I’m the Federal CTO at SailPoint. I met [Frank Munero and Ken Leiner] back in the late ‘90s, early 2000s when I was leaving Netscape. I kept my relationship with [them]… They would bring opportunities… They just weren’t the right time for me [for] what I had going on, but they kept me in mind… And in 2015 I got a call from Frank Munero, and it was THE perfect opportunity. We finally found GOLD. We did the introduction, I did the interview with the customer, SailPoint, and that was 10 years ago. I’m still here… I couldn’t be happier. Ken and Frank have done an outstanding job throughout the years. They may not find the perfect [opportunity] on day one, but eventually it will come through… (Asked to describe KLA:) Wow. Persistent. Honest. Great guys and girls. Overall, it’s been an amazing relationship and experience and friendship… They never forgot about me, and to me that’s a lot… I stayed in the rolodex and when the right [opportunity] came along, they handled it with kid gloves. It was outstanding experience.
— Frank Briguglio, Federal CTO, SailPoint
Testimonials: Hiring managers & Candidates
In their own words, hiring managers and candidates share how Ken Leiner Associates helped transform their companies and careers. Email marisa@ITsearch.com to share your own testimonial about working with us. Enjoy, and thanks for visiting! – Team KLA
I tell my connections, “If you’re open to opportunities, these are the people (recruiters) you need to call.” I had an amazing experience with Ken Leiner Associates. I would say individualized service, exceptional coaching, and honest feedback are three things that stood out. Ken was really, really engaging and very, very personalized, which made a huge difference… and was very deliberate and honest. He does a great job of helping you prepare to transition, and what to expect, with a lot of good career advice. And his associate Amy Shepardson was absolute dynamite as well.
Ken Leiner Associates was working with a company I really wanted to work for: Better Up. I’m in my mid-50’s. I’d been working for 20, 30 years, at a dozen jobs or so and had never used a professional recruiter before. So, I was going from a role where I was leading a team to being an individual contributor – and going from a company that was pretty well established to kind of a startup. The forethought around what it’s like to transition from one opportunity to another was really very, very valuable. Ken was strategic in the sense of how you look at this big picture and Amy was an exceptional coach through the second part of the process, which was my interface with Better Up — a great coach in helping me prepare, without being someone who just gave me all the answers. She was very much about, like, what you’re thinking about for the job, where you are in their process, what they’re looking for, how things go, where you did really well or where you could’ve done better. Amy was just fantastic.
It’s that personalized connection – you’re not a commodity; you’re not a piece on the chessboard. Ken was invested in me being successful after I got there. And he called me eight months into the job to check in and see how I was doing. It’s the best job I’ve ever had. Absolutely love it! Yeah – it’s great.
Stephen Ripley, BetterUp
“I have worked together with Ken and Ken Leiner Associates for about 15 years both as a hiring manager and individual looking for a new role. KLA always delivered quality candidates at previous companies I worked at, so why not do it again? When I joined CyberRes, a Division of Micro Focus, it was to rebuild the US Federal Civilian business and regain lost market share. A key part of our strategy was to up-level our talent and expand roles to ensure we could meet market demands. While we have a strong footprint within the federal government, our recruiting team did not have much Federal expertise and looked to engage a company with the expertise in this space that could jump start our talent search. Beth Kandianis was assigned to our account and has honestly become an extension of my team to ensure that we bring on the right candidates that not only fit where we are today, but where we’re going tomorrow.
Beth has done an exceptional job for each role we were looking to hire. She listened to what we needed, looked for the right fit both from experience and culture and made me feel like her only client. The screening of the candidates prior to me getting them has been fantastic; the communication and follow-up ensured we moved quickly and captured the best talent possible. Beth has helped staff about 80% of my team at this point. We’ve had a lot of different needs and each territory has needed just a little something different. She’s been very good at understanding what we need for each of these roles. That has even grown to the point where we’ve been able to get her engaged with some of my peers outside of Federal. She’s helped with state and local, she’s helped with some product specialists and now, she’s helping in Canada. She’s doing an amazing job.”
Sara Hobson, VP, Federal Sales at CyberRes, a Micro Focus line of business