IGEL turns one leadership search into a broader investment in community and education with Findem

Challenge

IGEL's talent acquisition team was searching for a Senior Director of Community, a technical, community-facing leader who could deepen engagement across IGEL’s customer, partner, and technical ecosystem. As HR Consultant Lisagaye Tomlinson put it, hiring the right leaders is about "building the right teams and bringing in the right expertise" to help the company scale.

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The search also carried an important location requirement: IGEL wanted the leader based near its Fort Lauderdale office. Tomlinson and her recruiting colleague expanded the search across the East Coast and considered candidates with previous ties to Florida, recognizing that relocation could narrow the available talent pool.

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Finding the right leader would require looking beyond job titles alone.

Solution

Beyond the job title

Tomlinson and her colleague ran searches using Findem's attribute-based filtering, to define the capabilities, experience, and leadership qualities the role required rather than relying on title matches alone.

"One of the things I really love about Findem is the amount of specificity, or how specific you can get with your searches, down to what language a person speaks and what their capabilities are," Tomlinson said.

That specificity surfaced a candidate whose experience extended well beyond the original Senior Director of Community brief. She was also based in Fort Lauderdale, satisfying the location requirement from the outset. 

Recognizing a broader leadership opportunity 

In addition to community leadership, her experience in education pointed to an opportunity to bring two strategically connected functions together. That insight led IGEL to create an expanded position, VP Global Education & Community, and hire the candidate for it.

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"Her experience brought together two priorities that were strategically important to IGEL," Tomlinson said. IGEL completed the hire through direct sourcing, without incurring external agency fees.

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Along the way, Findem's built-in company intelligence, including size, revenue, and competitors, gave the team extra context to keep refining their search as it progressed.

Results

That kind of result is why Tomlinson turns to Findem first on hard-to-fill searches, particularly when titles do not align neatly, the location requirements are narrow, or the right candidate does not match the job description on paper.

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The hire also changed how IGEL’s leadership viewed the role of the platform in strategic talent searches. Tomlinson now uses Findem as a starting point across a broader range of searches. 

"Findem doesn't just help me fill the role I'm searching for," Tomlinson said. "It helps my leadership team trust that if the right person exists, we're going to find them."