Michelle Perchuk describes her career and entrepreneurial journey as having three distinct chapters; she started out as a traditional recruiter, launched her own company to teach boutique search firms how to operate, and then transitioned into what she calls career and business progression coaching. Each of these steps endowed her with a set of marketable skills that distinguished her from the crowd of professionals in her field and which she applies when assisting beginners who are starting their careers or already well-established executives in planning their future paths.
Perchuk worked for Manpower and Ajilon as a recruiter for large companies filling technical positions at banks and insurance companies. With the mortgage crisis ensuing, those industries were hit hard, and Perchuk took on a risky proposition. “The largest number of businesses is created during economic downturns and I decided to be part of that statistic,” she recalls. She opened up her own boutique recruiting company in 2010 which became successful over the next few years.
Then there was this dramatic change occurring within industry itself. Headhunting began getting more automated whereby the process turned more transactional due to machine learning. Sometimes candidates would take offers then bail out at the last minute because someone else had made them an improved offer. Burnt by experience, Perchuk felt burnt out too: “I kept asking myself this question – what makes people behave this way? Do they just work for money? Is it not fulfilling?”
To obtain a better idea on what is going on in the recruitment field today, Michelle surveyed over 600 executives on LinkedIn, which led to writing Swimming in the Talent Pool: The Evolution of Recruiting. “Honestly it was really great launching me full-blown into expertise around talent acquisition, talent development, leadership, coaching,” says Michelle Perchuk who later sold her recruiting business to a friendly competitor before launching MTV Coaching.
“Having Forbes Councils badge is totally validating me.”
At first, Perchuk mentored boutique search firms like the one she had run. For a few months, she would be fully immersed in her clients’ organizations, improve their sales processes and train those who are responsible for recruiting. “I just kinda fell in love with coaching,” she says. She wanted to save recruiters and candidates time and grief by helping people get clear on where they were going before they began looking for jobs. Therefore, she made a decision to become a coach and has even received professional certification at Rutgers University saying, “I recognized that I have this wealth of information that executives need when they’re looking to transition.” “That’s why I became a Job Search Strategist,” she says, adding “And I call myself a career progression coach not a career coach.”
Perchuk’s clientele is divided into three categories: young individuals transitioning from school to employment; individuals with career objectives who require help in achieving them; and the old executives who are planning to change their way of doing things but are unsure how to do so. “What I often tell people about myself is that I am a fusion of an ex-recruiter, executive search, executive talent acquisition executive mixed in with the coaching part because it’s not transactional at all getting a job,” Perchuk says. She also teaches students freshmen and sophomores at Fairleigh Dickinson University some life skills they need after school.
She says she was able to grow her business internationally due to the Covid-19 pandemic as all client communication moved online with Zoom taking center stage. Also, being a member of Forbes Coaches Council has helped expand her influence across borders. According to her “International executives have reached out to me saying that they’ve seen a piece where I was featured or that I wrote on the platform.” They will never be exposed on these people were it not for Forbes Councils. To help them understand her better, she mentions “Having the Forbes Councils badge is really validating me.” In addition, she has started collaborating with other members of her community such as a member who is expert in resume writing, cover letter writing and bios writing for job candidates. “I don’t like writing resumes so I would love to be able to refer clients out into this ecosystem of Forbes Councils,” said Perchuk”. And if their clients want someone to build a strategy, they would refer them to me.”