Dominique Farnan is the founder of DotConnect, a recruitment company that specializes in pairing clients with other candidates that helps companies grow and sustain a positive culture within their company. With the intention of connecting people and companies together, DotConnect provides resources that allows for companies to promote a company culture that honours employees as human beings first. Having started her journey in a corporate position, moving into the recruitment industry was a challenge that Farnan knew she had the tools to tackle with ease.
Beginning with only herself as the sole representative of the company, the workload eventually became too much for one person to handle and Farnan hired two other part-time employees. However, through the fluctuations of business due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the numbers of DotConnect employees fluctuated with time.
Farnan credits that experience as allowing her to condense her team and be able to clearly focus on the standard of service they provide and who they choose to serve.
Calling it ‘222% Growth,’ Farnan decided she did not want the company solely fixated on financial growth, instead she emphasized the importance of growing her team in order to have a team of leaders.
She allows herself to see the unlimited potential that so many people possess and gives them the opportunities to fully exceed the expectations they have of themselves and more. “I was focused more on growing the team skills, their capabilities and competence, and redefining our culture,” she says. “Also just really leveling up our processes and our systems. I focused a lot on how I can be of service to my team and support them in their growth. A lot of what I try to do in our company now is to ensure that the period of time that you work with us is the best and most informative time of your career.”
Being able to show up for her team and be the leader they deserve was achieved through hours of hard dedicated work on Farnan’s end through what she labels her Growth Mindset.
She states through the process of the Growth Mindset she’s learned to keep an open mind with regards to learning while staying a humble student of the world. Trying new things that could potentially be a challenge to yourself allows for new opportunities to explore and experience different things. “It is mainly about acknowledging that you don’t know everything about the world and really just staying open to trying new things. When you are challenging yourself and doing things that you did not do before, you’re building more competence within yourself.”
The challenge is something that Farnan craves in her current working environment. As she quickly dominated the ranks in the beginning of her career, she realized that she found the work too easy, which resulted in boredom. She understood that being a leader for herself and connecting with people was what she was truly passionate about. “I love running a business that supports so many other different businesses because it gives me an opportunity to continue to learn to be challenged. We do not always have the solution but to work my way through the problem with my team and to see how we get to the end result is very rewarding.”
The name DotConnect was stylized in tribute to Farnan’s Grandmother, whose name was Dorothy “Dottie” Constance. It was the connection of Farnan’s Grandmother’s first and middle name together, as Farnan credit’s a lot of her drive and ambition to be representative of her Grandmother. “She never had the opportunity to work in a career or profession and that was something she really wanted to do,” Farnan reflects. “It was really important to her to do that. So I look at DotConnect as a tribute to her because I started working when I was really young, something she never really had the opportunity to do, and I had a strong desire to get out of my parents house and be independent.”
Farnan’s journey is seeing her foray into the world of publishing, with her book Now Here: A Journey From Toxic Boss to Conscious Connector, available for pre-order on Amazon and released on March 28, 2023.
The book provides readers with an insight into Farnan’s experience making the switch to her own company, and her journey healing from within to become the industry leader she is today.
For more information about Farnan and DotConnect, connect with her over LinkedIn.
