Who is Rachel Neill?
I am an entrepreneur from Madison, WI. I have experience raising capital and building successful businesses across a variety of industries, including healthcare/healthtech and products in the DTC space.
Prior to starting Carex Consulting Group & The Figgy, I worked as an executive at Nordic Consulting, helping them grow to the largest Epic consulting firm in the world. Additionally, I attended the University of Pennsylvania and am mom to six kids. I am extremely passionate about female entrepreneurship, technology and mentoring young women. I am currently a mentor at Building Brave where I help young women on a local and national level.
What’s the story behind Carex Consulting Group?
In 2016, I saw a growing need to change the staffing industry and move it away from a commissioned based “necessary evil” and to one that was focused on building and cultivating relationships. With a niche in the healthtech space, I started there and expanded out across multiple industries that were looking for talent in the IT, Project Management, Data Science, and Innovation spaces. With a passion & understanding of startups, I made sure that my company served venture-backed startups looking to scale their teams. I have tapped into my vast network of talent from Epic and the top technology companies across the US. Diversity was another key driver for me and Carex as we want to showcase female & minority founders and represent diversity in recruiting. We are proud to be MBE, WBE, and DBE certified.
What was the most difficult part of your experience in the early beginnings?
It was definitely trying to do it all! We all have strengths and weaknesses, but when you start a business, you often have to take on a variety of roles – you become the CEO, the admin, the marketing guru, and the IT person. It’s challenging to scale and do things well when you are just starting out as starting a business requires a lot of attention to detail and acceptance of role ambiguity. Despite raising capital, we had to watch our funds and make sure we used them as efficiently as possible – that meant not always being able to hire full-teams or the internal talent we needed, when we needed it. Building a solid reputation also takes a lot of work – you don’t have name recognition or a strong track record – so you really need to find ways to build strong relationships and trust.
What are you most proud of regarding your business?
I’m so proud of our values and our ability to continuously adapt to our partner’s needs. Diversity hiring has been a huge driver for a lot of the companies we work with and to help with that, we invested in diversity recruiting certifications for our candidate relations team. In the tech space, the skills are constantly changing, and we do a great job of keeping up with the trends and really spending the time to understand what companies need. For example, with the boom of investment into healthcare and the rise of healthtech companies, we created a specific practice that focuses on healthcare integration talent, a crucial hire for any company looking to integrate into any of the EMR’s (electronic medical records) that a health system uses.
What is your vision for the future of Carex Consulting Group?
In the future, I see us expanding our services more into subscription – a cost effective way for companies to outsource their hiring, especially when they are trying to scale. Our subscription model is the way of the future – companies need to grow, but they don’t have a fully functioning talent acquisition team. They can turn to Carex and outsource their hiring at a fixed cost, allowing them access to our ever-growing data base of talent, the latest recruitment tools, and a combined 50+ years of recruiting experience.
What’s your advice for the businesses that are trying to adapt to this economic climate?
Be nimble. Be open to change. Listen. You can’t drag your feet. Sometimes you must make quick decisions in response to what’s happening around us. Right now, the labor market is incredibly tight. We are in a brand-new landscape with remote work and salaries are all over the place. The key is adaptability.
Please name a few technologies which have the greatest impact on your business.
Automation tools have the greatest impact on my business. Finding ways to automate mundane tasks is a great way to free up time to focus on the strategic pieces that really move the needle. We love tools like HereFish and Dux Soup that make recruiting and connecting with candidates more efficient.
What books do you have on your nightstand?
I always have a Kindle and a pair of Airpods on my nightstand. I love to read, listen to Podcasts and learn from successful leaders an entrepreneurs in my industry and across others.
Because of the current economic climate our publication has started a series of discussions with professional individuals meant to engage our readers with relevant companies and their representatives in order to discuss their involvement, what challenges they have had in the past and what they are looking forward to in the future. This sequence aims to present a series of experiences, recent developments, changes and downsides in terms of their business areas, as well as their goals, values, career history, the high-impact success outcomes and achievements.
