How Recruiting from Scratch Made 36 Placements in 9 Months

Will Sanders, who studied economics at Carnegie Mellon University, is the founder of Recruiting from Scratch, an entirely remote agency he launched in 2019. The firm specializes in placing top technical and operations talent - including engineering, product, design, operations, and forward deployment roles - at both high-growth startups and established tech companies.

In just 9 months on Paraform, his team has made 36 placements and doubled their revenue without adding a single headcount.

"The platform is made to make recruiters money. So why would you not use it?"

Getting the Right Roles in Front of the Right Candidates

The difference came down to access and efficiency. Paraform gave Recruiting from Scratch instant access to vetted roles from tier-1 VC-backed companies all the way to Fortune 500s, with hundreds of new opportunities coming onto the platform every week.

"Being able to submit to roles instantly. You may speak to a candidate last week, and then a role that fits them really well comes in next week."

But the visibility made all the difference. Unlike traditional recruiting relationships where agencies operate in the dark after submitting candidates, Paraform provides complete transparency throughout the hiring process.

Will and his team can see detailed rejection reasons when candidates don't move forward, access notes from hiring manager calls, and track every stage of the interview process in real-time. This level of insight allows them to better prepare their placements for interviews and understand exactly what clients are looking for.

"If there's one thing I'd call a game-changer, it's the visibility. Seeing the pipeline, knowing my competition. It levels the playing field and lets us focus on quality at volume."

The Results

Since joining Paraform nine months ago, Will's team has made 36 placements, including over 10 engineers at Palantir (among them multiple Forward Deployment Strategists), Deployed Engineers at Windsurf, and numerous roles across VC-backed startups. They doubled their revenue without hiring a single additional recruiter.

"It would be entire teams you'd need to build out to bring on the volume that Paraform provides, so having all of this in place is super helpful. It makes the growth I can achieve significantly higher than what I could do without it."

Looking ahead, Will projects they'll hit at least 2x what they did last year. "If things pick up, maybe we'll do 3x."

For an agency that already achieved 2x growth in under a year, that kind of momentum is the result of what happens when talented recruiters are given the right tools. Paraform provides the access, visibility, and infrastructure that lets recruiters focus on what they do best.

Watch his story here: