SkyWater Blog

At the core of the SkyWater Search Partners promise is our commitment to the twin cities community. One way we celebrate that commitment is through our Employee of the Quarter award. Every quarter, we honor a top-performing team member with the gift of a substantial financial donation, in their name, to a nonprofit organization that is meaningful to them.

This quarter, we are delighted to say…

The concept of workplace flexibility is one that is front and center of nearly every client conversation we have at SkyWater. We hear employers describe their worries that dispersed teams will be less able to collaborate, engage, perform, and lead than teams who physically come to work every day. We empathize. At SkyWater, we knew we’d invested mightily in creating a shared work environment that facilitated closer connections and that hard-to-define but so important sense of belonging.

It's a tough mindset to rethink. But we have. And we continue to do so, paying careful attention to how our team members are doing, and what they’re telling us. The key has been our own willingness to be flexible, adaptable, and open. It’s also been about one additional, critical factor: the willingness of our own executive team to walk the talk. We hold ourselves to the same expectations that we establish for the whole team. Turns out, this may be even more important than we realized.

Permanent Placement and Contract recruiting both serve important functions. But beware of the firm that tells you they can do both.

Is it just me, or have you been sensing a little pessimism creeping into the “talent wars” conversation lately? For some hiring managers, the goal seems to be shifting away from building organizational bench strength, toward something that might appear more achievable: just fill the empty seat, asap.

It's a tempting pivot, particularly within the engineering, accounting and finance, and IT fields, where hiring battles run especially hot right now. I get the argument. If you give up on your hiring goal and engage a “contract recruiter” instead, you stand a good chance of having a temporary professional in that seat within a few weeks or even days.

But is switching to a contract approach a good idea? Sometimes. Before going there, though, consider the differences between a permanent recruiting firm and a contract one. Then ask yourself the 3 key questions I outline below.

Yes, greener employers do attract more talent!

To be honest, when I started writing this April’s SkyWater blog in honor of Earth Day, I wasn’t planning to talk about recruiting. Every April, we write an Earth Day blog, and this year, I’d been inspired by an MPR podcast hosted by Angela Davis, about the growing landfill crisis in the Twin Cities. Here in the metro area, we produce 3.3 tons of trash each year, roughly one ton per Twin Cities family – so much waste that our local landfills have become overwhelmed.

The role of self-awareness in making the career move that’s right for you.

A few weeks ago, my good friend and long-time colleague, Melissa Albers invited me to be a guest on The Self-Awareness Journey, the podcast she hosts with JJ Parker. She wanted to talk about The Great Resignation and how pandemic-inspired job decisions can affect our careers and, more importantly, our lives.

Regional Executive Search Firms Have an Undeniable Edge in  Executive Recruiting

Finding the right person for any executive role is a recruiting challenge every organization eventually needs to take. Historically, Fortune 500 companies have hired multi-national search firms to fill executive roles. The logic behind this seems to make sense: large positions can only be filled by large firms right? Think again. In the last few years, we have seen a trend emerge where companies are interested in a more intimate and focused search approach than what a large national recruiting firm can offer. 

Earlier this year, SkyWater Search Partners was invited to join the Ramsey County Inclusive Workplaces Cohort. The group had its third monthly meeting in December 2021. We would love to share what we have learned and continue the discussion.

You may be asking yourself: Is it worth it to pay a headhunter? 

Working with a recruiter to fill your company’s key roles and source the best available talent is a benefit that many employers recognize in today’s competitive employment market. How can hiring managers ensure they fully benefit from working with a search company?

In late June of 2020, the editors at Twin Cities Business Magazine published a brief but poignant piece titled The Long Road Ahead: Business Leaders on Addressing Racial Disparities. It was a simple collection of quotes from local leaders, including Tawanna Black, the founder and CEO of Minneapolis-based Center for Economic Inclusion, and R.T. Rybak, former Minneapolis mayor.