What does it take for your business to thrive? The right people? Implementing the latest trends and best practices? Or something more? Since 2015, Calculated Hire (CH) has provided customized talent solutions to private and public organizations through staff augmentation, the design and implementation of professional services, and workforce transformation with our patented Elevate program. Instead of focusing on a specific industry, our encompassing solutions target the core areas found in every company, allowing our clients to focus on the parts of their businesses that make them unique!
We view ourselves as true partners in our clients' successes, so we are always looking for new ways to enhance the quality and types of solutions we offer. As we enter the next chapter of our organization’s journey, we are excited to announce the addition of Calculated Hire’s Executive Search. Spearheaded by Blair Bender, Calculated Hire’s Lead Executive Recruiter, this new offering will bring our award-winning service and encompassing approach to the world of Retained Search and director-level and above roles.
2024: Blair is honored with “Top Delivery Producer of the Year” at EVOLVE 2024, Eight Eleven’s annual recruiter conference. Blair has been recognized with this award in 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Before we dive into this new service offering, it’s worth looking back on Calculated Hire’s history of evolving to meet the needs of our clients. The company originally was created as a result of the relationship-centered approach that the Eight Eleven Family of Companies used to solve its partners’ talent challenges. After experiencing the success of our sister companies Brooksource and Medasource, clients raised the question of whether the Eight Eleven experience would be expanded to cover more traditional business roles, like Marketing, HR, and Finance – and so Calculated Hire was formed! Ironically, Executive Search, Calculated Hire’s newest service offering, also stemmed from a similar need to address the evolving demands of our clients.
In January 2024, Blair was asked if she could assist with the placement of a director-level resource for one of her Fortune 500 clients. Although executive-level or retained searches were new to both Blair and Calculated Hire, she was never known to shy away from a challenge and quickly began her work. As one of Calculated Hire’s top recruiters, it didn’t take long for Blair to find a qualified candidate and fill the role in less than 30 days.
“From the start, (Calculated Hire’s) ability to conduct a swift and efficient candidate search was truly impressive. Communication and transparency throughout the process provided us with invaluable visibility, making it easy to stay aligned at every step. We highly valued the "edge-to-edge" coverage concerning project management, which kept us on track, ensuring we met our goal timeline.” –VP of Marketing, Fortune 500 Retailer
Blair’s client was blown away by her quick service. After successfully delivering on several other similar requests, Blair and our leadership team realized that we needed to evolve to meet the growing calls for support on these high-level placements.
“Did we specialize in Executive Search at the time? No. But across all our service offerings, our value-add has always come from how we partner with our clients and the results that our relationship-focused approach delivers.” –Blair Bender, Lead Executive Recruiter
Throughout 2024, Blair and her team dove into building the structure and processes behind Calculated Hire’s Executive Search. Since then, the success of that initial requirement has resulted in Blair working on 34 executive placements throughout 2024 - significantly more than the yearly average of 6-12 placements for most executive recruiters. Although the new service offering wouldn’t officially launch until 2025, this organic growth rapidly evolved Executive Search into a core part of Calculated Hire’s business.
At Calculated Hire, we pride ourselves on tailoring our services to the unique needs and workplace cultures of our clients. Each new executive search requirement Blair and her team work on is an opportunity to perfect this service offering. As Blair explains, “Every time we partner with one of our existing relationships that come to us for a brand-new skill set that we may not have experience with, we're still able to deploy our processes and have the same positive and amazing results that our clients have grown to expect.” From identifying common use cases, to shared pain points, and even documenting the importance of project management and market data, Blair and her team have crafted Executive Search into a truly client-focused solution.
Because the Executive Search offering was created in response to our clients’ growing requests, we understood that its success relied on that same level of adaptability that can be seen across all our service offerings. Whether you need a director-level and above resource for the interim, long-term, or just fractionally for advisory support, we have made a point of designing an engagement model capable of accommodating. In many ways, this type of customization is at the center of the “white-glove service” that Blair hopes to deliver through Executive Search.
We view ourselves as true partners in our clients' long-term successes, so we are very excited to launch our Executive Search service offering. Even in its infancy, the new service line is already delivering great value to our clients.
The creation of Calculated Hire’s Executive Search further highlights our dedication to always looking for new ways to enhance the quality and types of solutions we offer. As for the success of Calculated Hire’s Executive Search, only time will tell what the future has in store.
“Our strong client relationships and quality service are what spurred our clients to ask for this new service offering, and as long as we maintain that, I know we will be successful!” -Blair Bender, Lead Executive Recruiter