PBN 2023 Business Women Awards
ACHIEVEMENT HONOREE: Dawn Apajee | City Personnel Inc. owner
IF LIFE IMITATES ART, Dawn Apajee can offer proof in something she read: think like an immigrant. “It resonates with me and sums up who I am and how I run my business,” she said.
“When you’re an immigrant, you have to think and behave differently. Be brave, bet on yourself, learn new skills, embrace new ideas, be humble and always work harder,” she added.
That wisdom is in her DNA. Apajee immigrated to Chicago from London in 1995, when her husband, Deven, got a job as a manager at a youth soccer academy. They moved to Rhode Island when his job relocated here. That gave Apajee the impetus to launch City Personnel Inc., a staff recruiting agency in Providence, with one other employee in 2006.
Today, City Personnel has a staff of nine with a client list of more than 500 companies in small and midsize industries, ranging from finance and marketing to legal and medical. Apajee sometimes starts her day as early as 5:30 a.m. doing bookkeeping and administrative work, or Zoom interviews with temporary and permanent job candidates. She says working in a small state where there are roughly three degrees of separation is a huge advantage. “You get to know everyone,” she said. “You have a relationship with staff who’ve moved on. The disadvantage is you can’t fail to deliver. It could come back to haunt you.”
As the job market has become unpredictable, it’s affected how the company does business. Apajee says demand has been especially high in the medical field, the result of burnout and an unwillingness by some to comply with vaccine mandates.
In a tight labor market with unemployment hovering just above 3%, finding the right person for the job takes creativity. Baby boomers are retiring, but younger workers don’t have the same skill sets, Apajee acknowledges. It’s a trend that COVID-19 accelerated.
Apajee says she’s had a couple of clients who’ve recently left jobs because the office culture made them uncomfortable. As a woman of color, she emphasizes the importance of an inclusive and diverse workplace, a goal she sets for her own company.
Has she experienced pushback herself as a woman of color in business? The answer’s nuanced. “I’m in a privileged situation,” she said. “There haven’t been times where I’m told you’re Black or female, so I’m not going to give you a job,” she said.
