“In the summer of 2019, I had the pleasure of managing Dor Katz who was a summer intern for our office. I have been in management for 7 years and have managed over 20 interns and Dor from day one was the strongest intern that ever had reported into me.

I run a recruitment business and we hire interns for a wide range of business functions, and the more they can handle, the more we ask them to do. Our strongest interns spend their time operating as a full Recruitment Consultant – which is exactly what we asked of Dor. 

To be a successful Recruitment Consultant, there are a few things that you must be able to do. One, perform in-depth industry research and analysis. In this, you must (a) have the work ethic to comb through all the data available and do the necessary data entry and (b) have the intelligence to understand what that information means, digest it, and be able to use that information in a way that helps you achieve your sales goal. Many people can do either (a) or (b), but to find people that can consistently do both (especially as an unpaid intern), is frustratingly difficult. Dor, as an unpaid intern, from day one while working on Senior Sales Leadership roles at SaaS Vendors (a world which she had little prior exposure to) showed she was one of the few that could and would do both.  This level of intelligence and work ethic will help her succeed in any industry or academic program she goes into.

The second thing you must be able to do as a recruiter is understand people. Sales (and recruitment is sales) is frequently mislabeled as a business for a “people person.”  True, you must ultimately enjoy human interactions and be able to build relationships to be in sales, but it requires more than that. It requires you to understand how people think, to understand how they react to new information, figure out their desires and motivations, assess how you can acquire the information you need from then, and understand how to adjust your approach accordingly to get the outcome you want. In order to be in sales, and not just customer service, you have to understand how to use the relationships you’ve built to get your desired result. Dor made it clear that she was this type of person and required shockingly little training to get her on her way to achieving those wins. Prior to her first day, I had initially planned that she would be responsible for lead generation (a simple task of arranging phone calls for me to have with interested parties). But after I saw her potential, I had her take those phone calls herself and only pass the relationship to me when we had a ready, willing, and able buyer. I placed Dor in a difficult position of recruiting primarily for a VP of Sales role when she first joined. This meant that she was speaking to candidates who had more professional years of experience than she had years alive. This did not phase her whatsoever, and with a great fearlessness, she was able to succeed in this role because of (a) the quality of research she was able to do meant she was able to gain credibility with these candidates she was speaking to, even though they could tell she was clearly very young and (b) her ability to quickly form relationships with people and using her understanding of how people worked, to help her arrive at the decision she wanted them to.  

The last major element to recruitment that is necessary is the right mental approach. I already spoke to her fearlessness but will elaborate a little. Many people simply get too scared to do the job – fear of rejection is a real issue in recruitment. They find reasons not to pick up the phone or refuse all together. Not trying was simply not an option for Dor, she dove right in, oblivious to the shame of rejection. While on the topic of rejection, Dor was rejected plenty of times – as all in sales are. One candidate even degraded her by flagging her age and inexperience on a call. I’ve seen many talented recruiters, years into their careers, ultimately get dragged down by such interactions. Dor, she would just brush it off and move to the next task or call. Disappointments in a sales process (a given for sales) also didn’t negatively impact the quality of her work. She was undeterred by setbacks.  And though I’ve already mentioned her work ethic separately, it was such a key component of her that I feel the need to raise again. Dor was unpaid and yet worked hard for the hours she was asked to, never showed up late to work, and was even willing to take calls after hours if candidates needed to speak to her. Starting near the same time as her was a full-time, permanent hire. That person had a worse work ethic than Dor and that person joined with the intent of starting their career. Dor’s mental approach to the job at hand gives me a lot of confidence that no matter what she does professionally, she will experience great success.

I write this letter begrudgingly. Dor was not only the best intern I’ve ever hired, she has the potential to be one of the best hires I’ve ever made, period. I say potential as I am hoping that when she is done with her studies she rejoins my business. I have nothing but good things to say about her and from what I understand about the program she’s applying to, I can’t see her lacking any skill or trait necessary for her to be one of your top students or employees.”

Sincerely, 

[retracted]”

“I would cordially like to introduce and recommend to you, Dor Katz. Dor has been working with me as a part time intern at [retracted], which is a boutique executive search firm dedicated to the financial services industry. Dor joined us in the fall of 2018 and has been consistent in her efforts in helping us grow this company up until her final day.

As a Senior Associate at [retracted], Dor is one of my go to people for assistance on a variety of tasks. We are a business service, our day to day is built around pleasing and delivering our clients with exceptional work. Dor has proven time and time again that she has strong attention to detail and a high capacity to handle multiple projects at any given time. She helped create and implement a research exercise from scratch, where she conducted a deep dive into researching our client’s competitors as well as providing them with a case study on the landscape of the investor relations market. Dor is a fast learner and dynamic team player. Closing out her internship, Dor was assigned the task of learning our CRM system. She not only became an expert, she also created a presentation and lead a learning session to teach the rest of the team.

Dor has been a valued member of [retracted] for the better of 6 months and will surely be missed. She will bring enthusiasm, curiosity and a strong work ethic to wherever he next endeavors are and will prove to be an asset to any team she joins. It has been a true pleasure to have worked with Dor and know that her successes will continue as she grows and develops as a professional. Please feel free to contact me for any further details and to discuss her candidacy and further.

Best,

[retracted]”