“During the last decade, The Talent Bank has completed more than 50 executive level searches for our offices around the world. They know our firm, they know the marketplace, and, because of their reputation, they have access to some of the best talent in the profession. They are a trusted partner in helping us achieve our strategic goals. Whenever I need outside recruiting assistance, The Talent Bank is the first place I turn.”

Alan J. Feltoon, AIA
Managing Principal
Leo A Daly International
Washington, DC

June 1, 2009

Time for a Staffing Audit?

by Kerry Harding

At a recent job interview for a senior executive position, a candidate arrived wearing jeans and a polo shirt. He was 20 minutes late, had brought no resume or samples of his work, and spent much of the hour grilling the firm president about the firm's culture, backlog and business plan. Toward the end of the session, in a reflection of the "sellers market" for design talent, the candidate remarked, "You know, you really need me more than I need you."

The unfortunate thing is that, no matter how irritating and arrogant that sounded, he was absolutely right. Talented designers and project managers with key market segment expertise are still a hot commodity. After a brief decline earlier this year, print and Web-based recruitment advertising spiked noticeably in late spring. The number of ads under the "architect" heading in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post was 67 at the end of May, down from a record 231 in Januar ...READ MORE...

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Who We Are

T

he finale of the Broadway musical, Rent begins: “Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes, Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear, Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundreds minutes, How do you measure a year?”

Given how much time is spent in work-related effort during the course of a year, we started The Talent Bank in 1984 with this premise: “Life is too short to have a job you hate. Architecture is too important to have an employee that doesn’'t perform.”

We believe that people have the right and the responsibility to find the best fit for their talents and skills. We sought to become the trusted bridge between great places to work and great people. Knowing we had a lot of big competitors, we set out to be a different type of recruiting practice based on the following principles:

  • We would only accept those firms as clients that we would want to work for ourselves;
  • We would seek to establish long-term partnerships with our clients, through which they would come to see as allies and friends;
  • We would never present any candidate that we would not be personally willing to hire ourselves;
  • We would get to know our client and our candidates so thoroughly that there would never be any question as to the qualifications of or suitability for a particular assignment;
  • We would provide the best value and guarantee everyone of our candidates;
  • We would never actively recruit anyone away from one of our clients;
  • Anyone associated with our company would have an unblemished reputation for honesty, integrity, kindness and fairness in all of his/her dealings;
  • Our competitive advantage would be a blend of providing outstanding candidates as well as a rewarding experience throughout the process.

When you're billing people's time, your bottom line can be substantially affected by the cost of an empty chair. We look forward to discussing how we can help you fill yours.