSP) engineers, who are difficult to find in our country.

What was the scope of their involvement?

They recruited DSP engineers and C++ developers for us. They developed the profiles by asking us questions to ensure that we got the best results.

What is the team composition?

They have a project manager and several recruiters on the team. They assigned a recruiter for me to work with.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

I Googled a few companies and started work with five companies, including CNA. Most of the companies weren’t as active or good as CNA, which is the company I’m the most comfortable with. They’re professional and know how to communicate. 99% of the candidates that we started to work with were from CNA, so I realized that I was wasting my time with the other companies.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around $30,000 - $40,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in May 2014 and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

All of their candidates were good; the best of all the companies we worked with. They provided us with 10–15, most of whom stayed with us for at least two to three years, and some of them are still with us.

How did CNA International IT perform from a project management standpoint?

I had a very good experience with the candidate from this year—she’s very understanding, accurate, and has great attention to detail. With the other companies, there’s a lot of time wasted, but with CNA we communicate effectively by phone and Telegram. They’re very responsible and responsive, and are generally nice, pleasant people.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The quality of candidates is the most impressive. They have good communication skills and are very professional yet friendly and informal. They’re very comfortable to work with.

Are there any areas they could improve?

It’d be good if they were bigger, then I would recommend them to someone. I’d like them to grow and keep their level of professionalism so that they can offer more services. They will be honest if they can’t fill a position.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No.

Please describe your company and your position there.

My name is Vladimir. I’m the co-founder and COO at Bleecker. Bleecker is outsourcing IT company based in Ukraine.

For what projects/services did your company hire CNA International IT?

We needed PHP developers for our internal projects.

What were your goals for this engagement?

There are a lot of PHP backend developers on the market. And we needed to find the best ones.

How did you select CNA International IT?

CNA International IT was recommended to me by my friend. He worked with CNA International IT before.

Describe the engagement in detail.

They provided recruiting for middle and senior PHP backend developers. They help us to fill all our positions faster than we normally could.

What was the team composition?

I have a personal manager that works directly with me.

Can you share any outcomes from the engagement that demonstrate progress or success?

All candidates provided by CNA International IT have successfully passed probation period. They are part of our team now.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We use messengers for a quick chat, Zoom or Skype for video calls and Trello for task management. They provide weekly reports. I think our communication process is pretty effective.

What did you find most impressive about this vendor?

CNA International IT's professionalism, dedication, and excellent recruitment skills were impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement?

I think everything was excellent.