In this episode of the Full Throttle Leaders Podcast, host Michael Falato interviews Lance LaForte, the executive producer and fractional talent acquisition specialist behind LaForte Talent Group. LaForte recounts how he entered recruiting shortly after 9/11, transitioning from marketing to creative recruiting for ad agencies, and later expanding into film, animation, video‑game, and software companies. He emphasizes his dual‑side expertise—understanding both agency and corporate hiring pressures—and his knack for uncovering a client’s true talent needs by offering unexpected “wild‑card” candidates. LaForte explains his business model, contrasting retainer and contingency approaches: trusted long‑term clients often receive waived retainers, while new engagements require an upfront fee to cover costs. He cites industry statistics, noting that contingency recruiters fill roughly 30 % of roles, whereas his retainer‑focused work achieves a 90 % fill rate within the first five to six weeks. The conversation moves to his ideal client profile—mid‑size firms (200‑500 employees) and divisions of multinationals that lack internal recruiting support—and the personas he typically fills, primarily creative, digital, and entertainment roles, with limited focus on full‑stack development. LaForte also discusses his flexibility in working with C‑suite executives, founders, and matrixed organizations, leveraging his background in sales, marketing, and HR. The episode concludes with LaForte’s contact information, encouraging listeners to reach him via LinkedIn, phone, or email.
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Hi, Michael Falato again from GT and Full Throttle. This is Full Throttle Leaders Podcast. I got one of my favorite buddies here, Lance LaForte. He's the executive producer, fractional talent acquisition guy. This is the space I come from— Monsters, If You Tell It, Job Bite, Dice— and I have a recruiting background. So, I'm glad to have you on this, Lance.
Yeah, great to be here, Michael. Always great to chat with you.
So, tell me about La Forte. Like, what do you guys do? Why you do it? Why are you different than any other talent group out there?
Excellent question, Michael. Thank you. I got into recruiting literally the week after 9/11. I remember switching jobs I'd had all these recruiters calling me for years for this job, that job. I was in marketing and account management, and one guy pitched me on this thing, be a creative recruiter. I deal with ad agencies. You're an artistic kind of creative guy. I need a guy to hire ad agency people. So art directors, copywriters, all that stuff. So that's how I got in the business. Um, but since then, I worked agency and corporate side. I've worked for film companies, animation companies, video game tech companies, software companies, um, either agency side or corporate. So, I think I own both sides of the desk really well. I understand them. I understand what the pressures are. And what I pride myself on is quite often, the client doesn't exactly know what they need. They think they know. And you probably find it too with your business. Sometimes, they go, here's a prescription to fill, as an example. We think we need this. And I present them with 3, 4, 5 people and they go, well, we had a change of heart or change of mind. What we really need is this. Well, I'll go find that. But what I love is when I intuitively figure out what they really need and I present it in the mix. Here's a solution I want to just throw by you, see what you think. And they go, why? We wanted this. I'm like, well, I'm presenting that exactly as the brief is, but I want to throw a wild card or a dark horse in the mix. And I love when they go, that's the person, right? When they go, oh my God, how did you know that, right? So, that's the fun part sometimes. Also, I find once we presented 2 or 3, and you have a recruiting background, you know, sometimes you learn a lot after the first 3 or 4 interviews because the client feedback is now starting to actually fill in the gaps. And you're like, oh, that's not what they said.
Yeah.
But, you know, so the prescription's shifting, right? So anyways, look, I, I have a specialty for a long time in creative and tech and the entertainment field. A lot of that's going through a lot of churn and transition right now. So I'm pivoting into other industries. But still bringing the business acumen, the urgency. I know we have to marry a job when it comes to us. We have to live and breathe that thing and get them results quickly. Because as you know, coming from the business, they've already been looking 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks. They've already got through some interviews, right? There's usually quite a lot of pressure to get this finished and fixed quickly. So, we jump on stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I always say it's like we jump on the hand grenade for our clients. It's like, oh my gosh!
When I was in— at 16, I was selling women's shoes at Nine West in the mall. And we had what they wanted, something similar, and then the third thing was completely something that we thought was cool. So, right, when you said that about the, uh, the Canon, it reminded me of my— I don't know why I remember some 2016. I'm sorry, from when I was 16, but that was it.
