Ryan Rasmussen, Partner and Executive Recruiter in the Nonprofit Practice at ThinkingAhead, shares personal insights into his role, what drew him to ThinkingAhead and the world of executive search, and what happens when nonprofit organizations develop a long-term relationship with a recruiting partner.

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You know, one of the things that I appreciate so much about thinking ahead is our relational approach to the recruiting process.

We are not a transactional firm.

Uh, those firms exist, but for us, uh, we think we get, uh, a better overall experience, not just for our clients, but for our candidates, uh, by embracing a more relational.

Like I said, concept here.

And so again, for us, this means we're gonna connect with key stakeholders in an organization.

We want to get to know the organization we're serving.

We're gonna connect with leadership across the spectrum of the C-Suite in the organization.

Again, we wanna get to know the organization and I kind of look at it as more of a, like a matchmaking process.

Sometimes I'll tell my clients that this is a courtship.

We're trying to bring together two entities into, uh, a wonderful union.

And so, uh, for us, we think we get better results.

We think we create a better matchmaking experience If we really know our clients well, then of course, in the recruiting process, we get to know our candidates as well.

And so for me, being a more relational person as a recruiter, I mean, this is just kind of all, uh, ties together.

And ultimately I think.

Creates a better experience for the client and for the candidate in the process.

So before transitioning into the wild and wonderful world of executive search, I actually spent a couple decades in full-time vocational ministry.

One of my favorite things as a pastor was having a front row seat to life change.

Similarly, uh, now an executive search, that is my favorite thing as well.

I love the opportunity to see an individual move forward in their career journey to help them find that next opportunity or that next experience is gonna help them to kind of, you know, spread their wings in their, uh, in their new opportunity.

I'll say this as well as someone who.

Who served for so long in ministry, I've found a, a niche in serving faith-based and poverty and relief organizations, social justice groups.

And so, again, I like to say it this way.

Uh, for me, I wanna serve organizations.

I wanna serve nonprofits that are making the world a little bit better place.

I think it's threefold.

I think first there's an, an expertise that a recruiter brings to, uh, to the conversation, right?

We're talking to individuals in the market every day.

We're connecting with, uh, with organizations that are similar to other organizations that we might have served.

And so again, there's just this sort of expertise that, uh, that we're able to provide for our clientele.

Uh, secondly, I would just say it's connection.

Right.

Uh, in our, in our CRM, we have 60,000 individuals in just the nonprofit space, uh, that we're able to engage.

Not to mention, again, the connections that we know in this market in St. Louis or that we know in this market, in San Diego or this market in Seattle.

And so, uh, for us it's just, we, we live and breathe by those connections.

But then finally, I'd say this, it's bandwidth.

A client comes to us.

Often because they just don't have the bandwidth to make the cold calls and the emails and the LinkedIn connects that it requires to attract the kind of passive candidates that that are, are the best candidates for a search.

And so again, most organizations, they're gonna post and they're gonna.

Pray and they're gonna hope something comes to the surface for us.

We're gonna go into the market and we're gonna find that talent and bring it to you.

And so for us, we have the bandwidth.

It's what we do.

It's our job.

It's what we love to do.