Six searches were dispositioned and closed this week. This is the full-record teardown of each: what we built, where it broke, why it didn't close, and what we keep. Sourced from the CMS event log, posting spend, and the team's close-out notes in #sourcing-inputs.
Five of the six closed to a candidate the client already had inside the building — an internal promotion, an internal transfer, or a job fair. Only Spartan Crossing was a clean external cancellation. Where we lost on our own execution rather than an external event, the through-line is the same: pace to the client. Where the loss was structural, the through-line is req realness — a seat that was already covered, contingent, or never fully defined at intake.
| Search | Lead | Days | Subs | Sent | Spend | Fee | Disposition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property Manager · Gables MillGables Residential · Atlanta, GA · #3308 | Jake | 175 | 45 | 29 | $130 | $13.5K | Client filled internally |
| Community Manager · Bluffs at Cherry HillsDominium · Omaha, NE · #3448 | Robbie | 49 | 5 | 5 | $300 | $6.5K | Internal promotion |
| Leasing Manager (Conf.) · Spartan CrossingB.HOM Student Living · Greensboro, NC · #3421 | Cameron | 63 | 10 | 3 | $200 | $7.2K | Client cancelled |
| Assistant Manager · The Landings at Tiger LilyTRG Management · Pensacola, FL · #3452 | Cameron | 40 | 1 | 0 | $100 | $10.3K | Filled w/ temp |
| Community Manager (Conf.) · Vita Tysons CornerGables Residential · Tysons, VA · #3389 | Mike | 89 | 9 | 5 | $170 | $16.5K | Filled via job fair |
| Leasing Marketing Mgr (Conf.) · Aspire TucsonB.HOM Student Living · Tucson, AZ · #3428 | Mike | 55 | 14 | 3 | $218 | $8.3K | Client filled internally |
The most heavily worked search on the board this week, by a wide margin. An early candidate was offered and projected to start, then did not show on day one. The restart lagged roughly two weeks. Once we re-engaged we rebuilt a deep funnel and pushed a candidate back to a final-stage interview, but Gables chose an internal applicant. The search re-opened five times over its 175-day life.
Top reject reasons: failed interview (13), we removed (8), not qualified to interview (6). The funnel was never the problem; the target was.
Egypt Ball was the lead horse: client-approved Apr 30, first interview May 1, second interview May 8. When we moved to references she went quiet, and a week of follow-up calls (May 15–20) never recovered her. Meanwhile Dominium surfaced an internal candidate up for promotion and moved on her. Three other submits — Portia Harrell, Autumn Adkins, DeeAnna Reed — were rejected by the client as not qualified to interview.
Only one candidate ever advanced past send. The pipeline was single-threaded from the first interview on.
A confidential backfill for an employee B.HOM planned to move on from. We got up and running and had candidates approved, but the incumbent's FMLA situation forced B.HOM to bring her back. They paused to see how she performed and then cancelled the req. The three sent candidates were closed out as "hiring window closed" — no execution miss on our side.
The req was killed mid-pipeline by an external personnel reversal, before any candidate reached an interview.
In Cameron's words, this one "wasn't real from the start." We got up and running and were generating screens when TRG disclosed they had already filled the seat with a temp. The job was paused May 6 and closed June 2. The redeeming outcome: the same outreach surfaced a leasing opening at the property, and our one submit, Lacey Rocknowski, was recycled toward it.
Our biggest single loss of the week. William C. Loving II — 18-plus years of Class A DMV leadership who ran The Witmer, a 440-unit mall-attached high-rise nearly identical to Vita's setup — advanced through a three-round process to a verbal offer at $110K base. He declined: the offer landed below his expectations and below competing offers. We tried to bundle Vita with a second DC role at a discount to bridge the gap; the client didn't bite, and Gables ultimately filled the seat internally through a job fair. A strong luxury bench (Terrence Taylor, Mickea Lee, Mallelyn Martinez, Jessica Roberts) stayed in standby.
We got the hardest part right — a near-perfect-fit operator to a verbal offer. We lost on comp at the one-yard line.
A healthy funnel — 15 screens, 14 submits — that never converted to client momentum. In Mike's words, we "moved a little too slow sending top candidates ahead of the calibration call." The hiring manager then went on PTO, the process stalled, and B.HOM filled the role internally before we could push approved candidates into interviews. The one first interview that was scheduled got canceled.
Strong top of funnel, weak handoff to the client. The drop is between "sent" and "in front of the manager."
Read together, these losses are not six unrelated misses. They cluster into a handful of repeatable failure modes, most of which are fixable at intake or in the first two weeks of a search.