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Paraform: The Talent Company
Paraform: The Talent Company
There's a version of every company where they made one more great hire - the person who built what they're known for…
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John Kim shared thisIn just a few months, recruiters on Paraform have earned over $7M from placements matched by our agents. The top recruiters have earned $100k-$300k+ from those matches alone. Recruiters spend years building relationships with candidates and learning what they actually want. Historically, that knowledge only gets applied to the handful of roles they’re actively working on. Paraform Agents are built to supercharge that. If someone isn’t right for one role, they don’t get lost in a recruiter's candidate pool. Our agents use everything we know about the candidate and every open role on Paraform to surface the best fits directly to hiring managers. If the hiring manager is interested, the recruiter takes it from there. They own the relationship, confirm the candidate's interest, and run the entire process as usual. Now, more than 1 in 3 interviews on Paraform starts with a candidate matched by our agents. One recruiter made $80k from a single placement. We’re helping recruiters create more opportunities and earn more from the candidates they already know Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gQqMkhri
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John Kim shared thisThe best thing about Paraform is the people. We've built a team of sharp, driven, passionate people who are builders and problem-solvers at heart. As Abigail put it, "we're looking to make every hire in the world." And that's the goal we're all working toward. One thing we’ve tried to get right from the beginning is putting the right person on the right problem. People here can move to where their skills and ideas can have the most impact, regardless of what their job title says. We work hard, but we also know how to have fun. That sense of community has turned coworkers into “friends for life.” Don't just take my word for it - hear from the team directly. Without them, we wouldn't be where we are today.
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John Kim shared thisThis year, Paraform customers have had access to something that's truly changed what's possible in hiring. Today, I’m excited to finally launch Paraform Agents, powered by our Hiring Intelligence. Here’s how it works: Now, on top of the best specialized recruiters working your search, every customer on Paraform also gets a custom agent that helps you meet your perfect candidate faster than ever before. These agents learn what great looks like from the best hiring data there is: your actual decisions. Who you interview, who you reject, who you move forward, why you made those decisions, and ultimately, who you hire. Every day, our agents search across the collective candidate network of every recruiter on Paraform - millions of candidates, enriched and accessible by the recruiters who actually know them. When the agent finds someone who matches what you’re looking for, it surfaces them directly to you. If you’re interested, the agent alerts the recruiter who already has a relationship with that candidate. The recruiter confirms interest, sells the opportunity, and stays close through the entire process. Now with Paraform Agents, you get the reach and intelligence of an entire recruiting network. Watch how it works or see for yourself here: https://lnkd.in/eJfS5wA5 This is only just the beginning of what Paraform’s Hiring Intelligence can do. Stay tuned.
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John Kim shared thisAI-native law firm OneGC hired its founding ECVC attorney through Paraform - just one month after launching the search. “We ran a really efficient, streamlined process, got a really good candidate in the door, and he’s been doing great.” OneGC is an AI-native law firm that runs startup legal work end-to-end - from contracts and fundraising to employment law, compliance, and regulatory filings. As client demand grew, co-founder and CEO Evan Vandenberg needed to grow the team. This hire would be especially consequential: OneGC's first full-time employee outside the founding team. “Trying to get those A players on your team early is so indicative of future success, and it sets the bar and it sets the tone for the rest of the company.” The profile was exceptionally narrow: an ECVC attorney from a shortlist of 10–15 leading law firms, with broad startup experience and willing to leave the traditional partner track to help build an early-stage company. Finding someone at exactly the right career moment took hours of outreach on top of everything else Evan was running. It became almost like a second job. He was interested by Paraform's outcome-based model and decided to try it out. Our recruiter network immediately surfaced a shortlist of candidates who hit their requirements and were excited about their mission. Evan met 6 qualified attorneys, brought three onsite in a single week, and found the right one for the job: Alexander Yoxsimer From his submission to hire, the process took just 22 days. He joined just in time for the a16z speedrun and ramped seamlessly as the firm managed a growing client workload. Read more about how they plan to scale with Paraform here: https://lnkd.in/g6nN72pr
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John Kim shared thisA new title is emerging in legal: the Legal Engineer. Much like how Palantir Technologies created the Forward Deployed Engineer and Profound coined the term Marketing Engineer, the same is happening in legal. The exact title varies: Harvey, Legora, Norm AI, Robin AI and Equall call them Legal Engineers. Eudia and General Legal (YC26) call them Forward Deployed Lawyers or Attorneys. Clio calls them Legal Architects. Crosby just calls them Attorneys. But the role is similar across all of them: Take a top lawyer from a top-tier law firm and put them where legal work, AI, and the end customer meet. They embed with clients to design and deploy AI into live workflows (contract review, regulatory analysis, in-house support). At AI native law firms, they use the same stack to practice law at a fraction of traditional hours-per-matter. It's a hard role to hire for. The best candidates are often at top law firms and aren’t actively looking for a new job. The key is finding lawyers who are curious enough to make the jump from traditional law to an AI company. Real conversations are the only way to uncover that - something recruiters are uniquely positioned to do. Paraform works with dozens of legaltech and AI-native law firms with a network of specialized recruiters who have built strong relationships with the candidates you want to reach. If you're hiring your first Legal Engineer or Forward-Deployed Attorney, check out how we can help: https://lnkd.in/g-iJnHk3
