About Cherrypicker
Hiring, rebuilt from both
sides of the table.
Cherrypicker is on a mission to make hiring more transparent and accessible: for the teams doing the hiring, and for the people they want to reach.
CJ Tufano
Founder @ Cherrypicker
Founder Story
Why I built Cherrypicker
Cherrypicker started with my own frustration on the other side of the table.
When I was ready to leave my accounting career, I worked with recruiting agencies to find my next role. I was treated like a number. They sent me on interviews with companies I had no interest meeting, and when an offer came in that wasn't competitive, they pushed me to take it anyway. The alternative was doing it myself, and every job ad wanted a lengthy application before anyone would even look at me.
I figured I could do better, so I became a recruiter. I became obsessed with the process itself: why hiring felt so frustrating for everyone involved, and how could I remove the friction. For more than eight years, I saw it from every angle, as a candidate, as a recruiter, and alongside the hiring managers making the decisions.
The same frustrations kept surfacing. Recruiting firms were treated as a necessary evil, and as AI and automation matured, the appetite for paying placement fees kept shrinking. Hiring teams leaned on job ads because they were the easy option, which left most of the market untouched and most hiring up to chance.
I was representing so many great people on both sides, but I couldn't make the match at scale. So I decided to build Cherrypicker to fix that.
In 2022 I left agency world to go independent, and I bootstrapped Cherrypicker with the proceeds from my independent recruiting practice. I learned to build products with very little capital, to iterate quickly, and as AI-assisted development matured, to solve more complex problems for more companies than I ever could by hand.
I built Cherrypicker out of necessity, as a way to duplicate myself: to reach the talent job ads miss, to treat candidates like people instead of commissions, and to give hiring teams the same caliber of talent an agency delivers, without the placement fee at the end.
Our mission
Make hiring transparent and accessible, for both sides
Hiring great talent should not come down to who can afford an agency fee, or who happens to be browsing a job board on the right day. We are building a more transparent and more human way to hire: one that reaches the best people wherever they are, treats candidates like humans instead of transactions, and gives hiring teams a cost-effective way to recruit proactively while keeping it in house.
What we believe
The principles behind the Cherrypicker platform
Candidates are treated as humans, not commissions
Changing jobs shouldn't feel transactional, it's an important life decision that requires the right guidance from unbiased parties.
Search confidentially, on your terms
The best people are heads-down doing their jobs well, not combing job boards. They still deserve to see what is out there, privately, without ever tipping off their employer.
No placement fees, better offers
Placement fees have always eaten into hiring budgets. Without them, companies can now put that money where it belongs, into more competitive offers for the people they hire.
Hiring beyond the job ad
A job ad is one talent acquisition channel, not a strategy. We give hiring teams the bandwidth to attract better talent proactively, the same caliber an agency delivers, without leaving the outcome to chance.
Let's fix hiring together.
Whether you're building a team or keeping your options open, Cherrypicker gives you a more human way to do it.