The midpoint of Q1 is already here and I want to share some of DBI’s recent successful placements! It is hard to believe the year is moving so fast. For DBI, this past month and a half has been truly outstanding. We have met, and placed, outstanding talent and started to develop relationships with some world class design organizations right out of the gate in the new year.
I often get asked by both clients and candidates to share my past efforts and successes so I thought I would start the new year with a recurring blog post to share some of our recent successes.
High-Rise Studio Lead – Seattle, Washington
A global engineering and architecture firm is growing its architecture/design efforts in Seattle. The client came to us after two years of strategy and searching for the right candidate. The firm had conducted and in-house search, looking both locally and domestically.
With no active candidate and projects starting, the firm approached DBI in August of 2018 to help with the search. We signed the contract in September and our local candidate started the job on December 10th!
DBI was able to quickly fill the search by working with our client to developed a focused and measured strategy for the search. First, we would look at only local candidates. Relocating a candidate and a new job learning curve were too big hurdles to overcome and would not allow the firm with meet their aggressive goals.
Second, we leverage the deep and active DBI network of talent. While globally the firm has been working and developing global relationships, David (the founder) has been working in the Seattle design industry since 2002. This 16 years of experience was a great part of the firm’s ability to understand the role quickly and identify local talent to match the need.
Just this month DBI got the call to now start building out the group around our candidate! Using the same strategy, we hope to share those success stories next quarter.
Hospitality Interior Design Principal – Chicago, Illinois
This search was for a long-time client in Downtown Chicago. A leading global hospitality interior design firms. This client has very high expectations around concept design, client management, and team leadership.
To add to the complexity of the search, this executive leader needed to have a balance of not only aesthetic driven skill but the business acumen to support strategic planning and manage the operation needed to meet the goals.
DBI’s approach to this search was to start domestically. We had the option to use our international networks to find talent, many who are in Asia, but the need to get someone quickly without compromising talent or culture fit made a domestic start the right choice.
DBI started but reaching out to top talent in the industry, many who we have worked with in the past. The approach was to leverage only contacts we knew to either motivate them to make a change or to network with them to be introduced to talent. No cold calls or blind emails. At this level, the search must be kept extremely professional. DBI has the deep experience to maintain this high level of professionalism.
By cultivating a small, known group of connections and then extolling the rare and rewarding opportunity with this firm, DBI was able to introduce an outstanding designer from Los Angeles to the firm. With less than four months between the start of the job and the candidate’s first day, DBI was able to be an effective team member to our client and an outstanding resource for the candidate who took the job.
The candidate started in December and is already developing her own Studio.