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John Kim shared thisTraba made 13 hires through Paraform, building a trusted recruiting partnership that has expanded over two years. Traba builds the AI operating system for the industrial supply chain - from providing reliable workforces to agents that automate operational workflows. Jeff Chen, Traba's Director of Engineering, hires for ownership, not headcount for headcount's sake. “We’re looking for people who have a ton of individual agency, have strong engineering principles, want to build at the frontier of applied AI, and want to own their own impact from 0 to 100.” Every engineer at Traba is expected to be their own product manager and forward deployed engineer. They need to create impact and carry product from idea to implementation. Writing code is the easy part of the job. That kind of candidate can be hard to reach through internal outbound alone. It’s why Traba has relied on Paraform for the past two years. Recruiters on Paraform know both sides of the search and start from neutral ground. They understand what a candidate wants from their next move first, then decide whether Traba is genuinely the right fit. Over time, the best recruiters stopped just knowing each role - they came to truly understand Traba: what great looked like, who would actually thrive there, and how to represent the company accurately to the right candidate. That trust has compounded. What started with engineering searches has expanded into product design and product management. "Paraform is constantly an arm for us - not just recruiting, but a mouthpiece for the company." Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/gWaWby8s
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John Kim shared thisSirius Technology hired their Founding GTM Account Executive 15 days after opening the role on Paraform. "I trust that if I’m like 'we need to hire four people in 20 days,' Paraform would like somehow figure out a way to help,” said Chief of Staff Lulu Neville Sirius is an AI-powered revenue retention platform for subscription companies, backed by a16z speedrun. They had a strong starting customer base and wanted to scale. Their biggest priority was to hire a Founding GTM AE to take sales off the founder's plate and build an outbound motion from scratch. As a seed-stage company, Lulu was already covering events, partnerships, payroll, and more. Hiring was new territory for her, and she wanted to get the founders the right person quickly without the search consuming their time. So, she opened the role on Paraform. From the start, our team helped them get a much clearer idea of what they were actually looking for. With Paraform running the search in the background, Lulu was able to stay focused on other responsibilities and still present great candidates to the founders. Within 8 days of Kyle Veator being submitted, he signed the offer - just two weeks after Lulu launched the role. “I really like how Paraform is still very human first. I felt like I had 10 people from your side helping.” Now, Kyle has now raised the bar for every hire that follows. If you're an early stage startup looking to make those critical hires, learn how Paraform can help: https://lnkd.in/gjbq7VEG
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John Kim posted thisWe've placed 200+ Forward Deployed Engineers at top companies like Palantir Technologies, Assort Health, and Rippling. It’s the fastest-growing role on Paraform - and one of the hardest to hire well. Early in the AI era, most of the excitement was around what companies could build. As AI becomes core to most products, the harder question is how to make it actually work inside a customer's business. Often, the first hire is triggered by a specific customer need - maybe they've closed an enterprise account and need someone technical to deploy the product and make it work in their environment. Technical ability is the baseline. The right person can sit with a customer and own the outcome through deployment. A great software engineer isn't automatically a great FDE. That leaves a pretty limited pool of people who can actually do the job well. The profile is also getting more specialized. We're starting to see Forward Deployed MLEs emerge, combining ML engineering with customer-facing deployment work. In niche industries, companies increasingly need people who understand not just the technical systems, but also the domain they're deploying it into. If you’re hiring FDEs, check out how Paraform can help: https://lnkd.in/gFYsFCxu
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John Kim shared thisLondon-based recruiter Tatiana Becker was skeptical of Paraform at first. Now, she's billed more than $500K and is helping other recruiters get there too. Tatiana joined Paraform in January 2025, spending only a few hours a week on the platform. Then she made her first placement and saw what was possible if she devoted more time to it. She reached out to Areeb Quadir, who was already succeeding on Paraform, to learn what was working for him. Then it clicked. Paraform freed Tatiana from business development - the part of recruiting she enjoys least - and let her focus on finding great candidates and closing searches. The information she needs to run a more calibrated search is already on the platform. She studies intake calls and rejection history to understand what a hiring manager actually cares about, then adjusts her calibration with every new piece of feedback. After three separate $100K+ months and $500K+ in total earnings, her next goal is $1M by the end of the year. Today, Tatiana is paying forward the same support Areeb gave her. What began as informal conversations with other recruiters has grown into her role as a Paraform Ambassador. She now hosts regular roundtables for recruiters who are curious about the platform or learning how to get the most out of it. “I like to pay it forward. I want to show other people that it can work for them too.” Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/gd-_iF4T
John Kim replied to a comment
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Darren Rosenfeld Great question! For our agent matching, recruiters retain complete ownership of their candidates forever.
