Meet my friend, Ryan Leary - a firm believer that by reaching out to as many people as an “Open Networker” through social networking, "we are truly opening the door for some great opportunities both professional and personal." Ryan lives and breathes networking and if evangelism for it doesn't have a familiar ambassador on its behalf in Philadelphia, let's give him his own parking space and diplomatic sash I we need to make it official.

He is a Corporate Recruiter at Beckman Coulter, contracting through Kenexa, and oversees Client Management, Business Development, Solutions Management for industry professionals within the Finance & Accounting, IT and Administrative Arenas. That's his bread and butter, but the formal description only parses the larger framework of Ryan's contributions to this industry:

Each virtual handshake is an investment to Ryan. He is passionate about a great many things, but his awakening to social networking comes from his identification as a cybersleuthing devotee. He take pride in his expertise developing talent pipelines, strategic/tactical planning, competitive market intelligence and building passive talent relationships. In one package you have a full cycle recruiter who loves the challenge of the hunt and the promise of building a relationship for today and tomorrow.

What you don't know about Ryan is a conversation we shared which I found inspiring in its selflessness. Ryan led the Linkedin Group, LIRN (Linkedin Recruiters Network). I was at a speaking engagement in Milwaukee last month and I noticed the growth of the group and picked up the phone. We both agreed that recruitment groups had splintered into so many pieces that it diluted the strength of any one effective voice where all could speak and pay-it-forward. In that call we found a common cause and to my pleasure, Ryan agreed to offer LIRN to the cause of building RecruitingBlogs.com and assiting us in consolidating into something stronger and more unified.

To this day I recall the feeling getting off the phone that I had developed a friendship with a fellow 'believer.' Soon, thereafter, I Ryan parlayed his words into a call for action - as he promoted the SixDegrees group on Linkedin and suggested to his own group of over 1,500 to meet him at RecruitingBlogs.com (RBC). We made a connection with more than a click, we made a joint declaration to think outside the needs of the one for the many to develop more substantive and multi-dimensional resolved in community building.

Ladies and gentleman, we ask fellow members to promote a friend or fellow staff to join the interactive marketplace of ideas we offer here at RBC, but when we called Ryan, he invited an entire group.

Ryan is today's featured RecruitingBlogs.com Member, but let us not believe it is simply because of his membership, or affiliation to any other group, that made his act special - but because he gave of himself and to others with a desire for mutual trust and an ability to express a smile in tone and in action which has translated to the win/win that comes with helping contribute to something bigger than himself. He keeps giving my friends, and with that, his innate curiosity to learn and to implement only adds another set of dimensions to someone this Industry in Web 2.0 mode reflects so amply here at RBC.

Q & A with Ryan Leary
Six Degrees: Tell us of your home world, Ryan.


Ryan: "Well, I live in the great city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in an older part of town known as Manayunk, with my wife Erica, our little Westie, Gracie, and our gorgeous 5 month old daughter Erin Grace! Erin keeps us busy but it is all worth the price of admission. Her smiles are golden and I think I’ve become “daughters little daddy!”

Six Degrees: Detail Hobbies, activities/interests unfamiliar to readers

Ryan: I am an avid fisherman, love to be outdoors but I don’t like to be too hot or cold…. and my wife shares this appreciation, taking part in an annual blue fishing tournament for Charity. LIBT – Ladies Invitational Bluefish Tournament. Otherwise, most of our time now, is spent with our little angel.

Six Degrees: How many years have you been a recruiter?

Overall, I have been recruiting for about 4 years, both in the agency world and now with Kenexa which is an RPO format.

Six Degrees: How did you get started as a recruiter?

Ryan: I’ve been a fulltime recruiter for about 4 years now. I got my start in an agency where I quickly learned the ropes and found my niche as a finance recruiter. I’ve worked both sides of the desk full cycle, but I have to say that since I’ve made the transition into a more corporate based position creative sourcing has been my love. Cybersleuthing and intense networking is my passion.

Six Degrees: What single event had the most impact on your sourcing/recruiting career?


Ryan: This is a great question, and my answer has nothing to do with me recruiting at all. In my first position after graduating from college, I was working with Enterprise rent-a-car. If you are not familiar with this role, you are washing cars in suites, and running around like a crazy man from 7am to 7pm. All the mean while, management preaches you are learning to run a business, take care of customers etc. I am a pretty curious guy, and I questioned where our team was finding mass quantities of college educated people to work like this.

I got connected with some of the folks in HR and recruiting, took a promotion and began to learn how to have a team buy into an idea that may not make sense to them at the time. Eventually a light went on in my head and I learned to be creative with an outside the box approach to motivation which is now serving as a strong foundation for attracting top talent in recruiting.

Do you have a mentor to whom you attribute your overall outlook on recruitment, capabilities, and/or model your career after?

Ryan: This is a tough one. I do, but I have a couple of mentors that I’d like to mention. Both mentors come from a firm know as Quad656. Matt Sullivan and Shelley Vanclief. Both Matt and Shelley served as mentors during my time with Quad, sharing some of the strongest tips I’ve received till this day; tips that has allowed them to become “big billers”. Though part of the same team, their approached are drastically different, and I have taken good and bad from both.

Both successful in their own rights, and I will one day surpass them. J

Six Degrees: Detail your position, responsibilities, size of your staffing organization:

Ryan: I work as an operations recruiter / corporate recruiter with Kenexa Technology. Currently I am supporting one of our largest RPO clients Beckman Coulter, sourcing for the Finance and Accounting team. On average I will manage about 30 open requisitions supporting 20+ hiring managers. My direct team consists of 16 overall recruiters and a few coordinators dedicated to this project. As a team, we are responsible for Beckman’s outsourcing in 6 different locations domestically from California to Florida. Kenexa as a company is very large with offices Globally and its newest office in Vizag, India.

Six Degrees: List/detail speaking events, awards, publications, where you have you represented your company:

Ryan: I have recently begun a Blog dedicated to the staffing and recruiting industry with LIRN a LinkedIn group that has seen tremendous growth and activity. I have taken the opportunity to join crucial process improvement teams here at Kenexa and will be authoring an article focusing on the old and the new age of recruiting within both the industry and Kenexa as a company.

It’s my goal to have the opportunity to host an event local to the Philadelphia area, joining recruiters and industry leaders in the next year.