Dominique Farnan is the founder of DotConnect, a recruitment agency named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest-growing companies in America. Inspired by her grandmother, the company has allowed Farnan to become a leader who motivates people to be the best they can be.
Like her nickname “Dom” suggests, Dominique Farnan is dominating the corporate world. Aside from recruiting talent for the likes of Snapchat, Instacart, and Samsung, she is known for bringing radical change to the talent industry through mindfulness, generosity, and a strong sense of compassion.
Farnan is the founder of the highly successful conscious connection agency, DotConnect, which was named by Inc Magazine as one of America’s fastest-growing companies earlier this year. Inspired by her grandmother, DotConnect gave Farnan an opportunity to carry on her grandmother’s legacy, and lead with love in a way that she never had before.
“For me, DotConnect is not just about recruitment, but also being that coach and that cheerleader for people when they may not have that,” Farnan says, sharing that her grandmother was a solid foundation of support for her. “In my good times and my bad times, I could talk to her and she would be cheering for me, always reassuring me that I can do anything I want in my life. Not everyone has that type of mentor in their lives. So I’m very blessed to have had that,” she continues.
DotConnect was founded in 2011, and within its first year, scaled to $3 million dollars, solidifying Farnan’s position as a powerhouse in the industry. But getting to this point has not at all been an easy journey for her.
“I was 17 when I began my career in recruiting and it’s the only career path I’ve ever had,” she says. “At first it was just me running a solo practice but at the end of 2018, I had nine clients and probably a couple of hundred roles that I was supporting so I hired two part-time people to help me. From there, I decided to go all in as a business and it’s been a wild ride ever since,” she continues. Attracting the right candidates, growing her own team, and motivating them to do their best, are just a few of the challenges one could face in this industry, and Farnan faced them all.
“When I started my company, I had never managed anybody and never knew how to lead people. I was really good at being a senior recruiter but didn’t know how to build people and build teams, so it was quite challenging for me. I was super micromanaging, and I was very toxic, but in the last few years I’ve been on this journey of inner work, and on becoming who I am as a leader,” she says.
In order to overcome these and plenty of other obstacles, Farnan shares that she turned inward, focused on healing, and also developed what’s called a growth mindset. Growth mindset is a concept that has been slowly sneaking its way into the corporate world in the last couple of years. As Farnan explains it, having the right perspective can help you embrace challenges and persist in putting your best foot forward regardless of how daunting the obstacle may be.
“Having a growth mindset is about being curious and staying a humble student of the world,” she says, adding that acknowledging that you don’t know everything about everything – or anything about a lot of things is key to continuous learning. “It’s about being open and trying new things because when you’re challenging yourself and you’re doing things that you haven’t done before, you’re building more competence within yourself,” she continues.
When you build more competence within yourself – such as committing yourself to learning and taking on new challenges, you will be better equipped to tap into your individual powers. As a leader in business, this is something Farnan encourages her team to do.
“When everyone is tapped into their individual power, it will create the momentum that you want to see in the collective and in your team,” Farnan says. A great way to do that is by committing to your own growth whether it be through breathwork, meditation, or even plant medicine.
“As a leader, I like to go out and experience all this different stuff so that I can be the funnel for the people in my community. I want to bring them back to the little breadcrumbs of all of my life experience and hope it inspires them,” she says. This leadership and desire to uplift others is the foundation for Farnan’s upcoming book Here Now.
“At the end of the day, human power is greater than team power,” she says. “I can’t force people to do the inner work. I need the light bulb to go off in their head and in their heart and for them to go, ‘I’m going to choose this way of being, I’m going to choose to be emotionally intelligent, or go deeper in that I’m going to choose to do inner work,’” she says.”What I’m really hoping to continue to fine-tune is my team’s ability to be fully formed, emotionally intelligent, and masterful human beings,” she concludes.
If you are interested in learning more about Dominique Farnan, her contributions in the recruitment space and to find out first when her book comes out, visit her on LinkedIn. To learn more about DotConnect, check out their website here.
