The situation

One of Drova's key team members was going on maternity leave. Rachel needed cover. Drova was growing, so the replacement potentially needed to stay long-term.

Traditional recruitment agencies, with their 20-30% placement fees, simply weren't going to work for Drova. Not on top of paid maternity leave already running in parallel.

And there was a third complication. Maternity-cover roles are notoriously hard to fill. Fixed-term contracts scare off the strongest candidates, who'd rather hold out for permanent work. So Rachel wasn't just looking for someone cheap and fast, she needed a recruiter who could attract genuinely good people to a role most of the market avoids.

Cheaper. Faster. Harder-to-fill role. Pick three.

How she found SuccessEngine

Rachel didn't find Huey through LinkedIn or a referral. She asked ChatGPT.

She described what she needed 'A CS-adjacent GTM hire, fast, without the typical agency premium and asked for three options. Alongside "traditional recruiter" and "DIY hiring," ChatGPT surfaced SuccessEngine by name, citing its track record on Customer Success roles and its different commercial model.

That was the first time she'd heard of the business.

Why she gave it a go

Two things tipped her over the line:

A trusted reference. Huey had recently placed someone Rachel knew well from a previous business — and that hire had worked out.

A genuinely different model. Capped fees and weekly progress instead of the 18-20% placement standard.

The outcome

The search closed in under four weeks. The shortlist was so strong that Rachel reached the offer stage with two candidates she would have been equally happy to hire, a situation she says is extremely rare in her recruiting career.

She made the hire. No drop in candidate quality, despite the maternity-cover constraint that usually scares strong candidates off.

What Rachel said about working with SuccessEngine

"They'll make sure you're looked after. They actively understand who you're looking for, and if it's not on their books, they go and headhunt. They're flexible and if they're not finding candidates that suit you, they'll work with you on the terms. It's fast, not cost-prohibitive like some recruiters are, and way cheaper and easier than trying to do it yourself."

"I actually think it's a really disruptive model. Traditional recruiters can't do that, they're locked into the 18-20% of base plus super. You're not."

The takeaway

The roles agencies tell you are hardest i.e fixed-term, fast turnaround, cost-sensitive are exactly the ones this model is built for.

Rachel got the hire she needed, in the timeframe she needed, for $5K instead of $18-22K.