Recless Tech rebrands, eyes future growth
January 30, 2024
Recless Tech is now Reliant Search Group, founder Aaron Davis announced earlier this month.
The rebrand was prompted largely by a change in the firm’s business model, he said.
The startup has shifted from its fully recruiter-less talent referral platform to a more traditional talent search model. It has also branched beyond hiring software developers and information technologists to tap individuals with other hard-to-find skill sets, including engineers and executives.
“Initially, Recless meant recruiter-less. When we changed the business model, it didn’t feel sincere,” he explained.
The tech branding also felt limiting as the team expands its executive search offerings, he said.
“We’re evolving to a broader, more generalist name, but it also implies the way we work — reliability, senior-level competence,” he said. “The last thing in the world we are is reckless. It was OK when folks misinterpreted the name when we were looking to disrupt the recruiting industry, but now it’s just a distraction.”
Validation
Aaron took a break from his company from mid 2021 to the end of 2022. He’d launched his self-funded startup in late 2019. As he started to run out of his budgeted seed money, a consulting opportunity popped up. He took it, and spent a year and half acting as interim CEO for a real estate development firm.
“I thought maybe Recless Tech was dead,” he recalled. “I met other firms experimenting with similar business models, some doing things I’d tried, some doing something new. As I look back and check on those organizations now, it’s validating — a lot of them have evolved like we have. They either changed, or don’t exist anymore.”
While the peer-to-peer referral process can work, it’s not effective at scale, Aaron explained.
“It’s very cool to have been so early in that idea of executing external referral programs. But as you scale, you lose the nature of intimacy in the network. And you erode trust,” he said. “Folks may come to mind when you see a position, but you have no confidence that putting in the work to make a referral would actually result in someone being hired.”
Reliant Search Group will still utilize referral incentives in targeted moves that complement traditional recruiting strategies, Aaron said.
Revival
It was actually an offer for a permanent executive position that sent Aaron back to his own company.
“I was really unhappy,” he recalled. “I realized I needed to get back into tech or recruiting.”
So he revived his firm in 2023 and launched the podcast “Being Built” to reconnect with his network.
The podcast shares the stories tech leaders and lessons learned on the road to innovation. As Aaron began interviewing those tech leaders, they asked if he was going to start recruiting again — because they needed good people.
“My gift, my talent as a professional, is figuring out what an organization really needs,” Aaron said. “I can read between the lines and figure out what they’re trying to get done with a hire.”
So he pulled in a couple colleagues to moonlight with his firm and jumped back into that work.
Aaron launched Recless Tech because he believed there was a better way to recruit. Though Reliant Search Group deploys different strategies, that core belief holds true, he said.
“The recruiting business is really competitive. To grow, larger tech recruiting companies hire kids out of college and give them a script,” he said. “But there’s a level when competence and understanding the technology really matters. When an agent doesn’t understand the field, recruiting gets messy. So research is a big part of what we do. We really don’t like sticking our nose into the middle of something we don’t understand.”
In 2024, Aaron expects small, but steady growth. His podcast is booked into March. And he’s considering a partnership path for executive recruiters.
“As my beard gets grayer, people recognize my experience as an executive who hires leaders and entrust me with that,” he said. “So that’s what’s next.”