John Kim replied to a comment
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Hi Hishem - I hear the concern, but our goal is quite the opposite. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from building Paraform, it’s how valuable the human connection recruiters bring to hiring really is. That's not going away.
We’re helping recruiters spend more time on what they do best: connecting with candidates, building relationships, guiding them through opportunities, and closing placements. Hiring Intelligence helps speed up the repetitive parts and surface patterns from across the hiring process, giving recruiters more time for the work that truly requires a human. Recruiters on our platform consistently tell us they value those efficiency gains. Happy to chat more - shoot me a message.
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John Kim reacted on thisJohn Kim reacted on thisWe just launched Paraform Agents, powered by our Hiring Intelligence. Great recruiters build real relationships with candidates. But too often, a strong candidate falls out of touch simply because the right role wasn't open at the time. Paraform Agents solve this by continuously matching candidates to relevant opportunities - even ones the recruiter isn't actively working on. Once a company shows interest, the recruiter steps back in: confirming the candidate's interest, making the introduction, and staying involved throughout the process. As someone who works closely with our partner recruiters every day, this is exactly the kind of leverage I've seen them ask for - a way to keep great candidates warm without adding more manual work. Strong candidates reach more hiring managers, and recruiters get more value from the relationships they've already built. Learn more about our Hiring Intelligence: https://lnkd.in/gjTyykks
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John Kim reacted on thisJohn Kim reacted on thisStandard Metrics has raised a $20M Series B led by 8VC to accelerate innovation in the private markets! Trillions of dollars of economic activity in the private markets still run on spreadsheets, email threads, and PDFs. This critical ecosystem remains surprisingly analog and inefficient despite financing many of the world’s most innovative companies. This problem matters. A better-functioning innovation economy would lead to new big technological breakthroughs, life-saving medicines, jobs, and game-changing new products. AI expands both the urgency and the scope of this opportunity. New AI models have fundamentally changed how data can be organized, analyzed, and acted upon, and they are beginning to drive rapid software adoption in an industry that has historically lagged behind. We believe AI-native infrastructure will reshape the private markets over the coming decade. Two years ago, we bet our company on the idea of building the AI-native portfolio management platform for venture capital and private equity. That was the single most consequential decision in our history: it led us to create the first MCP server in our space, launch an AI-driven document processing service, and build cutting-edge agentic reporting and analytics tools. Today, we’re proud to support more than 150 investment firms who collectively manage over $400B, along with more than 10,000 of their portfolio companies. 30% of the Forbes Midas List are customers of Standard Metrics. But we’ve still only scratched the surface: we work with roughly 1% of active global VC/PE firms. We’ve raised roughly $50M to date. Most of that capital has come from our customers. Investors in this round alongside 8VC include Salesforce Ventures, Spark Capital, January Capital, First Trust Capital Partners, Socii Capital, Kindergarten Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and more. It’s been an honor to partner with some of the world’s most forward-thinking investors on this journey. Thank you so much to our team, customers, investors, and supporters. We’re just getting started!
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John Kim reacted on thisJohn Kim reacted on this3 years ago I decided to bet on myself and give building Revival Talent Solutions Talent Solutions a shot. Plenty of hunger but if I’m honest, plenty of doubt too. There were days I wasn’t sure I’d even last 6 months. 3 years in and I’m still here, still building. And I still get that same buzz whenever a candidate trusts me to support their next move or when a company trusts me with their search. I’ve been fortunate to work with some brilliant companies too. Everything from teams building for the frontier labs, to AI products used by millions, to seed stage founders making their very first hires. So many people to thank and many of them aren’t even on LinkedIn. But a few who are. Oliver, the main man. Elite defence recruiter and an all round legend. Constant support from the very start, before we’d even met in person he was always on the other end of the phone ready to help. Wayne, Enya and Ethan, all playing a massive part over the last 2 years. Great people. And the whole Paraform team, the platform’s been a big part of this journey and the people behind it are top class. To every company and candidate that’s trusted me along the way, thank you. Here’s to 3 more 🥂
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John Kim liked thisTalent density by itself is not enough to build a generational business. You also need unrelenting conviction, work ethic, extreme ownership and autonomy. John Kim and the Paraform team have been instrumental in helping Traba build a top 1% team formed on these principles. We're partnering with them to run a tech talk series at Traba HQ NYC next week. If you're an engineer or PM who itches to build with extreme ownership to transform one of the biggest industries on the planet, Register here 👇 👇 👇 https://luma.com/jxq65cgo
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