Engineering Recruiter · Dallas, TX
$380K in placements, solo — in 14 months.
Michael had the network and the reputation. What he was missing was infrastructure. Here's how Contrario gave him the back-office to scale — without adding headcount or hours.
Tom
Engineering Recruiter
$380k
generated
$380K
Revenue generated
24 placements
18 days
Avg. time-to-fill
down from 34
3×
Submit volume
vs. pre-Contrario
91%
Offer acceptance
last 6 months
Before Contrario
Running a full desk on a spreadsheet
Michael had been recruiting independently for four years when he found Contrario. His reputation was solid — engineers trusted him, clients came back. But the operation ran on a Google Sheet, a shared inbox, and a lot of late nights. Every intake call meant 40 minutes of manual notes. Sourcing a shortlist took two days. Client emails went unanswered for a week.
He was doing the work of three people and moving at the speed of one.
"I was good at recruiting. I just wasn't good at running a recruiting business. I felt that gap every single week."
— Tom
On Contrario
A workflow that actually scales
Within his first two weeks, Michael had three active roles on the platform, Notario joining his calls automatically, and his first shortlist going to a client via Slack — responded to in under three hours. Rio cut his sourcing time from two days to 20 minutes per role.
His weekly workflow
1
Intake call -> instant brief
Notario joins every intake call. By the time Michael closes his laptop, the call summary and role brief are already in the platform — reviewed, not written.
Notario Calls
2
Rio builds the shortlist
He runs the brief through Rio. It returns a ranked list with match reasoning pre-written per profile. He reviews, cuts to 5–6, adds a line each.
Rio AI
3
Submits via Slack, same day
Candidates go to the client through a Contrario Slack channel. Clients leave feedback inline. Average response time: 4 hours instead of 5 days.
Slack Hiring
4
Interviews tracked, offers anchored
Notario joins candidate screens too. Summaries go to the client as deal memos. Candidate intelligence surfaces comp benchmarks before offer calls. His offer acceptance rate: 91%.
Notario Calls
Notario Calls
"A lot of times you talk to recruiters and it's very corporate — a means to an end for everybody. Dan was very human. It felt like he was genuinely looking out for my best interests. We still text each other today."
— Naren Duggirala, Founding Engineer
Tom
Senior Engineering Recruiter
Details
Specialty
Engineering
Member since
Jan 2023
Active clients
4 retained
Avg. deal size
$28K
Engagement
Retained
Offer acceptance
91%
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