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How It Started
When I launched Right Hand Talent almost 3 years ago to the day, I was fresh off a Chief of Staff role and couldn’t have been more pumped about what I was building. If you read my very first Substack post (shoutout to the OGs), I talked about how I saw a massive gap in the market: there weren’t many firms that were truly specialized in placing Chiefs of Staff. The role was exploding in tech, and I had insider experience from all sides of the table — as a former VC, as a former Chief of Staff, and as someone who just deeply understood the role.
Right Hand was the perfect name at the time because a Chief of Staff is exactly that: the force multiplier and true right hand to the CEO. A CoS absorbs complexity, creates leverage, thinks and acts like an executive, moves at breakneck speed, and just GSD. I even compared the CoS to the Support role in League of Legends (IYKYK — yes, I wrote an entire post about this).
The name clicked immediately. People heard “Right Hand Talent” and they got it. It was clear, it was memorable, and it told you exactly what we did.
And for a while, that was perfect.
How it grew
Here’s what I didn’t fully anticipate: happy founders kept coming back, but for something different.
We’d fill their Chief of Staff role — crush the search, deliver someone exceptional, get the call six days, weeks, or months later that the hire was an absolute home run — and then they’d say, “Hey, so…we have this Backend Software Engineer search. Can you take it on?”
And then it was a Head of Product. And then a Founding Marketer. And then a VP of Finance.
What started as a Chief of Staff search firm quietly evolved into something much bigger. Our Chief of Staff practice has absolutely skyrocketed and it’s stronger than ever — but the role now represents less than 1/3 of our total searches at any given moment. The majority of our searches today is across tech and product IC and leadership.
At some point, our name just stopped reflecting all that we do.
The deeper realization
Deciding on changing the name was easy because of how we’ve evolved over time and what our work looks like today. But the bigger shift and the driving force behind what we wanted to change our name to was more philosophical.
After thousands of candidate conversations, I started noticing something that I couldn’t quite articulate at first. It was this pattern that kept showing up, and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
Sometimes you’re in a conversation with someone — could be an interview, first date, or a random coffee chat — and within the first few minutes, you just know. There’s this feeling, almost physical (definitely energetic), where your body cues you into something before your mind can fully catch up. Scientists actually have a name for this: it’s called “thin-slice decision-making”, and it’s the idea that we can make highly accurate assessments of people based on very brief observations.
But it can’t really be summarized as “snap judgment”…that has a negative undertone, at least to me. There are so many intangible, immeasurable signals like alignment, expectations, energy signature that really matter. They all build upon each other and mix in with the tangible, hard skills to create a kind of magic in the moment. It’s something that happens in the space between you and the person on the other side of the screen or table, and it’s something you feel in your gut before you can logic your way into it. Strong leaders and experienced recruiters recognize this feeling. That moment where it just clicks: holy sh*t, this is the person. This is it.
Some people call this unspoken sense of connection and alignment between two people resonance.
And time and again, we saw that this was the X factor that determined how good of a fit somebody was at a company long term. Finding the right person on paper is the prerequisite and table stakes. But we’ve all seen what happens when someone checks every box on the job description and there’s still no spark with the team. The conversations are fine, the skills are there, but something is just…off. They don’t gel. Sometimes there are even psycho vibes in the mix.
Here’s an excerpt from a call I had with a founder yesterday about this exact topic ↓
“So there's a lot of times when I've had bad experiences with recruiters in the past, especially on the tech side. I was hiring a CTO and I paid a $100k retainer to [redacted]. And they kept bringing me these folks and I was like, guys, come on. I mean, this guy could be a psycho killer. I just can't — there's no way that I'm going to spend hours with this person without wanting to shoot myself. Can you please bring me someone with a little bit of a personality? I want them to stand in for me at client meetings.
Recruiting services are somewhat hard to differentiate, so you end up either vibing with the person or not, and I'm creating this culture where they're gonna want to work with us because we just feel, you know, better and more personal and all of that. So I just — I want people that are gonna have that. “
That gap — between qualified and exceptional — is everything. And it has a name which we’ll using as a firm moving forward.
Introducing: Resonance
In addition to changing our logo and updating our website, we’re leaning fully into the philosophy that has been quietly driving our work this entire time.
Resonance, as a concept, is about holistic alignment on skills, experience, and energy, vision, values, and potential. It’s the thing that makes a placement stick. It’s the reason we have strong offer accept and retention rates. And it’s the reason founders come back to us over and over — not because we find people who look great on paper, but because we find people who fit deeply (and, importantly, who are not psychos).
I really think this is what always set us apart, even back when we were mostly doing Chief of Staff searches. We were never the recruiters who threw a stack of resumes at you. We took the time to understand the person behind the role, the culture behind the company, and the specific alchemy that would make a hire not just successful, but transformative. We have hard and very transparent conversations with both sides when the alignment isn’t there — even when it would be easier (and more profitable) to just push the deal or candidate through.
Our approach has a name now. And that name is Resonance.
What changes (and what doesn’t)
Everything that matters is staying the same.
Same team, same obsessive focus on quality over volume, same commitment to only presenting exceptional talent to founders and talent teams at high-growth startups. Same philosophy that the right hire can genuinely change the trajectory of a company.
What changes is the container we’re doing it in, like the name, brand, and — in a way that I think will become clearer over time — the ceiling.
Right Hand Talent was always going to be associated primarily with Chiefs of Staff (and I love that and am really proud of that). That reputation is something we built brick by brick, post by post, and placement by placement. But it also meant that every time we picked up a VP of Engineering or Head of Finance search, we had to re-explain who we were. The name was doing some of the heavy lifting, but it was lifting in one direction only.
Resonance gives us room to be all of what we already are and everything we’re becoming.
A smol note on letting go
I’m a little sad to put the Right Hand name on the shelf. It’s been with us through the whole first chapter of this journey. This includes all the late nights building the business from scratch, the first placement, the first time a founder called us back for a second search, the first time I looked at our revenue and thought, wow, this is crazy.
Right Hand Talent earned its place and it carried us.
But I’ve also learned — both in recruiting and in life — that holding onto something past its expiration isn’t loyalty, but fear. One of my favorite things about working with founders is that they’re the kind of people who run toward complexity, not away from it. They’re constantly evolving and adapting and figuring out what needs to just be, and what’s required of them in that specific moment.
I’d like to think that’s what we’re doing with this rebrand. We haven’t abandoned what’s worked, but we’ve evolved into what’s needed.
What’s next?
We’re already deep into the Resonance era with a new brand, new site, and new energy, with the same mission of connecting exceptional people with the startups where they’ll do the best work of their lives.
If you’re a founder building a team and you need a partner who actually cares about getting it right (not just getting it filled), we should talk. If you’re a candidate who’s tired of recruiters who treat you like a line item, come hang out with us. And if you’re one of the thousands of people who’ve been reading this newsletter, following along on LinkedIn, or cheering us on from the sidelines — thank you.
Right Hand Talent got us here, and Resonance is taking us forward.
And it’s still Day 1.
If you're hiring for IC or leadership roles across tech, product, ops, or GTM at a high-growth startup, reach out to us.
In resonance,
Zaharo✨