Yeah.
Um, what's, um, What's— what do you like? What I find out, well, I don't know why I kind of got the recruiting business, is like, I'm just— if I don't charge a retainer, if I just do something like contingency, I don't know if you do that, but I am not going to sit here for 3 months work on your, your, uh, your, uh, position, and then you, you hire Tommy who's friends with Steve.
Yeah.
So do you— yeah, do you do a kind of a retainer versus Contingency approach so you don't spin your wheels a long time?
Absolutely. If it's a really trusted client that I've been dealing with for years, we waive the retainer a lot of times because we've got a relationship. But the very first several deals, we often ask for 5, 10 down something, right? And a little bit of skin in the game, because then if they change their mind at 5 or 6 weeks in, at least we've covered our basic costs, right? My team is paid for, my salaries are paid for. Because, um, you know the business well. Like, um, contingency is, is a rat race. And, and, and if you look at the statistics, and a lot of my friends are contingency recruiters, and they often fill somewhere between 30 to 33% of the roles they're actually working on. They got 10 open, they only fill a third. The others go away for a number of reasons.
All right, it's like the whole pipeline, 33% of your pipe. I didn't know that was for recruiting. I've been in recruiting for a long time.
Those numbers, I go back with a number of recruiters back 25, 30 years, and it's always somewhere 30-ish somewhere, right? And the retainers, the retainers that I've done, we're closing over 90% in the first 5 to 6 weeks. So imagine you're a client. What do you want to invest in? The 90%, I got to put a little money down, or the 32 or 3? Because that contingency recruiter knows the likelihood of this closing is, is below 40%. So they're going to take on more business than they can possibly do because they're at, they're at Vegas playing 10 tables at the same time, right? I'm at Vegas playing one table. You're my table. I have to win here for you.
So that's— That's a good analogy. Do you make hires for creative people mostly, or are they like— what's your ICP as far as inside those companies?
Yeah, I do find often a company that's anywhere from 200 to 500 is sort of a good fit because beyond that, They usually have an extensive recruiting team or an internal team. That being said, we've done a lot of work for multinationals because they have a division internally that is not being served by their recruiters internally.
Yeah, that happens a lot.
Yeah. So, they're like, these guys—
what's the personas that you're hiring for?
Yeah. So, again, probably almost 15 plus, maybe 20 years in entertainment. It was all the creative side, digital side. In advertising, marketing, you name it. If it was a pixel being pushed somewhere, you know, that's kind of our specialty.
Not sales and marketing folks.
No, but here's the thing. I come from that background. I was in sales and marketing myself. So, and I was an HR director. You know, I've been on the planet a while. So, I can lean back into if you've got an HR thing or a talent acquisition thing, I've got it. I was the Vice President of Operations at a few multinationals. So, I understand working in a matrix environment where we'd like to get this done in 3 weeks. But it's got to go through 3 channels and 5 of those people are away on vacation. Like, it's going to take 6 months to get a yes.
Yes.
So, that's very different than working with a founder who in a small midsize is like, dude, let's get that done by 5 o'clock. Right? So, but I'm able to flex with those. But look, I've done general management. I've done sales, marketing, pretty much, you know, soup to nuts. I'd say that the blind spot might be like full-stack developers. You know, I'm not a coding guy, right?
Yeah.
However, some of my best friends are CIOs and CTOs because I've worked with their teams and their team does their— we go source and we screen and we put them in front of them. They do the testing, the technical testing, right? So, I guess I'm not really afraid to jump in as a generalist in a few places. I love working with the C-suite and the founders and getting to understand them and seeing what their challenges are. Does that make sense?
Yep. So, tell me how people get a hold of you and who should get a hold of you.
Sure. Easiest way, I'm on LinkedIn most of the time. So, Lance LaForte or my phone number, 416-993-1581, or just hello@lafortetalentgroup.com will get to me as well. But best way, easiest one is just Look me up on LinkedIn and DM me there.
Well, it's good talking to you again. Thanks for having me on your podcast. Thank you for coming on my podcast, and we'll keep connected, my friend.
Excellent. I'll see you soon, Michael, I'm sure. Take care now. Thanks again.
