Corporate Talk: Effective Workplace recruiting

-Recruiting A-Players; led by Eric Herrenkohl; Author, Speaker and President of Herrenkohl Consulting; a consulting and retained executive search firm.


-Recruiting A-Players from unlikely sources; led by Colleen Cowles Attorney, Author, Speaker and advocate for Drug Policy Reform.


-Where to get an A-Player career makeover; led by Michelle Riklan; Managing Director at Riklan Resources; an end to end full service career marketing company.

Eric Herrenkohl

Eric Herrenkohl is the President of Herrenkohl Consulting, a consulting and retained executive search firm that he founded in 2002. He works as an advisor to CEOs on building superior leadership teams.



Eric is the author of the upcoming book Crowbar: Pry top talent out of your competitors, surround yourself with the right leaders, and create the team your customers demand.

His previous book, How to Hire A-Players, is an Amazon bestseller published by Wiley and described as “the definitive book on talent acquisition.” In 2016, Recruiter.com named How to Hire A-Players one of the top 10 recruiting books of all time. Harver included it in its top 12 recruiting books to read in 2018. The Toronto Globe and Mail named How to Hire A-Players one of the “Top Ten Business Reads of the Year” following its publication.



Prior to founding his firm, Eric worked in executive search and in employee motivation & sales incentives. Early in his career, Eric was the first dedicated employee to oversee the patented rewards system that drove the Shell MasterCard, transformed the sales incentive industry, and generated tens of millions of dollars of licensing fees.



Eric also worked as a volunteer and staff member with Young Life, a non-denominational organization that works with high school students.



Business Week, Fox News, NBC News, the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Philadelphia Business Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Inc.com, Careerbuilder.com, MSNBC.com, Monster.com, and the LinkedIn Talent Blog have all featured his work.



Eric holds a master’s degree from Covenant Seminary in St. Louis and an undergraduate degree in economics and history from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He and his wife and four children live in the Philadelphia area.

Herrenkohl Consulting

Colleen Cowles

Colleen Cowles is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, business consultant and attorney. Her educational tools for clients include online courses on topics related to addiction, drug policy, and business transition.



Colleen grew up on a Wisconsin potato farm and, at a very young age, experienced the personal satisfaction gained from hard work, determination and self-sufficiency. She learned the blessings and tribulations of family business on a personal level. As an attorney, Colleen focused her practice on tax, business and estate planning and built a multi-million dollar software and training company, serving attorneys nationwide on business development, systematizing their practices, maximizing profit and enhancing service to clients. She ultimately sold this business to Thomson-Reuters, a multi-billion dollar market leader.



Sometimes direction in life is not pre-planned. After the sale of her software business, through legal clients and through personal family experiences, Colleen became aware of the horrendous impact on civil liberties due to our flawed criminal justice system. As part of Cowles Communication, she founded SYCA, LLC (www.SurviveYourChildsAddiction.com) to help parents to cope and to support children struggling with addiction, and War on Us (www.WarOnUs.com), a website and organization focused on criminal justice reform to transition policy regarding addiction from a legal to a medical approach.



Cowles Communication also offers the e-course \'How to Sell Your Business\', to help business owners with business sale and transition.



Colleen enjoys time with her family, is an avid traveller and enjoys writing and photography as a way of sharing her experiences with others.

Colleen on LinkedIn

Michelle Riklan

Michelle A. Riklan holds a B.A. in Theatre, English Literature and Speech Communications from Hofstra University. While beginning her corporate career, she pursued and completed a M.A. in Speech and Interpersonal Communications from New York University where she also served as an Instructor in Voice and Diction/Public Speaking. Utilizing her education and presentation skills, she continued a career path in Human Resource Management. Her generalist background is all inclusive, but her areas of expertise include employment, employee relations and training and development.



With a combined 25 years of in-house corporate and targeted consulting experience, Michelle services large corporations as well as small businesses and individuals in all aspects of human resources and career management. As a consultant, she has had the opportunity to work in a wide range of industries including advertising, publishing, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, financial services, E-commerce and much more.

Riklan Resources