When a grant lost funding, I was laid off from my System Manager position at the University of Rochester.  In the course of my job search I came across an advertisement for a software engineer by a small recruiting firm called Brucks Consulting.  I also noted that the same newspaper had an ad for a Technical Recruiter with that agency. Those were that days when people actually wrote cover letters, and toward the bottom of my letter I had a single line expressing some interest in the recruiter position.   Murray Brandes (the president) intercepted the resume before it went to his recruiters, and invited me in for an interview.

The interview went fairly well but not great.  I am as much an introvert as an extrovert, and I tend to do a lot of listening and not much talking when I first meet people.  The result of the interview was that Murray was not sure if I could do the job.  He had doubts about me being a recruiter as I was too quiet.  Then he saw on my resume that I was a mobile DJ, and thought "if this guy is a DJ, he must be able to talk...."  So he suggested I think about it and call him in a week.

I did think about it, and decided that I wanted to try it.  I apparently talked much more in the second interview, and Murray offered me the position.  A week later I was working there.  Nine months later I was leading the company in placements and was promoted to manager of the IT group.

One last note of interest: for this agency a recruiter worked what was called a 'full desk' which meant that I was responsible for sales as well as recruiting.  Murray taught be the basics of both in a very ethical way.  Murray has passed on but I still remember him fondly and strive to carry on his ethical approach.