CNA International IT

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m CBDO of a software development company with ~60 people

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

Our team has only HR that is also responsible for recruitment. We decided to partner with CNA International IT. Our attention was grabbed by the Salary Surveys conducted by the team every half a year.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

They are the recruitment agency that has been working even in the situation of war without losing speed and quality. Moreover, they have relocated part of the team to the UK where their head office is located. I chose them also for only 5-star reviews on Clutch.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

They answered my inquiry less than in 30 minutes and already on the same day we scheduled an intro call. After understanding their processes we agreed to start working together, signed a contract, and I shared the job description. I was communicating with a dedicated team that included even a Customer Care person :)

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4-5 people

• sales
• customer care angel
• dedicated recruiter
• financial and legal representatives

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

We worked on an exclusive basis with the CNA IT. As guys had a warm pipeline we got the result very quickly. Our new developer is already working with us having passed all the tests and preliminary tasks.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Day-to-day communication, weekly reports about the progress using the comfortable for mee tools: Slack, Telegram, Zoom/Google Meets!

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We were fascinated by the speed and quality of the proposed candidates. This is a rare combination right now.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Difficult to say as we are totally satisfied.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I’m CEO of a software development company.

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

We don’t have a dedicated internal recruiter to find developers, that’s why we decided to partner with CNA International IT. We paid attention that they are aware of market situation as they do Salary Surveys on a 6-months basis.

This point made us suppose that we will get the clarified feedback about salary of the desired specialist without any additional payments.

How did you select CNA Internationa IT and what were the deciding factors?

They are the only company in Ukraine that has a UK head office. So I was sure that the processes and quality of communication won’t definitely be low. I chose them also for only 5-star reviews on Clutch that pointed clear communication.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

I sent an inquiry on their website, they immediately answered me and I have booked a call already for the next day. After that i sent them job descriptions, they discussed them in team and sent us a short list of candidates already within 1 week. 2 of 4 provided candidates were good to be chosen for the next stage, and 1 was chosen as a final candidate for the offer.

How many resources from the CNA Internationa IT team worked with you, and what were their positions?

4-5 people, sales, customer care angel, dedicated recruiter and financial and legal representatives.

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

We decided to work on exclusive basis with the CNA IT, we got a very quick result and the probation period in our case was only 1 month (as the technology is rare). We got an appropriate team player to our team that was searched by the professional of the CNA IT.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

Our teams went hand-in-hand all off the project so I liked their processes.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What mesmerized me the most is their network of candidates and warm attitude during our collaboration. Also I was impressed by their style of communication.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

I could say that I would like to get the result quicker but this would be unfair.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder of a software development company

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

My company didn’t have available resources to hire a perfect candidate that would become immediately a part of the team, also we were not acquainted well with the market situation and benefits to propose to the new team member, knowing that there is quite a struggle for professionals on the market. So, I started to search for a partner. Initially, I wanted to check how CNA IT can handle the work, so studied review on Clutch and their articles in media as well as reviews in open sources and reputation rates.

I was engaged in working with them as they are the only company in Ukraine that are part of a British network specialized in Executive search, so I understood that I deal with the traditions, tailored made approaches, and high-quality customer service. Also, they conduct plenty of educational and analytical activities so I’ve got not only the recruiting service but also consulting services as a bonus. We were limited in the time of hiring the right person, so velocity was also one of the most important criteria.

How did you select this firm and what were the deciding factors?

I was engaged in working with them as they are the only company in Ukraine that is part of a British network specialized in Executive search, so I understood that I deal with the traditions, tailored made approaches, and high-quality customer service. We were limited in the time of hiring the right person, so velocity was also one of the most important criteria.

Describe the project in detail and walk through their service package.

We provided the team with the requirements of the person we search for. They gave us feedback on all the points in the vacancy description, advising how to make it better. Also, they provided consulting on the current market situation, what candidates search for while changing the job place now. They suggested cutting the number of interviews, providing preliminary screenings of the shortlisted candidates.

Also, they showed that they are in touch with the candidates as we got 3 CVs exactly in a few days. One person was selected by us and in general, the hiring process took about 10 days.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We worked with a dedicated team, at the first stage we were dealing with Business Development Consultants and Recruitment Lead that gave us the idea of how realistic is our inquiry in terms of the market situation, what time they will need to close the position, and etc.

After the contract was signed we were introduced to the dedicated Recruiter and Customer Care Angel (the person who was always in contact with us ready to answer all the additional questions and provide us with the necessary information. Dedicated Recruiter was always online with us, sharing the progress of their team on our project.

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

As far as we know the time required to close such a position is about 1-1.5 months. They did their work 3 times shorter than expected, with excellent quality and perfect fit of the candidate into corporate culture. The candidate passed successfully the probation period without any negative feedback from us. Thanks to the CNA IT team we speeded up our projects and empowered team spirit. They totally demonstrated the premium personal attitude to our company and brilliant results.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

They used a kind-a mix of Agile and The Lean Startup approaches. I like the last one a lot as we are using Lean Startup too. We had several channels of communication including emails, Slack, Telegram, Zoom/Google Meets. They provided us with reports and all the communication process was clear and transparent.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I was impressed by their panoramic view and unbelievable ability to dive into our culture and team spirit. I can’t even imagine how they managed to complete our task with such a candidate and such a short period of time! Being impressed means nothing, what we really feel is much more! Their approach helped us speed up the process and trebled the results. Our decision to work with them was such a good investment this year.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

At first glance, their rates and prices seemed a bit high. But after we got the service I can say this is the minimum to be paid for such an excellent service! So we are totally satisfied and going to continue working with them in the future on other key positions.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a product company working in the healthcare field. We’re creating products for children with autism and I’m a recruiting lead responsible for the European team.

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

We were looking for an agency to recruit front– and backend resources for us. We had a lot of hiring to do in one month’s time.

What was the scope of their involvement?

We asked them for front- and backend developers. At the time, we needed no more than 10 people in total. CNA had initial interviews with the resources to make sure they fit our culture, and from there we had technical interviews. They found three backend and two frontend developers, which was enough. We hired a couple of recruiters to our team from there and the developers are working remotely.

What is the team composition?

Vlada (Managing Partner & Recruitment Team Lead) was my main point of contact.

How did you come to work with CNA International IT?

I’d worked with CNA three years earlier for another company. We were using two recruitment agencies at the time, and I liked CNA a lot.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our project with CNA ran from September–October 2020; it ended when we hired the resources. The whole engagement lasted for around two months.

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

CNA closed five positions in two months, which was a very good result for us. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but they showed us around 13 candidates, and we hired five of them — they didn’t waste our time with unvetted candidates. All in all, the result was tremendous.

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

I’d worked with them before, so it was very easy to continue our communication. We had several calls in the first week to get on the same page, too. We worked through Slack and spreadsheets, and CNA sent us weekly reports about how many candidates they’d reached out to. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The chemistry between their recruiters and our team was very impressive. They were pretty quick about communicating and they delivered very good results. Overall, they made a strict plan and stuck to it. We never had a situation where we needed to ping them about their work since we received daily information about the candidates. They did their job quite well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t think there is anything they could have improved. They didn’t show us a lot of candidates, but they focused on quality instead of quantity and we hired five of them. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

I don’t have any fellow recruiters I could refer to CNA at the moment, but I’ll definitely refer them if the opportunity arises.

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.