Capital Search Group

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October 14, 2013 Issue

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Direct Hire, Contract and Executive Search Solutions for Washington DC Area Employers

About Capital Search Group

www.capitalsearch.com

Capital Search is a full-service professional staffing firm providing direct hire, contract and executive search solutions for employers in the Washington DC area. They specialize in accounting, finance and human resource placements. Our diverse client base represents a wide range of industries, including technology and media, financial services, professional services, energy & green technology, federal services, education and non-profit organizations.

Marc Zeid

Co-founder

Co-Founder of Capital Search Group and Capital Search Consultants in early 2004. Managing Director of Logue & Rice Inc, 1994-2004. Internal Auditor with the Department of Defense and Manor Care, Inc. 1991-1994. BSBA, Accounting; The Ohio State University 1991.

“We have a very high success rate of the jobs that we get that we fill. At all levels from mid-level accounting people to a bunch of CFO placements that we have had this year. We take time to go out and meet with our clients. It is not always necessarily the technical components of placing; it is the personal component.” - Marc Zeid


Business Services

Staffing

 

Capital Search Group
1934 Old Gallows Road, Suite 520
Vienna, VA  22182
703-288-3600

www.capitalsearch.com

 

 


 

Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published –  October 14, 2013

 

CEOCFO: Mr. Zeid, what was the concept when you started Capital Search Group?

Mr. Zeid: The partners and I had all worked together at a prior recruiting company, which was sold to a billion dollar company that was doing a rollup in the mid 90’s. We worked for that company for a while, and then in the early 2000’s, we decided that we preferred the concept of a smaller, boutique service-related firm over the big company mentality. The company that acquired us was a very good firm but they ran like a big company whereas we liked to run more boutique style so that we can give more personal attention to the clients. That is why we started and that was the whole premise of why we started up another company. We wanted to give more personal attention to the clients and candidates.

 

CEOCFO: How has that played out over the years?

Mr. Zeid: It has been great. We are going on ten years now and we have been successful. We have made it through one of the biggest recessions and we have come out strong. We are at the same number as when we started with employees and we are growing. I think that the personal attention that we can give to our clients and candidates has been great because it got us through the hard times.

 

CEOCFO: Would you tell us a little bit about your client base?

Mr. Zeid: We have a very broad client base. We are very fortunate to have our company where we have it. DC has allowed people to call us almost recession proof, and unlike most cities, we have multiple segments here. We have the government-contracting segment, the government, a lot of professional services firms, many law firms, and a lot of technology here. We will ebb and flow to where the hiring is. In the early 2000’s when we started the firm, everything was still strong in technology. That was coming near the end of the bubble but it was still strong in technology, banking, financial services, and still some government contracting. Once we got to about 2005 or a little sooner when the tech bubble burst, that side slowed down and the government-contracting sectors picked up. Besides having plenty of medium sized firms, you had Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and all of the big boys that are here. I would say that for almost four years, 80% of our business was placing people into government contractors. Around 2010, it started to switch where technology started to pick back up again and the professional and financial services started to pick back up. Now, we do 80% that and 20% government contracting. We try to move back and forth between different segments.

 

CEOCFO: Would you provide a couple of your concrete examples of personal service?

Mr. Zeid: There is an organization in town called the Northern Virginia Technology Counsel. It is big around Northern Virginia and they have thousands of members. From September through March, they have monthly CFO breakfasts where they will have a panel of usually high power CFOs or investment bankers that speak. We will bring typically 35-45 CFOs as guests to those breakfasts and we are the only local recruiting firm that does this. It is great networking for the CFOs; they get a chance to talk between themselves about current issues in the marketplace. It is a non-sales pitch that we do; it is more of trying to build relationships. We do golf outings, one-on-one lunches, and we meet all of our candidates. We do not take on work that we cannot do and I think our clients know that we will turn down work because are too busy and we cannot help our clients. We will pass it up because it will not do us any good. We also buy a suite for Capitals games and we bring clients out. There is a lot of face time, which is what I think we are very good with.

 

CEOCFO: What do you understand at Capital Search about the recruiting process? What have you figured out that others might not have?

Mr. Zeid: You have to let people make their own decisions and you cannot force deals to happen. I grew up in the Midwest, so I am a very honest, upfront person and we take that approach here. We do not force anything. We educate our clients and our candidates on the opportunities that we present to them, we try to get them interviews, we try to get them to meet each other and then we lay back and let them decide what they want to do. I think that recruiters get in trouble sometimes because they try to force issues and be more salesman-like when it is not that way. Switching jobs is a very personal decision and it is not easy to do because it is a life-changing event. It is not like buying a car, photocopier, or a computer. People get very emotional when they switch jobs, so sometimes you just have to lay back and I think that we have a very good reputation of being very informative on the decisions on both sides from the candidates and the client side and letting those companies or individuals make the decisions.

 

CEOCFO: How do you find people in general, let alone the right ones?

