Adam Rose is the Founder & Chief Talent Officer at eCommerce Placement, a leading nationwide recruiting firm that provides top eCommerce talent to online retailers, SaaS companies, and digital agencies.

He previously led in-house talent acquisition for the global eCommerce company Borderfree (acquired by Pitney Bowes) and earlier in his career worked as a corporate recruiter at Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, AIG, and Pfizer. Adam has a Bachelor’s in Psychology and Master’s in HR Management from Rutgers University. He lives with his wife, two sons, and two dogs in Connecticut.

Why did you choose to pursue eCommerce in your career? eCommerce was still pretty much in its infancy when I had joined Borderfree, an eCommerce SaaS startup that allowed US-based online retailers to sell their products to international customers seamlessly just like if they were in the US. Having previously worked in finance, insurance, and pharmaceuticals, this world was completely new and exciting to me. It was culturally much more relaxed, but everyone was brilliant and excited to be building products that were new, innovative, and changing consumer behavior worldwide. I realized this was going to be an incredibly high-growth area for many years to come. What I also realized was that there weren’t any recruiting agencies at the time that really understood the roles we were trying to fill and that there was a huge market for this. That’s how eCommerce Placement was born.

What is your biggest strength, and how have you used it for your success in eCommerce? When we give new grads or even experienced eCommerce professionals career advice on how to be successful in eCommerce we tell them that they have to understand the entire business, work well in cross-functional teams, and have a really good understanding of what each functional area does to advance their objectives. eCommerce recruiting isn’t much different in that in order to be successful recruiting for top eCommerce talent, we have to have a deep understanding of what our client does, what this person will be doing, who they’ll be interacting with, and how their role fits in to the client’s overall strategic vision. I believe this is my greatest strength and where I am able to add the most value.

What is the weirdest skill or talent to come in handy in your eCommerce experience? Brevity. There are a lot of recruiters in our industry that love to get on the phone and talk your ear off and really give you the hard sell. I’m not one of those. I love chatting with you, yes. But, 1) I highly respect your time 2) the key to good recruiting is being able to listen (to both our clients and candidates) and 3) I have to be able to execute quickly. 

How have you most successfully influenced change within your organization (or with your clients)? One of my favorite things to do is to recruit the senior leaders who will come in and drive digital transformation and then staff their organization with individuals who can help them accomplish this. We’ve worked on numerous large hiring projects where we’ve been fortunate to play a significant role in helping our clients better position themselves for the future. 

What was your most “valuable” career failure, and why? I’ve always been a decent recruiter because I’m really good at sourcing candidates. However, I’m an immensely better agency recruiter than I am an in-house corporate recruiter because I was pretty terrible at everything else an in-house corporate recruiter has to do to be successful e.g. lots of paperwork, reporting, record keeping, job description creation, etc. I just wanted to go out there and source candidates. So in some sense you can say I “failed” at this but really it helped me realize that agency life was for me. 

In the last five years, what new belief, behavior or habit has most improved your life? It wasn’t until the past few years that I really took exercise seriously. Not only did I not enjoy it but I always made the excuse that I didn’t have time for it and work took precedent. It wasn’t until I got into Peloton cycling that I really started enjoying exercise and making time for it. I’ve been exercising pretty much daily for the past few years, I’m down 45lbs, feel incredible, and it’s actually made me better able to focus at work so I’m seeing a net positive gain in productivity.

What are you learning right now? The violin actually! My 6-year-old son has been into the violin for a long time. I took him to the orchestra where he was the only kid there and he loved it. We finally caved and bought him a nice student violin to learn on and I’m learning it with him. I play guitar and a little piano, but the violin is new to me. It’s an odd instrument. I can only imagine what they were thinking when they come up with it: “let’s make a string instrument. Ok, should we play it with our fingers or a pick? No, horse hair! And the kicker is, it’ll only work if you rub that horse hair in tree sap!”.

What are the 1-3 songs that would make up your career soundtrack today?

Our anthem at eCommerce Placement is Vacation by the Dirty Heads. It’s a nod to both our love of our jobs as eCommerce recruiters and what we help others achieve. And, well, it’s just fun. Some of the lyrics include:

♫ A-a-aye, I’m on vacation

Every single day ’cause I love my occupation

A-a-aye, I’m on vacation

If you don’t like your life, then you should go and change it ♫

What are the 1-3 books you’ve gifted the most or that have greatly influenced your life, and why?

• Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill: I credit this book for taking the leap and starting my own recruiting agency. If you’re on the fence about entrepreneurship, this classic will surely put you over the edge. I may be a corporate recruiter, but oddly enough my advice to anyone who has any inclination toward starting their own business is: DO IT.
• Scale by Jeff Hoffman: Another entrepreneurship book I often recommend is from this former founder and CEO of Priceline.com. Starting a successful small business is one thing but scaling it is another and this book provides incredible insights and concrete action steps to achieve this goal.

If you could have a gigantic billboard for the world to see with anything on it, what would it say, and why? I’ve always liked the quote “Success is never owned; it is only rented – and the rent is due every day.” – Rory Vaden.

It keeps you humble and focused on the long-term play. Success is made up of small actions that you take each and every day and it’s important to get in the habit of making those actions.

What are the worst recommendations or advice you have heard related to eCommerce? That you can get by with running lean eCommerce teams. I can’t tell you how many companies I see that are doing hundreds of millions in revenue but refuse to hire enough people required to properly scale their organization. One of the biggest gripes I hear from candidates is that they’re burnt out and overworked. That they’re doing the job of 2-3 people. If you’re concerned about turnover in your organization, this is something you need to take a look at. Free your staff up to focus on what they do best and put them in a position to be successful.

What advice would you give to a future leader of change about to enter business, or specifically the eCommerce field? Learn as much as you can and never stop learning. You weren’t taught eCommerce in school. You’re starting out with a clean slate. You have to be a sponge and learn as much as you can from everyone you can even if it’s not part of your job description. And, keep learning outside of work too. Read books, take courses and certifications online (many are free), watch webinars, read articles and content published online, start your own online shop on Shopify, Etsy, etc. Be intellectually curious. In a field like eCommerce that changes quickly, this will take you very far in your career.

What specific, industry-related change do you believe will happen that few others seem to see? eCommerce roles being fully remote (work-from-home) will be the norm in the near future. This is another area that has been accelerated by Covid-19. This has always been the overwhelming preference of employees but companies have generally been reluctant until now, which has always seemed odd to me considering how technology-driven these roles are and how eCommerce professionals have all of the resources available to them to be successful in a remote capacity. But here’s the thing, companies that are still reluctant won’t have a choice anymore. These companies will have an incredibly difficult time with both talent acquisition and retention if they try keeping their staff onsite 5 days a week. They will no longer be competitive in the talent marketplace.

What is the last thing you bought online, and why? Groceries. We’ve been ordering all of our groceries online for months due to Covid-19 mainly through Instacart, Target, and Thrive Market (huge fan!). It’s been amazing to see both the the rapid acceleration of online grocery adoption by consumers and speed of these companies evolving to meet this demand. Over the past few years, we’ve had a significant increase in clients in Food & Beverage investing in DTC eCommerce sites, Retail.com, and marketplaces (e.g. Amazon).

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First Movers is a change leader interview series featuring select industry pioneers who are boldly driving the evolution of digital commerce, the consumer and everything in between.