Hi, I’m Brian Fink — recruiter, talent strategist, and professional dot-connector.

For nearly two decades, I’ve helped startups, scale-ups, and global enterprises find the people who build the future. Whether it’s engineers architecting AI systems, marketers driving growth, or leaders defining culture, I specialize in recruiting top-tier talent that doesn’t just fill a seat — they raise the bar.

I’ve led searches for companies ranging from early-stage ventures to Fortune 100s, partnering directly with founders, execs, and hiring managers to close hard-to-fill roles. I believe great recruiting isn’t just about pipelines and platforms — it’s about business acumen, storytelling, and knowing when to challenge the status quo.

Outside of work, I speak on hiring trends, write irreverent essays about the recruiting world, and moonlight as my daughter’s biggest fan and loudest cheerleader.

Specializations:
► Data Science - LLM (Large Language Models), Generative AI, Python, Transformer, NLP, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Conversational AI, Chatbot Development, Sentiment Analysis, Neural Networks, Computer Vision, Signal Processing, Hugging Face, and MLOps.
► Open Source - Python, Django, Flask, Perl, Scala, Go, Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, Node.js, Elixir, Clojure
► Cloud Technologies - Kubernetes (K8s/GKE/EKS/AKS), Terraform, AWS, GCP, Azure, RedHat, On-Premise Hardware

Brian Fink

Leander Howard II

Chief Marketing Officer at WriteSea | Host of Spark Your Success Podcast| Subscribe to my newsletter for tips on how to find and attract your ideal customer, sell your product, and automate 90% of the process.

I’m Leander Howard II—2x founder, marketing strategist, and career services innovator.

I graduated from Georgia State University with dual degrees in Marketing and Finance. During my last semester of undergrad, I became an entrepreneur by launching my first company, Spark Your Resume, a career advancement agency that helped professionals land their dream jobs within 90 days.

Building on that success, I co-founded WriteSea, the all-in-one career services suite. As Co-Founder and CMO, I helped scale WriteSea from $0 to $1M in revenue within 16 months and led successful fundraising rounds totaling $4.7M

Along the way, I’ve shared my insights through my podcast Spark Your Success and my newsletter Prospect to Profit, helping founders, marketers, and sales professionals master customer acquisition, pipeline generation, and marketing automation.

When I’m not working (which is rarely ever), I enjoy reading, fitness, traveling, and podcasting.

Co Founder & Chief Marketing Officer

Writesea helps online recruitment marketplaces unlock new revenue by offering white-labeled career services to its candidates. Our mission is to help candidates find meaningful work and employers find quality talent. By partnering with us, job boards have the capability to increase their bottom line and improve the overall candidate experience.

Our product consist of the following tools and features:

AI resume review - Our AI resume review provides a holistic view of how your users can enhance their professional document to land more interviews with potential employers on your platform.

Resume Enhancement - By offering resume enhancement services, your job board becomes more than just a listing site—it becomes a comprehensive career resource. This added value can help attract and retain users, as they can not only find job opportunities but also receive crucial assistance in presenting their skills and experiences effectively to potential employers.

LinkedIn Profile Development - Offering LinkedIn profile development services as a job board provides a comprehensive career advancement solution for your users. Not only does it assist job seekers in creating a standout online professional presence, but it also enhances their networking capabilities, making them more visible to recruiters and potential employers.

Cover Letter Development - Providing cover letter development services as part of your job board offerings equips your users with a critical tool for standing out in the competitive job market.

White-Labeled Client Management Portal - Having a white-labeled client management system allows you to deliver a professional, cohesive, and branded experience to your customers.

Analytics Dashboard - Dashboard analytics provide valuable insights into user behavior, platform engagement, and performance trends, empowering you to make data-driven decisions.

The core purpose of any business: solve problems and make money.

Many professionals hesitate when it comes to asking for payment or negotiating contracts. Confidence is key. Never fear discussing your value.

Equally important is consistent follow-up with clients. Persistence pays off. #Business #Entrepreneurship #Sales #Negotiation #ClientManagement

Co-Founder & CMO at WriteSea | Building the Future of Career Services | Subscribe to my newsletter for tips on how to find and attract your ideal customer, sell your product, and automate 90% of the process.

✈️ Q1 Travel Plans Are Locked In

Q1 is shaping up to be a busy (and exciting) one.

