The person your checklist would have missed.
Building the firm that finds them.
Ellis Blevins
“I’ve called a CIO I placed at a company and said: I know HR doesn’t love us talking, but I just met someone who needs to work for you. After a quick interview, the CIO created a job for them.”
I grow things. Cells, gardens, careers, relationships — give me something with potential and I want to see what it becomes.
I was the only girl in AP Computer Science in Alabama, in 1987. Tech has always been part of the recipe — 26 years of finding people their next opportunity, everything from entry-level support to C-level, across accounting, project management, sales, development, and operations. I trust tech, when it’s built right, because it doesn’t lie or manipulate people the way some things do. But tech was never really the point. It was just the place I happened to be for a long time, practicing the thing I actually care about: seeing what other people miss.
Some of my favorite clients are people I now call friends. I’ve officiated four weddings for people I met through work — that’s not an accident. It’s what happens when you stop treating hiring like a transaction and start treating it like an introduction.
Fluid does it differently: I get to know your business and the actual environment someone’s walking into, push back on job descriptions, and send one candidate instead of ten. I’ve fired clients. I’ve been fired by clients. That’s how it works — if I’m not the right fit, I’ll get you to someone who is.
Ski instructor. Gardener. RECRUITER. Waitress. Trainer. Lab tech. Traveler. Sales manager. Painter. Boss. Equestrian. Support technician. AUTHOR. Surfer. Director. Counselor. Volunteer. Speaker. Entrepreneur. Employee. PHOTOGRAPHER. Rescuer. INSTIGATOR. Connector — always, everywhere, whether anyone is paying me or paying attention. None of it in order. All of it running at the same time, along with the music in the background and the tacos.
Mom, underneath all of it. Without that, I’d be in a cabin in the woods with my dogs and not much else — and I’d probably be fine with it. But I want everything for my family, so here we are.
I chair the Workforce Committee for the Colorado Neurodiversity Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s first neurodiversity chamber. A part of the Colorado professional COMMUNITY for longer than I would like to admit. In between all of that, I talk clients — and teenagers — off cliffs and out of bad decisions, on the daily.
Education: RISD, Harvard, UC San Diego, Universidad de Cantabria, and LIFE.
The argument I’ve made for 26 years about broken hiring just got louder — the skills the AI era rewards are the same ones neurodivergent minds default to. I’ve known that a long time. Now the data agrees.
Fluid TeamElizabeth O’Hara
Senior Talent SpecialistWith Fluid practically since the beginning. Her work ethic and commitment to quality are why clients come back — her background in accounting has her leading any search in that area.
LinkedIn →Melissa Tauber
Senior Talent SpecialistJoined Fluid after a career in marketing and heads up searches in that area. Her read on who someone really is in an interview makes matching easier for everyone — a born match-maker.
LinkedIn →Fluid also works with a bench of specialists across dev, brand, and HR.
Meet the partners →Ellis’s other projects: Genius or Insane · Letters From The HOA