Beyond the Résumé: How to Find Talent in the Places Everyone Overlooks w/ Jay Kondrup & Justin Brower
Release Date: 11/13/2025
Beyond the Résumé: How to Find Talent in the Places Everyone Overlooks w/ Jay Kondrup & Justin Brower
Talent Hunters
Everyone says they want “top talent.” But most recruiters look for it in all the same places. The same résumés, the same titles, the same predictable career paths. And now, with LinkedIn doing most of the heavy lifting, many recruiters have forgotten how to actually recruit. They inbox, keyword search, and wait for the algorithm to serve up the same recycled profiles, and then wonder why their placements feel interchangeable. Talent rarely looks the way you expect it to. Sometimes it’s the Ivy League grad working as an accountant for a supermarket chain; a role most recruiters would...
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The Power of the Frontline Workforce & How Leaders Can Unlock It w/ Mike White
Talent Hunters
In manufacturing, people are always talking about innovation. But very often, the focus on automation, robotics, and AI leaves out the real key to performance and progress. The frontline workers who make everything run. For decades, the frontline workforce has been managed like machinery: interchangeable, replaceable, and measured only in hours worked or units produced. But if you’ve ever walked a plant floor, you know the truth: one great employee can change the entire rhythm of production. The right people aren’t just cogs in a process; they are the process. The challenge is...
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Procurement Meets Partnership: Inside the HPS and HireQuest Collaboration w/ Nathan Stock & Matt Wilkerson
Talent Hunters
Businesses everywhere are facing the same challenge: trying to meet financial goals, production goals, and staffing needs, all at once. Budgets are tightening, teams are shrinking, and hiring has become a constant uphill climb. The pressure to “do more with less” isn’t just a slogan anymore, it’s reality for nearly every organization. That’s the landscape where a new partnership between HPS, a 75-year-old member-owned group purchasing organization, and HireQuest is taking shape. It’s arriving at a moment when organizations need more than contracts. They need collaborators who can...
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What Every Recruiter Needs to Know About Public Health Talent w/ Dr. Desiree Strickland
Talent Hunters
Public health is one of the most misunderstood fields in the job market. It’s full of people who quietly hold entire communities together, designing prevention programs, managing data, and saving lives. Yet they’re often underpaid, overlooked, and invisible to recruiters. The irony is that the very professionals trained to serve others often struggle to advocate for themselves. They’re taught to be humble, to focus on the team, and to chase the same oversaturated government jobs as everyone else. It leaves brilliant, mission-driven people stuck, and a huge pool of untapped talent...
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Why Veteran Hiring Strategies Fail and How Companies Can Get It Right w/ Emily King Grandinetta
Talent Hunters
Companies constantly talk about hiring and supporting veterans. While that sounds patriotic and well-intentioned, they often miss the mark on execution. Recruiting campaigns, hiring pledges, and onboarding slide decks look good on paper, yet the results are sobering: too many veteran hires fail. It’s not because they can’t lead, it’s because both sides underestimate the culture shock of the transition. Employers assume an officer’s leadership skills will automatically translate. Veterans assume their adaptability in uniform will carry them through. Those unspoken...
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A Perfect Partnership: The Story Behind HireQuest’s Command Center Acquisition w/ Kevin Semerad & David Hartley - Replay
Talent Hunters
A successful acquisition takes place when an organization that sees something special to invest in meets a company that will be propelled further through a partnership. It’s a perfect marriage allowing both sides to achieve more together than they would separately. This is what HireQuest looks for when they’re looking to acquire a business. It’s not about money - in a people-facing service-based industry like recruiting, the true asset of a business is its employees. An acquisition is about empowering and pouring into organizations that are bringing value to the industry. That’s why...
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Healthcare Hiring: How to Build the Workforce to Match Growth w/ Theresa Franco
Talent Hunters
In healthcare, hiring used to be about credentials and clinical experience. Post-pandemic, it became a desperate race to fill open shifts. Care delivery has exploded beyond hospital walls. It’s expanded into outpatient clinics, rural settings, and even tech-driven virtual care. The problem is, healthcare workforce pipelines haven’t caught up to this change. If we don’t radically re-engineer how we bring in nursing talent, the system will buckle under the weight of an aging population, chronic illness, and burnout. Recruiters play a huge role in this. It’s not just about...