Mr. Zeid: We have been doing this for twenty years locally, so we get a very good referral base, which helps. Most of the recruiters here have done it for more than ten years. We do a lot of networking events and during the season from September through March- the networking really slows down in the summer- a week. LinkedIn has been huge and I think it has been the biggest game changer in the recruiting segment possibly. You now have a single place to go find active and passive candidates and be able to reach out to them. There has been nothing like it and I have been doing it since ’94. I used to have to get out with a book of lists and just call in to companies, which we still do, but now I can go on to a specific website to see whom the controller or CFO is for that company and call them to ask for that person. It has made getting to the right people a lot easier. We then meet everybody face to face. Before we send every candidate out on interviews we meet them face to face so we can understand not just for our aspect of if they are good enough but for finding out what each individual candidate wants to do and what kind of job they want.

 

CEOCFO: How do you evaluate personality?

Mr. Zeid: Experience trumps everything because you have to have the right technical skills, but it is more of a gut feeling in sitting down with somebody, looking them in the eye and hearing what they want to do to see if they are right. Technical skills are not everything and certain companies want certain personalities. We are working on two searches now and they are identical searches for a controller for publicly traded companies, but the clients want two completely different types of individuals. It is more of getting to know the people and it is just a gut call. It is not a perfect science, and as I tell people all the time, finding a new job is 100% luck and timing. You do not know what job is open what day of the week and which person is looking at that specific time.

 

CEOCFO: What do you look for in people that you hire as recruiters?

Mr. Zeid: Everybody here is a little bit different and we do not try to hire people in the same mode as me or the other partners. We want different personalities but the most important thing is tough skin. We want people who are personable and honest as well as chargers. You cannot sit back in this business and be successful because you have to want to go to networking events and you have to be a people person. We try to look at people who want to build their own business because that is how we sell it when we interview people. Even though you are working for us, when you get into recruiting you are each individual looking to build your own little practice within our company. Our philosophy is that we would love it to have someone to be with us for 10-15 years and then go start his or her own firm. That means that we have been successful and they have actually built a practice and done well. We work together a lot on our searches. So far this year, 78% of all of our searches have been shared between recruiters. Everyone here works together like a team. You have to be tough skinned because you have to deal with people saying no to you pretty much 80% of the time.

 

CEOCFO: Capital Search was recognized as one of the best places to work for this year. What are you doing to achieve this status?

Mr. Zeid: We let people do their jobs. We as partners are here to help, we support, and we are very giving. We tell our recruiters to go to lunch and we do not cut anybody back from a monetary aspect. We understand that you have to spend money to make money and we trust our recruiters. I think that is the biggest reason why people like working here. We let people do what they want in the sense of being successful. If they think that it is a good idea to do something, we give them the chance and let them do it. We are very flexible, if people want to work from home or they have family issues. This is a business where you do not need to be in the office all of the time. It helps, but I try to push my staff to be out of the office more. That means that they are meeting people and doing networking. It is not just a job, but it is a life profession and we explain that to them. You are always working, not in a negative way, but when you are at a grocery store waiting in line and you talk to someone that is networking. I think that the successful recruiters, whom we have bred a lot here, know that whatever they are doing in their life, they are meeting people and somehow that turns into opportunity. I think that the biggest reason people like working here is that we give them many freedoms.

 

CEOCFO: What is ahead for the firm?

Mr. Zeid: I do not know. The economy dictates a lot, but hopefully it will be growth. We are growing our consulting division. We are also looking to hire a couple new recruiters. From a size perspective, besides on the consulting side, we will not get much bigger. We like being a boutique firm. If you bring in too many people, you start acting like a big recruiting agency and that is not what we want. We want our people to make as much money as possible. When you bring in too many, you start getting too competitive between ourselves. We just want to grow and be successful as well and be good place to work. We are not the best at five-year plans because we find that is hard in our business, to plan for the unknown. The problem with recruiting is that it is a big unknown and you do not know what is going to happen two years from now. Much of what we do is uncertain because the economy has a lot to do with everything and it is a direct effect to recruiting. We just hope to continue doing what we are doing because we have been successful and we are all happy here.

 

CEOCFO: Realizing that some factors cannot be predicted is important.

Mr. Zeid: It used to blow my mind because in our last company they would make us do budgets. I would sit there and wonder why we did a budget for perm placements. They were so adamant about it and that was why we were not happy working for a big company. Sometimes it is so unrealistic to do things a certain way in an industry that is so uncertain.

 

CEOCFO: Would you tell us a little more about the consulting component of your business as it is an area of growth for you?

Mr. Zeid: It is a big business, especially around this town where you have a city with not as many employees as there are open jobs. Many companies are more and more open now to bringing in short-term people to get work done because they are all so busy. In our segment in recruiting, a nice consulting business is great to have because it helps with revenues and it is something that we had at our last company that we are trying to build up here.

 

CEOCFO: What makes Capital Search Group an exceptional company?

Mr. Zeid: We have a very high success rate of the jobs that we get that we fill. At all levels from mid-level accounting people to a bunch of CFO placements that we have had this year. We take time to go out and meet with our clients. It is not always necessarily the technical components of placing; it is the personal component. People have to work together because you spend more time with the people you work with than your family. We try to understand the personal aspects of placements maybe not more than technical but it is just as important if not more. We get to know our candidates and our clients and we have built up a very good reputation of being honest that has been very successful for us.

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