What does it really take to connect the right candidate with the right role? We sat down with Jason Robins, our Director of Staffing & Recruiting, to find out.
If you’ve ever wondered what happens behind the scenes before a recruiter picks up the phone to call you, or before your company ever meets its next great hire, this one’s for you.
Jason Robins has been in recruiting for ten years. As Director of Staffing & Recruiting at Stafford Technology, he leads the charge on finding IT talent across a wide spectrum: help desk, infrastructure, network engineers, sys admins, developers, project managers, cloud solutions, and more. We spent some time with Jason to talk through what his days actually look like, what drives him, and why communication might just be the most underrated skill in recruiting.
No two days are alike, and that’s the point.
Jason’s day starts at 8:30 AM, usually a little earlier, so he can get a coffee, clear his inbox, and set his intentions before the team comes together for a 9 o’clock board meeting. That daily check-in covers open roles, candidate pipelines, upcoming interviews, and anything that’s shifted in the last 24 hours. Everyone leaves aligned and accountable for what needs to happen that day.
From there, the morning could go a dozen different directions.
“What I really love about this job is that no two days are really alike,” Jason says. “It could be resume searches, pre-screening candidates, or sitting in on a client visit to do a job order intake, just making sure we know exactly what the client needs and have the chance to ask our own questions directly.”
That client-facing time matters more than people might expect. When recruiters can ask questions directly and hear answers firsthand, the whole process sharpens. There’s less guesswork, more alignment, and ultimately a better outcome for everyone involved.
The search for the diamond in the rough
On any given day, Jason might reach out to just a handful of candidates or as many as 20 to 30. It depends entirely on the role.
“Some jobs are a lot harder to fill than others,” he says. “For some roles, if you find one or two strong people to call, that’s a great day. For others, you might reach out to 30 candidates, hoping to have five or six really good conversations.”
The most time-consuming part of the job, he says, isn’t the calls themselves, it’s the search. Digging through job boards, their internal database, and every tool available to surface that one candidate who’s the right fit. Jason describes it simply: “just really trying to uncover that diamond in the rough.”
To do this, the team relies on a well-built tech stack that enables smarter, more nuanced searching. “We’ve really invested in technology over the last few years,” Jason notes, “and it’s made a real difference in how we work.”
Why communication is everything
Ask Jason what separates a good recruiting experience from a great one, and he’ll tell you: communication. Full stop.
“What we try to consolidate into a short amount of time is a very high level of trust,” he explains. “And we’re at our best when we have all of the information we need, and that comes through communication. Overly communicating throughout the process, managing expectations on both sides, just making sure we’re finding the right fit.”
That means delivering hard news when it’s necessary. It means not ghosting people. It means being honest even when it’s uncomfortable, because candidates and clients alike deserve the truth, not the runaround.
“It’s not easy to give bad news sometimes, but it’s part of the job,” Jason says. “People don’t want to be ghosted. They don’t want someone who’s going to string them along. Earning their trust and respect so you can have those open conversations; that’s what we look for every time.”
The favorite part? Helping people.
For all the tools, meetings, and moving parts, Jason keeps coming back to one thing: the opportunity to genuinely change someone’s situation.
“What’s unique about what we do is you have the ability to help somebody, directly help improve their life with maybe one or two phone calls,” he says. “I don’t feel like you get that opportunity in a lot of industries.”
And it’s not always about placing someone in a role. Sometimes it’s coaching a candidate through their search. Sometimes it’s being a sounding board when the process gets frustrating. “A job search is a full-time job in itself sometimes,” Jason acknowledges. “So just anything we can do as a staffing expert to make their experience a little bit easier and leave them in a better place than when we found them; that’s what this job is all about.”
A boutique approach, on purpose
Stafford Technology isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. It’s a boutique firm, and that’s by design.
“We believe in our core company values,” Jason says. “We look for people who are ACED: accountable, curious, ethical, and driven. We live by those values and look to partner with people who share them.”
The consultative, curious approach runs through everything they do. Building trust. Having honest conversations. Thinking beyond the single placement to the long-term relationship.
“It’s more than any one placement,” Jason says. “It’s really about forming that partnership, getting to know each other, and not just helping someone one time, but being there any time they need us.”
Whether you’re a hiring manager looking for your next IT hire or a tech professional ready for a new chapter, we’d love to connect. Visit https://www.stafford-technology.com/, reach out to Jason and our team, and let’s talk.
