Touch of video magic

When Jane Bianchini took the plunge to form her own job agency, she was already an accomplished recruitment executive.

- ALAN DEANS

She quickly developed a strong clientele, sourcing and screening executives for top-line IT jobs. Returns, however, were slashed as her clients demanded cheaper and cheaper rates. Take it or leave it, they said. Then they took their work in-house.

Confronted with these threats, Bianchini could either tough it out or totally re-engineer her company. Two years on, her revamped Alcami Interactive is expanding offshore after twice seeking funding from external investors. How? Well, she has gone from interviewing job applicants by phone to running a tech company with its own online interviewing platform. Job seekers record their answers to a handful of simple questions.

Bianchini named her company after a book by the noted novelist Paulo Coelho.

“There’s a quote in The Alchemist that says if you want something so bad, then the whole world will help you conspire to achieve it,” says Bianchini. “Not only that, but alchemists were known for turning base metals into gold and for preparing an elixir for longevity. When you combine change, longevity, and wisdom, that’s what people get when they come to us.”

When she started Alcami nine years ago, she already had extensive experience heading up a large recruiter called Candle. Initially, she operated in the same way, taking briefs from clients and headhunting likely candidates. Her team of eight placed thousands of executives each year into the banking, finance and pharmaceutical sectors, and also with state and federal governments. Then, clients started slashing their payments. “Everyone was being squeezed. We were not alone,” she says.