Over the next few months, I’ll be on the road meeting with college and university leaders, attending national conferences, celebrating family milestones, and making time to connect with people I don’t get to see often.

Here’s where I’ll be in Q1:
 📍 Dallas
 📍 New Orleans
 📍 Washington, DC
 📍 Houston
 📍 Los Angeles
 📍 Providence
 📍 Medellín & Cartagena

If you’ll be in any of these cities while I’m there, I’d love to connect in person—coffee, lunch, or a quick hello between meetings.

👇 Help me plan what’s next

Comment with the city you’re based in (or spend the most time in). I want to see where I should add to the list for Q2 and beyond.

Looking forward to connecting on the road.

Most people think competitors are threats.

I think they’re potential joint venture partners.

If you and another company:
	•	Serve the same customer
	•	Share the same mission and long-term vision
	•	Have overlapping domain expertise
	•	Are solving the same problem from slightly different angles

Why fight for inches…

when you could build miles together?

The strongest partnerships don’t come from “adjacent” ideas.

They come from aligned incentives.

Joint ventures let you:
	•	Move faster by pooling distribution
	•	Win bigger deals you couldn’t land alone
	•	Reduce risk by sharing execution
	•	Create a category leader instead of two smaller players

Competition fragments the market.

Collaboration expands it.

The future isn’t winner-takes-all.

It’s aligned teams building together.

If you’re building something meaningful, ask yourself:

Who should I be partnering with instead of competing against?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments 👇🏾

Co-Founder & CMO at WriteSea | Building the Future of Career Services | GTM Advisor | Host of Prospect to Profit | Subscribe to my newsletter & podcast for access to my marketing, sales, & system playbooks below 👇🏾

I don’t walk into sales conversations trying to convince anyone of anything.

I walk in like a doctor.

I start with a hypothesis:

“You’re trying to support 30,000 students with 3 career services staff.”

Then I ask questions to verify the diagnosis.

Because if the problem isn’t real to them,
no solution will ever matter.

Sales isn’t about pitching harder.
It’s about confirming whether the problem actually exists — and how painful it is.

If it does, the conversation moves forward naturally.
If it doesn’t, I move on.

That’s how I build real pipeline.

#B2BSales #ConsultativeSelling #SalesStrategy #Pipeline #HigherEd #AskBetterQuestions

Someone said to me recently, “You ask a lot of questions.”

And honestly… I took that as a compliment.

I think one of the biggest reasons we have surface-level relationships today is because we don’t ask enough questions.

With our coworkers.
With our business partners.
With our friends.
Even with our family.

We talk, but we don’t truly know each other.

Curiosity has become passive. We skim. We assume. We move on.
But real connection requires intention.

It requires asking:
	•	What are you curious about right now?
	•	What are you working toward?
	•	What’s been challenging you lately?
	•	What actually matters to you?

Friendship and meaningful relationships don’t happen by accident.
They’re built through presence, curiosity, and care.

So here’s my challenge—for myself and for you:
Ask more questions.
Go deeper.
Stop settling for surface-level relationships.

Be more curious in 2026.
That’s how real connection starts.

Love, 
Lee ❤️

We’re back on the road this week — and our first stop is the American Association of Community Colleges Workforce Development Institute (WDI) conference, which kicks off today.

I always look forward to this conference because it attracts people who are carrying real responsibility — for students, for outcomes, and for making workforce readiness actually work inside complex institutions.

Not in theory.

In practice.

A lot of the conversations I expect to have this week sound like this:

How do we support students consistently across programs?

How do we scale career readiness without overwhelming staff?

How do we show outcomes that leadership and partners can trust?

That’s the space we work in at WriteSea  — helping institutions build systems that make career support clearer, more consistent, and easier to sustain.

If you’re here this week and any of this sits in your role, I’d genuinely love to connect.
Not to pitch you.

To compare notes, share what we’re seeing across campuses, and learn from the work you’re doing.

Feel free to message me or book time. Always open to a good conversation. 

https://lnkd.in/ehBqyh4G

#AACCWDI #CommunityColleges #WorkforceDevelopment #CareerReadiness #HigherEdLeadership #StudentSuccess

No alternative text description for this image

I don’t do this because it’s easy.
I do it because I know where I come from.
The long nights and sacrifices are for something bigger than me —
giving back to the schools and communities that shaped my life,
and creating opportunities for others who come after me.
This journey isn’t sweet.
But it’s meaningful.
And that’s why I keep showing up.

