I worked every summer at my dad’s corrugated paper company (making me the perfect person to break down all my wife’s Amazon order boxes) and really admired something about him that I thought was unusual. No one ever spoke ill of him, no one ever wrote rude things on the bathroom stall walls, or even rolled an eye behind his back. In running the manufacturing floor he was definitely stern, but always respectful and kind.
I remember seeing something unusual in his office as well. It was a big red brick on his desk. It was actually a brick-colored rectangular piece of stone from a street being torn up in downtown Chicago, but my father had taken it and written in red, “Integrity”. He worked every single day at that company and at home with us, with integrity.
When I started this recruiting company there were two things I wanted to honor as being the most paramount. You can guess the first was ‘integrity’, and then the second was happiness. The pursuit of happiness, the dedication to it. That means not settling, that means working hard for what means the most for you. Happiness is hard work in and of itself.
So there you have it, “Integress” is the fusion of integrity and happiness, which are cornerstones of our company culture and my personal efforts every day in and out of the office.
Further, it’s a great reminder to me of how different all our approaches are to being happy and authentic. My father and I may have the same goals for our lives, but our means to getting there have been vastly different. My dad thrived in the corporate space and in a more traditional career trajectory. I am an entrepreneur, and arguably unemployable by anyone other than myself. We like and need different environments to cultivate our end goals, but the goal is the same: a life of meaning that is attained honestly and to give us fulfillment each day. It’s an example that we can all achieve success, but the route will be different and unique. That is the beauty of life and sticking to your own path.
In regard to recruiting, I find that integrity and happiness are in fact the perfect way to approach the profession. Our success is rooted in transparency and honesty – doing the right thing even when no one is watching (integrity), but it’s also about finding the perfect match for people in their careers – their purpose (happiness). We love to turn the tables on the preconceived notions that headhunters are all just trying to make a profit, or that recruiting agencies turn and burn employees and stuff their client’s with inflated submission and candidates that are sub-par just to make it look like they’ve been working hard.
We hope to not only give our clients and the candidates we work with an experience that speaks to our values, but to help the industry at large reform its reputation. To bring the pursuit of happiness and integrity into the manufacturing industry, engineering, IT, and logistics. To promote to anyone that we meet that you too can have a life that feels good and that makes you proud.
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