Gochkeys Celebrates Back-to-Back Candidate Placements with Interoffice Debate Over Best Retired NBA Icon Pic
Park Ridge, IL - on Thursday March 5th and Friday March 6th 2026, Gochkeys Professional Recruiters successfully helped 2 elite candidates secure a career step forward with 2 of our leading medtech manufacturing partners. Representing a little over 10% of our 2026 goal for total placements, we’re pumped :) For ourselves, no doubt, but also for 2 outstanding candidates we genuinely like about to join 2 teams we genuinely believe in.
These 2 accepted job offers, and our unending stream of sports metaphors, gave us an idea - what's YOUR favorite hometown sports hero picture celebrating "their 2nd?"
Brendan Hudec loves the Cleveland Cavaliers, so he found a great pic of DWade & LeBron winning their 2nd NBA Championship for the Miami Heat.
Brendan wrote: “I just finished one of my most exciting weeks at Gochkeys Professional Recruiters so far - the last 2 days we've had back-to-back candidates accept senior sales roles with one of our most established clients and a client I just met last week.
To celebrate, our office was challenged to find a meaningful picture someone celebrating "their second." As someone originally from Cleveland and a Marquette grad, this picture means a lot to me because: I grew up watching both of these great players. Like in recruiting, it often takes multiple attempts and the right fit before our "big wins."
Any other big fans of the GOAT or DWade AND executive recruiting?
hashtag#Recruitment hashtag#CareerGrowth hashtag#BigWins hashtag#ExecutiveRecruiting”
Erin Shea Hauri used a pic of Michael Jordan winning his 2nd NBA Championship, reminding Brendan her hero also did not win that championship for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
She wrote: “This was such a rewarding week @Gochkeys - over the last 2 days I helped close 2 separate candidate offers. 🤩 Meaning since yesterday morning, I've directly helped 2 rockstar medtech sales professionals move their careers - and our industry - forward.
Wanting to share this feeling, we were given the challenge of sharing a picture of someone also celebrating "their second" that's personally meaningful.
As a kid who grew up in Chicago in the 1990s, what other picture could there be?”
And Josh Schukas still claims he fully understood the assignment, yet put up a poorly-formatted picture of Phil Jackson using his fingers to make a triangle.
He wrote: “2(!!) Gochkeys Professional Recruiters Candidates receiving and accepting offers last week taught me 3 things:
(1) DESPITE HEADWINDS, hashtag#MEDTECH KEEPS GROWING
You might be right "tariffs are killing opportunities," "A.I. is going to replace us all anyway," and your backyard bunker doesn't look "quite so stupid now, does it?" But this week we saw 2 domestic, growing, medical device manufacturing clients successfully partner with us to invest in 2 new teammates, 2 new roles, and 2 new markets. They're leveraging A.I., and all kinds of other new technologies, to GROW headcount DESPITE economic obstacles.
That said, you may have a point on the bunker.
(2) Gochkeys Professional Recruiters hashtag#ProCruitment® PROCESS REMAINS A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE.
Our resources are evolving and our bandwidth is broader, but our fundamental recruiting process remains the same. Gochkeys' proprietary ProCruitment® recruiting process continues to deliver our manufacturing clients access to local industry candidates they didn't have before in the shortest amount of time: from 1st client conversation to signed candidate offer letter, our 2 searches that successfully concluded this week took an average 34.5 calendar days.
How long have YOU been trying to fill that open role?
(3) SPECIFIC PHIL JACKSON PICTURES ARE REALLY HARD TO FIND
To celebrate this tremendous week - our 2026 goal is a little over a placement each month, so making 2 in a week is huge - we agreed we'd each find a meaningful picture of someone from our hometown celebrating "their second."
I was in middle school at the height of the Chicago Bulls' 1st Championship run, so a picture of Phil Jackson, a fellow player/coach, holding up a celebratory 2 fingers after their winning their 2nd NBA championship felt like an easy win. But no such picture exists on my internet. So I looked for a picture of him making a peace sign. He was a Zen hippy, that should be an easy hack, right? Nope. Nada. Need a picture of him making a Vulcan salute? No problem. Riding a Harley with a cigar? All day. 8 inches from his face and hands with every ring? Hopefully part of a post here soon...
For now, I think/hope this is a pic of him from the 1992 season encouraging his team to ignore the distractions and focus on their "triangle offense" - their unique system no other team had or mastered as well - and promising success would follow.
I suspect there are many ways our team sees me as different from Phil Jackson. Shorter, to say the least. But I hope our team also benefits from the same kind of consistent leadership, shared vision, and success through systems he gave to our belobed Da Bulls :)
hashtag#MedTech hashtag#MedicalDevices hashtag#MedTechJobs hashtag#Manufacturing hashtag#AdvancedManufacturing hashtag#Hiring hashtag#Recruiting hashtag#TalentAcquisition hashtag#ExecutiveSearch hashtag#Recruitment hashtag#ProCruitment hashtag#Growth hashtag#Leadership hashtag#TeamBuilding hashtag#ChicagoBusiness hashtag#Chicago hashtag#ChicagoBulls hashtag#PhilJackson hashtag#BusinessGrowth hashtag#Innovation”
IN THE SAME WEEK, WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU:
*made 2 really great hires?
*had 2 really big professional wins?
*used the company's social media to bust on 2 really great teammates?
When YOU see the picture of YOUR favorite sports hero celebrating "their second," is that how your company & career make you feel?
