About Abby

About Abby Kohut

Abby Kohut is an award winning Human Resources professional with 18 years of corporate experience. As President of Staffing Symphony LLC, Abby is credited with offering over 10,000 people jobs from all industries and at all levels of employment during her recruiting career. Abby has delivered over 500 live workshops across 33 states on a variety of human resources, job search, social media and business-related subjects. In 2014, Abby presented a keynote at a Veterans Resource Fair in Atlantic City, while sharing the stage with Mayor Guardian & Miss America 2015. After that presentation, Abby was presented with a “Statement of Support for the Guard & Reserve” by the Department of Defense.

Absolutely Abby

Abby is well known in the Human Resources and job search world as “Absolutely Abby.” Her website, AbsolutelyAbby.com, was selected as one of the “Top 100 Websites for Your Career” by Forbes in 2013, because it teaches candidates secrets the Absolute truth about the job search process that other recruiters typically don’t share. Abby has presented to over 500 groups and has offered her Human Resources perspective on Fox 5, NBC, CBS, ABC, LinkedIn, Monster, Real Simple, The Ladders, Bloomberg Radio, and Forbes. Abby was selected as one of the top 100 influential people online according to Fast Company Magazine. Her network consists of almost 10,000 LinkedIn connections and 20,000 Twitter followers. Recently, CEOWORLD Magazine rated Abby one of the Top 25 Women for your Job Search on Twitter.

How it All Began

Abby’s career began in computer sales. She worked for a computer reseller for five years, managing major accounts such as Bear Stearns, Grey Advertising, Gartner Group and the Museum of Natural History and was elected into Apple’s Million Dollar Club. Although successful in sales, Abby felt most passionate about hiring and mentoring new sales reps for the company. That passion motivated her to launch her career in Human Resources, training and career development.

Abby’s first Human Resources project was at Cheyenne Software, where she recruited 500 employees in two years, effectively doubling the size of the company. Following that, Abby worked for Kaplan, Inc., a world leader in educational services, for seven years. Abby took on various roles including Senior Director of Recruiting and Career Development, which offered her the opportunity to lead a team of recruiters responsible for filling staff and management positions across the country. In particular, Abby led teams that hired 50 Customer Service Representatives in two months and 900 part time K-12 teachers in four months. She also career coached and mentored many top internal applicants into new roles within the company.

As a Staffing Consultant, Abby managed several recruiting projects for Alpharma, Inc., one of which helped them double the size of the division, from 300 to 600 employees. Abby also led the expansion of a national outside sales force and support staff for the Economist Intelligence Unit, Economist Magazine and CFO Magazine. As the Interim Director of Recruiting for Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s – Roosevelt Hospital, Abby managed a large recruiting team responsible for filling 1,000-2,000 positions per year and developed written documentation around their processes and procedures. She also managed an expansion project for LEO Pharma and helped them grow from six employees to 300 in two years.

Training Credentials

Abby’s training experience began at Kaplan when she rolled out a Myers-Briggs workshop to a variety of departments. Certified as a Myers-Briggs trainer since 1997, Abby delivered team building workshops for sales, customer service and Executive teams for the Economist Magazine, Alpharma, LEO Pharma, eClerx, and Beth Israel Hospital. Abby is a sought out presenter for the state-wide and local SHRM’s and other HR forums for career development topics and HR best practices. Abby has a genuine and engaging style blended with humor and rich content. Every presentation Abby delivers is customized to the particular audience at hand.