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From Temp Work to Strategic Weapon: The New Era of Contract Staffing w/ Tim Ozier
Talent Hunters
Contract staffing used to mean plugging holes; covering maternity leaves, bridging gaps until a full-time hire came on board, or filling in while HR caught up. But in today’s economy, it’s something very different. In a world that has grown comfortable with gig work and fractional talent, contract staffing has become a strategic weapon. The rise of the gig economy normalized the idea that not every role needs to be permanent. What started with Uber drivers and freelance creatives has now permeated every sector where fractional and project-based work is not the exception, but...
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Recruiting Is Slow, Here’s How to Still Win Business in 2025 w/ Scott Clark
Talent Hunters
Today’s recruiting landscape is full of challenges, hurdles, and hiccups. Tariffs are squeezing certain sectors. AI has brought change to the industry. Economic uncertainty is making candidates hesitant to move. Hiring managers are harder to reach. And when business does come in, it’s often from existing relationships, leaving you wondering how to keep your pipeline alive when the phone stops ringing. For recruiters, the temptation is to hunker down and focus only on current searches. But in this market, stopping your marketing is the fastest way to run out of work. The people...
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Workforce Multiplier: How AI Is Reinventing the Modern Factory w/ Richard Tabassi
Talent Hunters
Smart factories, where machines that think enable the manufacturing process, aren’t science fiction anymore. They are already here. AI-powered smart factories are transforming how rockets are built, hiring decisions are made, and how manufacturing lines adapt in real time. As this tech accelerates, it’s easy to ask what this means for humans. Will humans be eliminated from the manufacturing process? No. It’s just going to require an evolution of the human workforce. Smarter, more adaptable people who can bridge the gap between physical and digital systems, wield generative AI like a...
info_outlineEveryone says they want “top talent.” But most recruiters look for it in all the same places. The same résumés, the same titles, the same predictable career paths.
And now, with LinkedIn doing most of the heavy lifting, many recruiters have forgotten how to actually recruit. They inbox, keyword search, and wait for the algorithm to serve up the same recycled profiles, and then wonder why their placements feel interchangeable.
Talent rarely looks the way you expect it to. Sometimes it’s the Ivy League grad working as an accountant for a supermarket chain; a role most recruiters would scroll right past. Or it’s the veteran executive who’s been at the same company for twenty years, quietly waiting for someone to show him what’s possible beyond his comfort zone. Sometimes it’s the former trader who rebuilt his life from scratch after the market changed overnight.
A résumé is just a piece of paper; what matters are the intangibles that reveal how someone will perform, lead, and grow when the next challenge comes.
That’s the philosophy that drives Northbound Executive Search. For managing partners Jay Kondrup and Justin Brower, recruiting isn’t about taking orders or chasing volume; it’s about reading people. They don’t waste time shuffling candidates that “might fit.” They educate clients, challenge assumptions, and bring them the one person who will actually change their business.
How did they end up in the recruiting business? What drives the success of Northbound Executive Search?
In this episode, Jay and Justin talk about how real recruiters think beyond résumés, keywords, and LinkedIn algorithms, how they uncover talent in unexpected places, and why the future of this business belongs to those who combine new tools with old-school instincts.
Guest Bio
Jay Kondrup and Justin Brower are managing partners at Northbound Executive Search. Northbound Executive Search offers a genuine, hands-on approach to recruiting. They provide both Permanent and Temporary/Consulting recruitment services to companies looking to hire high-performing professionals in the NYC metro region. Northbound Executive Search has been consistently recognized as the premier recruitment firm servicing a variety of industries, including Private Equity, Hedge Fund, Asset Management, Investment Banking, Trading, Brokerage, Real Estate, Technology, Media, Entertainment, Insurance, and more. Their proven approach, developed over many years of best-in-class recruiting, continues to deliver exceptional results for a select group of clients and candidates we serve. They are a team of dedicated professionals motivated by providing a much higher level of commitment, expertise, and service to the companies and professionals they partner with. Connect with Jay on LinkedIn and Justin on LinkedIn.
About Your Host
Vince Holt is the founder and CEO of Management Recruiters of Mercer Island. With 35+ years of industry experience, he is the only MRINetwork team member to win CSAM of the Year, Person of the Year, and Lifetime Achievement Awards. In addition to spending time with his wife, children, and grandchildren, Vince has raced motorcycles for over 50 years, winning 5 National Championships.
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