Meet our founder
Ben Shaener
At just 15 years old Ben Shaener started Fetch to fix the problem he watched physician recruiters struggle with for years: finding and connecting with the right providers takes far too much time and effort.
8 years old
Sorting lead lists in a recruiting office
12 years old
Building the tools behind Assist ATS
15 years old
Founded Fetch
Now
Building the AI platform for provider recruitment
Today, Fetch is the AI platform for provider recruitment. Recruiters get direct access to more than 4 million healthcare providers, and Leo, our AI agent, does the legwork. He texts the best-matched providers, answers their questions about the role, and finds out if it's a good fit. When a provider is interested and ready to talk next steps, the recruiter takes it from there.
The early years
Working in recruiting at 8 years old
Ben's earliest memory of the industry is from age 8. He sat in the office of his dad's locum tenens firm, working through long lead lists by hand to narrow down which providers a recruiter should call. It was slow, manual work: hundreds of names could take an entire day and produce only a handful of real conversations.
That office became his classroom. Growing up around recruiters, he heard firsthand what frustrated them and which tools were letting them down.
By 12, Ben was doing something about it. He started building the resume parsing and risk management tools that grew into Assist ATS, an applicant tracking system for recruiting firms where he still remains an owner today.
By high school, his days looked nothing like a typical teenager's. He went to class for half the day, then headed to the office and stayed until around 8 p.m. most nights, simply because he loved the work. But the problem Ben saw for recruiters never went away.
2024
Starting Fetch
Recruiters were still spending most of their day hunting for providers: digging through lists, chasing leads, and making call after call that rarely turned into a real conversation. Software helped them track candidates, but nothing helped them find and connect with the right ones.
In 2024, Ben came up with the idea for Fetch: a platform that does the searching and outreach for recruiters, so they only spend time with providers who are actually interested.
Building Fetch
More than a better list
Ben grew up watching recruiters work through lead lists, so he knew a longer list wasn't the answer. Recruiters needed to find the right providers fast and actually reach them.
So he built Fetch around reach: more than 4 million healthcare providers with verified emails and phone numbers, searchable by specialty, license, location and other qualifications. Recruiters can find the exact fit for every open role in seconds.
A better list still leaves the outreach to recruiters. Fetch needed someone to text the best matches, learn what they're looking for and hand off the ones who want to talk. To bring that to life, Ben turned to an old friend for inspiration.
Meet Leo
Leo is named after Ben's childhood dog
Now he's Fetch's AI agent. Like any good dog, he goes out and fetches what you need: the right providers from Fetch's database.
Ben wants every recruiter who works with Leo to feel like the boss, with their own agent working on their behalf. Recruiters delegate the tedious work to Leo and put sourcing on autopilot. That frees them to do what only people can: get on the phone with providers, go to events, tour facilities, and build real relationships. Leo supports recruiters. He never replaces them.
Making recruiting joyful again
“You don't get burned out by working too hard. You get burned out by doing work you don't like. So if we can eliminate the work people don't like, then it's a game changer.”
To Ben, that's the whole point. Fetch takes the work recruiters dread off their plates, so they can spend their days doing what drew them to recruiting in the first place: building relationships and putting great providers where they're needed most.
Ready to spend more time with providers and less time hunting for them?
See how it works