Most people send emails.

Very few know what to do after someone opens them.

Here’s a simple play I use to turn cold email into warm LinkedIn connections 👇

I can send thousands of emails a week.

But I don’t try to connect with everyone on LinkedIn.

I only connect with people who’ve already engaged.

If someone opens my email → they automatically get a LinkedIn connection request.

My message is simple:

“Hey — I just emailed you and wanted to connect here as well.”

That’s it.

Why it works:

They recognize the name

It confirms you’re a real person (not phishing, not spam)

The context already exists

The conversation starts warmer than a cold DM ever could

Most people treat email and LinkedIn like two separate channels.

They’re not.

They’re part of the same pipeline.

And the wild part?

People keep talking about “AI agents” and automation like it’s futuristic.

This is already doable right now — even without agents.

The real advantage isn’t the tool.

It’s knowing when to show up and where to show up once interest is proven.

That’s how you turn attention into relationships.

This is my in-person approach to building pipeline.
I identify the leaders I want to meet before I arrive.
I walk up confidently and ask for a moment of their time.
Then I deliver a 30-second pitch focused on ROI and institutional impact.
No fluff. No pressure.
Just clarity and relevance.
That’s how real relationships with leadership start.

I host a monthly virtual mastermind for male creators & entrepreneurs every 2nd Friday of the month at 1 PM EST. 

If you’re building, thinking deeply, and want to be in rooms with other operators — comment “MM” and I’ll send details.

A founder who doesn't love sales doesn't love their business, period.

But here's the catch: learn the sales process yourself *before* hiring someone. Otherwise, you won't know if they're doing it right.

Highly recommend learning business development for pipeline and closing deals.

#SalesTips #BusinessDevelopment #FounderLife #SalesStrategy #B2BSales

As the American Association of Community Colleges Workforce Development Institute conference heads into its final stretch, one thing keeps standing out:

The hardest part of workforce readiness isn’t knowing what students need.

 It’s building systems that support that work at scale — year after year.

The most valuable conversations I’ve had this week haven’t been about tools.

They’ve been about alignment, capacity, and how institutions are navigating growing expectations with limited resources.

That honesty is why this conference matters.

If you’re still here and we haven’t had a chance to connect yet, there’s still time before everyone heads home.

If you want to talk through what’s working, where things feel stuck, or what you’re being asked to deliver next, I’d love to chat.

Send me a message or grab time via the link.

https://lnkd.in/ehBqyh4G

#AACCWDI #WorkforceSystems #CommunityColleges #StudentOutcomes #HigherEdLeadership

In B2B sales, the initial step is identifying your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). 

These are companies you believe need your solution. For example, WriteSea is an all in one career services suite. We believe that students at colleges and universities need our solution to help them land internships and full time jobs. 

Therefore, our ICP are colleges and universities. 

Within that ICP, you'll find specific buyer personas. 

Not everyone at the college or university will needs our product. 

Therefore, we conduct research to help pinpoint the relevant teams and job titles to connect with about our solution. 

#B2BSales #ICP #IdealCustomerProfile #BuyerPersonas #SalesStrategy #B2BSaaS

14 months. Countless conversations. One clear problem.

For the past year, our team has been building something we knew higher education desperately needed — but didn’t exist.

Career Services teams are being asked to support thousands of students with limited staff, limited time, and rising expectations around outcomes.

And yet… resume support is still largely manual, inconsistent, and impossible to scale.

So we listened.

To Directors of Career Services.

To Deans and Provosts.

To frontline counselors doing the work every day.

What we heard was clear:

“We need consistency.”

“We need standards.”

“We need scale — without losing quality.”

That feedback shaped WriteSea’s biggest resume update yet:

✔️ A Resume Template Builder that lets institutions set the standard

✔️ An AI Resume Builder + Resume Review that enforces it at scale

This isn’t about replacing Career Services.

It’s about amplifying their impact.

To our knowledge, no one else in the market is giving institutions this level of control, structure, and scalability — all in one experience.

If you care about student outcomes.

If you care about consistency and quality.

If you care about meeting students where they are — 24/7.

I’d love for you to see what we’ve built.

👉 Schedule a demo with our team: https://lnkd.in/eeN-p4Xz

taplio

The Battle

Brian Fink

Leander Howard II

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreLeander Howard II's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Brian Fink

Leander Howard II

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Leander Howard II's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreLeander Howard II's LinkedIn Performance