The posting went up and you’re not getting the right people — or any. Perhaps weeks have passed without a word from your preferred search partner, or from the generalist recruitment agency you signed on at a discount. The role is still unfilled. Or you’re earlier than that, shopping around for a recruiter while your own team keeps at it, with no real way to tell who can deliver.
PHM has been an engineering, construction and technology recruitment agency for mid-market companies across Canada and the United States since 2000. We are specialist recruiters with domain expertise in your industry, not a staffing agency. If we don’t get what you want, we won’t take on a search — that’s our promise.
Permanent placement only, at every level below the C-suite. Open a sector to see the disciplines inside it.
Cities we recruit in: London, Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Halifax — and across the United States.
A Southern Ontario metal fabricator, 200+ staff, needed a Director of Engineering when the incumbent retired after twenty years. A third of revenue came from custom orders, so the hire had to modernise design-to-manufacturing without unsettling a team used to two decades of one approach. Two candidates presented in three weeks; five weeks from engagement to start. The one they chose had less experience than the role called for, but a record of process change and shop-floor engagement. He held through a counter-offer. Three years on: design-to-manufacturing cycles down more than 30%, the custom unit up 37%, and still in the seat.
Staffing firm, employment agency, recruitment agency — the labels vary and the fee rarely does. What changes is how the search is staffed, and who is doing the work.
A cheaper fee on a search that never closes — or on a hire that doesn’t stick — ends up costing more than you realize. What matters is whether the seat gets filled, by someone who is still there in two years.
Exclusivity is not a price tier. The fee and the terms are the same either way — what changes is how the search gets worked, and what each side commits to. Contingency is not the lesser service. We will tell you which one we think a role needs; the choice is yours.
Employers in our network get a short list across engineering, construction and technology — senior leadership through specialist professionals. Free agents, not job seekers: employed, performing, and not broadcasting that they would move. Proven, with a track record and the numbers behind it — what they ran, at what scale, and what came of it. We hold the right to represent them, so you see what they can do before the market does. Anonymized, with compensation context. It goes out as people come available in the sectors you choose — usually weekly, and in a narrow discipline sometimes less often. We would rather send you nothing than pad the list.
Not searching doesn't mean uninterested. The most valued candidates are the ones open to a new role, but seeking the next right move. We bring these relationships to your inbox as they surface.
Brought in for exactly the role that needs filling. The shortlist already exists, so first conversations start in days, not weeks — by the time someone this good is openly looking, they are gone.
Chances are they are already delivering for a competitor of yours — performing well enough that nobody there suspects they would leave. Not registered with four other agencies, so you will not bid against yourself.
Career history walked through in detail, compensation established, motivation understood — before you read a line.
Ask about anyone on the list and this is what arrives — a written Bench Profile: the essentials, the wins with the numbers attached, the record, what would move them and what would not, compensation and notice, and our read. Not a resume forwarded with a covering note. The sample is engineering; construction and technology follow the same format. Anonymized until you and the candidate both agree otherwise.
Structural project manager · 12 years · Southwestern Ontario · P.Eng · mid-size consultancy · open to a leadership track · $120–140K
Runs an institutional portfolio in the $30–50M range. Not looking publicly, and not registered with another agency.
As established with the candidate in interview, including education and designations — PHM does not verify them at source.
Three fields are generalised here that the profile you receive carries in full — the city, the exact compensation figure, and where they studied. The name and the current employer are in neither, until the candidate agrees to be identified to you.
The grade is on the evidence, not the person. A — shown repeatedly, at scale, in the examples given. B — clearly shown. C — asserted in interview, not evidenced. This is our read from the interview, not a test result.
Three, each with a number attached. Figures are as given by the candidate — PHM does not audit an employer’s financials.
Twelve years across institutional and mixed-use, moving from design into delivery around year six. Has carried projects from concept through construction administration, and has sealed. Two of the last three assignments were recoveries — projects handed over mid-flight after a departure.
The ceiling is visible where they are: the next step up is occupied and not moving. They want a practice to build rather than a portfolio to hold, and have said they would trade some cash for that.
Well regarded and comfortable. A lateral title with more of the same work will not move them, and a long commute closes the conversation. They have turned down two approaches in the last year.
$120–140K plus bonus, benchmarked against what comparable people are actually accepting rather than what a survey says. Four weeks’ notice, and a project they will not leave mid-stage — which is worth knowing before you build a start date around them.
The strongest fit is a firm that needs a seal and a leader in the same person, and can say what the path looks like beyond the first year. Say that plainly in the first conversation and this is a candidate who engages. Say “we will see how it goes” and they will not.
A structured interview, plus follow-up calls. Career history walked through project by project, compensation established from their own figures, and motivation tested rather than taken at face value. Credentials, licence status and education are as stated by the candidate — where any of them is a condition of the role, confirm it directly before an offer.
Illustrative. Details are changed and the format is what a real Bench Profile follows. Details are generalised the way a real one is: region rather than city, a compensation band rather than the figure, degrees without the institution. Never the name, never the employer.
Which part of your recruitment is actually costing you most? Most mid-market companies have opinions, and 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.
Both, deliberately. We run retained-quality executive search for senior and leadership roles, and specialist technical recruitment for the people who deliver the work — under one standard of rigour.
Neither — and we do not take retainers. We work two ways: contingency, where you can run other firms alongside us, and exclusive contingency, where we are the sole agency engaged for an agreed period. The fee and the terms are the same either way, and both are paid on the hire. The full comparison is above.
Six sectors — engineering, construction, technology, energy and power, industrial, and natural resources — plus a dedicated cross-sector practice in data centres & mission-critical. Roles run from experienced specialists and project leaders through to the C-suite, from Vancouver to Halifax and across the United States.
Four to six weeks from intake to offer is typical. We have also closed one in a day. It varies with the difficulty of the search, market conditions, who is available, and how fast you move. We keep the list short and the communication frequent throughout.
Genuine sector depth and a system view of hiring: we measure where your recruitment gaps and their costs sit with RIQIndex™, then act only where a search firm honestly can — no volume, no resume blasting.
The words overlap, and most firms use whichever one wins the enquiry. The useful distinction is how the work is done. A recruitment agency generally works from people who are applying. A headhunter approaches people who are not. Executive search is that same approach at board and C-suite level, usually on a retainer. We work the second way, on permanent roles below the C-suite, without the retainer — which is why the label matters less than asking any firm how they will actually reach the person you need.
Tell us what the role has to do and who is around it. We will tell you how we would run it, what the market looks like, and what it is likely to cost. Not a commitment.
See what an open role is costing you →
Candidate Services is where to start — it takes your resume or LinkedIn profile, your discipline and where you are, which is what puts you in front of the right searches.
Go to Candidate Services →