Direct placement of senior leadership and specialist roles, using retained-level search rigour on a fee-for-performance basis. The recruitment agency mid-market engineering, construction and technology companies trust to say yes.
Our engineering recruiters cover six sectors, twenty-two disciplines and 359 roles — from Vancouver to Toronto, Ontario and across the United States.
AI changed one half of this job and not the other. It raised the bar for what “good” means, then buried it — applications arrive by the hundred(s), keyword-perfect and machine-written, and a polished resume proves less than it ever did. What has not changed is that the ideal candidate you actually want rarely is looking, and will only move for someone whose outreach they engage in. What AI is really doing to the cost of hiring →
We learn the business before the role — what the firm sells, how it wins work, and why this seat exists now. An intake built from that is a different exercise entirely.
We know the work behind the title in every discipline we cover — and who only looks good on paper.
The network and credibility to compel a candidate to take the call — then keep them through an offer, a counter, and everyone at home who gets a vote. It is the part engineering headhunters are hired for, and where most searches are actually lost.
Measured on what the role requires, not what the resume says. A hire that holds for years is the only version of this that justifies a fee.
A mid-market consulting engineering firm needed a specialist electrical engineer for its building services group. Postings, paid LinkedIn and other agencies left the seat open for over a year. We presented a shortlist in fourteen days.
A Toronto high-rise developer had appointed a senior construction manager through another firm a year earlier. The record was embellished and nobody had checked. Five years on, ours runs the function.
A 35-person workforce-automation company needed a CTO on a 45-day clock, in a market where senior people were not moving. Three shortlisted, interviewed an offer accepted in thirty days. Countered three times, overcame them each with our intervention.
Exclusive contingency: the reach, research and assessment of a retained firm, on a fee paid only when someone starts. No retainer — and if we do not deliver, the work cost us, not you.
Which is why we are selective about what we take on. A role we cannot fill burns months of our time and none of your budget, so your risk and ours point the same way. We will say early if we think a search is wrong for us.
Which part of your recruitment is actually costing you most? The majority of mid-market companies have opinions, and typically the loudest voice wins the budget. RIQIndex scores nine markers of recruitment health — from time to hire and candidate loss to compensation pressure — and tells you which gap is the expensive one.
Free for the founding cohort, confidential, and the report is yours to keep — whether or not we ever work together.
“Plenty was supposed to replace me — job boards, LinkedIn, now AI. None of it has, because what decides a search has not changed: somebody has to be worth answering. I am still a recruiter. That is what led to building RIQIndex™ — for years my clients could not see what their recruitment was costing them. Now they can see the gaps and the cost, and get the part I can fix, from one firm.”
Tell us the role. In one call you will get a read on the market for it, what it is likely to cost, and how quickly it can realistically be filled. No commitment, and no pitch.
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Mid-market employers, typically 50 to 1,500+ people, in engineering, construction, technology, energy, industrial and natural resources — across Canada and the United States.
Permanent senior leadership and specialist roles only. Functional heads through the C-suite — CEO, COO, CFO, CTO, CHRO — and the technical people who deliver the work, across 22 disciplines. We do not run volume or temporary staffing.
A fee paid when someone starts, calculated on first-year base salary and agreed at intake. No retainer, and nothing is owed if we do not deliver a hire. Market rates across Canada run roughly 15–25% on contingency and 20–35% retained.
It produces a number rather than an opinion — nine markers of recruitment health scored and converted into an estimated annual cost. It is free for the founding cohort, confidential, and yours to keep whether or not we work together.