Recruitment for small companies
The second hire is the one that decides what the company becomes
We only work on second and third hires, and only for companies under fifty people. That is the whole business.
Last twelve months
- 31
- people placedAcross 24 companies
- 47
- largest clientBy headcount, on the day we started
- 19
- days to offerMedian, from brief to signature
- 2
- placements left earlyWe publish this number on purpose
What we actually do
Four rules we do not bend
They cost us work. They are the reason the work we do take goes well.
01
One brief at a time, per company
We will not run four searches for you at once. A small company cannot absorb four new people, and we cannot do four searches properly.
02
We meet every candidate before you do
An hour, in person or on video. Nobody reaches your inbox from a keyword search.
03
Three names, not thirty
A shortlist you can read in ten minutes. If none of the three is right, we tell you what we got wrong and go again without charging twice.
04
We tell the candidate the difficult parts
The runway, the founder who has never managed anyone, the office that is a room. People who join knowing this tend to stay.
Who we are
Four people who have all been someone's second hire
We started in 2019 after watching three good companies break on their first proper hire. A second hire is not a junior version of a tenth hire. There is no team to hide inside, no process to inherit, and the person has to do work nobody has written down yet. That is a different search, so we do a different search.
Second Hire
Placed with
Companies that hired through us
All were under fifty people when we started work. Most were under fifteen.
- Northfield Instruments
- Bellweather Logistics
- Ash & Quill
- Cadence Health
- Marlow Robotics
- Fenwick Data
Two doors
Which side of this are you on?
The two conversations are different and we keep them apart.
Not sure yet?
Write anyway. A first conversation is twenty minutes and we will say plainly whether we are any use to you.