This is a story about reframing the recruiter-candidate relationship to become significantly more personal and supportive. How many nightmare stories have you heard about ridiculously bad experiences with recruiters who don’t reply to emails, have no critical feedback to offer on your CV, and seem all too willing to just leave you to look for new career opportunities by yourself? There are exceptions to the rule, of course, and today I’m talking with Maria Meally who is one very notable exception, and I’m so eager for you to meet her. Maria is the owner of Theory Y Search, a recruitment agency for the financial services industry in New York and Toronto. She’s from Ireland, moved to Toronto and lived here for 7 years, and then recently relocated to Brooklyn, where she lives today. What she does so differently is take into account how critical it is for her to form meaningful relationships with her candidates and her clients because recruiting really is a business founded upon relationships, but very few recruiters invest in them. And I just don’t get why not! Neither does Maria, which is why she operates her business differently. Working with her is like getting a therapist, a recruiter, and a life coach in one. I am so passionate about this topic and I think it’s so overdue for the recruitment industry, particularly in Canada, to be disrupted by recruiters who think differently about their work, play the long game and are fiercely committed to relationships and supporting the self-esteem of their clients through the job search process. Let’s talk to Maria.