SUPER RECRUITER

Rachel Saunders ’11 nabs the attention of exceptional talent for Yahoo! by doing something others don’t.

Making LinkedIn’s list of 150 “Next Wave Top Professionals 35 & Under” almost seems like faint praise for a recruiter renowned for locating and landing people with “superpowers.”

No, Rachel Saunders ’11 doesn’t work in HR at the Hall of Justice (home office of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, et al.). She’s a recruiter for Yahoo. “Superpowers” is the term Yahoo uses to refer to people seen as having the ability to exceed expectations in a role.

What makes Saunders famous (in tech-recruiting circles anyway) is how she personalizes her head hunting. Instead of emailing dozens of potential candidates, she’ll customize her approach to a select few. That sometimes means spending hours scrutinizing social media and other public sources for clues about a target’s hobbies and passions.

“When I send a mildly tailored email, I usually get a 25 percent response rate,” she says. “However, when I really customize the email and show the candidate I’ve done my homework, the response rate jumps to 60 to 70 percent.”

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The OG Green

SCU Men’s golf fans set foot on the holy land of golf this summer capping off a trip of a lifetime.

Music Above All

Erin Pearson ’05 was recruited to play soccer for Santa Clara University. But her passion for music was pulling her in a different direction.

A Number’s Worth

Chuck Cantoni ’57 may be the oldest person to swim from Alcatraz to San Francisco—all to raise money for research into a potentially deadly brain condition.

Collaboration is Key

Jacqueline Whitham ’21 chose to support cross-disciplinary collaboration and research at SCU through $3.8 million from her family’s foundation.