Project-Based Recruiting

What is project-based talent acquisition?
By using the principles of project management, we organize a plan that holds all parties accountable to meet specific success criteria in the recruitment process. This approach is especially critical when recruiting in niche markets, such as the lab sciences industry.

Don’t most staffing firms use this approach?
No, our research has found that over 82% of recruitment organizations will use the traditional approaches of performing a surface level “job order” call, often without the hiring manager on the call. They will then take shots by calling a group of people and hope that they get a decent resume in before someone else. They will then move on and do the same thing with another client and do this over and over. It is a “numbers game,” meaning failure is not only planned; failure will be the result more often than success.

The more recruiters I engage in this requisition, the better, right?
Not at all. The statistics show that when you have a group of recruiters working on the same project, the work becomes diluted. They all perform work at the surface level and then move on to another. You may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg. Many candidates will also hear multiple versions of the company’s story and various specs of the same job. This doesn’t look great for the company. These recruiters are reluctant to devote all of their time to a project that has a high chance of producing no revenue. We call that taking a shot, as opposed to marrying themselves to their client.

If I give it just one recruiter, won’t he/she just get lazy with it?
While this can happen, you need to take the same approach to engage a recruiter as you do to hiring a key employee. If you get the best, you don’t need to worry about that. The best relationships we have today with clients are with the companies that put us through a thorough and sometimes challenging evaluation process. We are often interviewed and have our references checked. When we go through a comprehensive evaluation and win the rights to an exclusive process, it becomes a top priority. It allows us the time and attention to implement our project-based approach.

What challenges do you find with the project-based approach?
Humans do not like change. This approach may be different than “the way we always do it.” All parties, including hiring managers, will be held accountable for measurable goals. We can define those historically subjective goals, such as “timely feedback.” Timely to one means something different to another. In our project-based approach, we lay out the definition of said goals. This change may rock their world a bit, but once all realize the value of changing their ways, companies rarely go back to rolling the dice with a group of traditional staffing companies.


TESA Talent Advisory prides itself on taking a “project-based” approach. Contact us for a deeper discussion on this topic.