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A Greater Philadelphia firm defining best practices in the talent acquisition and HR industry

Harry Griendling is the founder and CEO of DoubleStar, a talent acquisition, advisory, and analytics consulting firm. Since 1993, Doublestar has helped hundreds of business attract and retain top talent in industries like healthcare, banking, pharmaceuticals, engineering, and biotechnology. With Harry at the helm, DoubleStar has grown into a leading partner for organizations looking to recruit staff; the company has appeared twice on the Inc 500 list of America's Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies and six times on Wharton’s Philadelphia 100 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the Philadelphia area. Recognized for his thought leadership in the HR industry, Harry has been honored as one of the inaugural inductees into the Philadelphia Business Hall of Fame.

EDWIN WARFIELD: What makes DoubleStar unique in the talent acquisition consulting space?

HARRY GRIENDLING: We offer an end-to-end recruitment solution, which really is what we started the company with. We’ve been doing that for the last 23 years and probably that’s still the bread and butter service that we offer—the one that is used the most by our clients. What that involves is understanding a client’s need, whether it be hiring five very specialized people or 50, or 150, or even 500–1,000 people that are needed for certain roles.

We understand the requirement in detail, which often is not as simple as it sounds. It’s not just a matter of looking at a job description, saying “oh, I understand what you need” because there are a lot of subtleties behind every job description. We have to understand the need and then we build a project plan, which fits the client’s budget and target timeframes, around that. We then put a team in place to execute that project plan, changing it as we go—because like every project plan, you plan it and then stuff happens and you re-plan it—and we continue to do that until everyone is hired.

The mechanism of doing that is different with each client. Some clients only want us to do certain parts of that. Other clients want us to do everything, including printing the offer letter at our office and sending it to the client or to the candidate. How the mechanism works is as varied as our clients. I’ve always said that we had worked for 325 companies and we’ve done over 1,000 projects and none of them have been the same. There’s always something different at each client or at each project that requires us to implement a slightly different solution.

I always tell our clients right at the beginning, the people we meet who don’t know us, that the best way to understand us is to understand what we’re not. We’re not a search firm, we’re not a placement firm, we’re not a contingent firm, we’re not a contract firm, and we’re not a wayward home for contract recruiters looking for interim gigs while they’re waiting for their real job.

Think of us as Ernst & Young for recruitment. Our business model is very simple: We acquire talent that knows things about recruiting, and if they don’t know everything, we train them in what they are missing. We develop them to be consultants in helping clients solve recruitment problems and we bring project orientation to partnering with a client. We don’t charge transaction fees. We don’t charge placement fees.

One of the things I’m proudest of is that in 23 years we have never charged a client to put a butt in a seat. The reason we don’t do that is that as soon as you do that, you become a broker. When you’re a broker, you represent the transaction. You don’t represent the client, you don’t represent the candidate, you represent getting the deal done. We actually represent our clients, because we’re helping them in a very difficult area, which is finding talent they need and then selecting the right talent. We need to be 100% objective and free from any financial influence in making that decision, just like a client’s internal staffing function would be acting on the best interest of the client.

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ABOUT NEWMARK GRUBB KNIGHT FRANK

Newmark Grubb Knight Frank (NGKF) is one of the world's leading commercial real estate advisory firms. Together with London-based partner Knight Frank and independently-owned offices, NGKF’s 12,800 professionals operate from more than 370 offices in established and emerging property markets on six continents.

With roots dating back to 1929, NGKF’s strong foundation makes it one of the most trusted names in commercial real estate. NGKF’s full-service platform comprises BGC’s real estate services segment, offering commercial real estate tenants, landlords, investors and developers a wide range of services including leasing; capital markets services, including investment sales, debt placement, appraisal, and valuation services; commercial mortgage brokerage services; as well as corporate advisory services, consulting, project and development management, and property and corporate facilities management services. For further information, visit www.ngkf.com.

NGKF is a part of BGC Partners, Inc., a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial and real estate markets. BGC’s common stock trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol (NASDAQ: BGCP). BGC also has an outstanding bond issuance of Senior Notes due June 15, 2042, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol (NYSE: BGCA). BGC Partners is led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Howard W. Lutnick. For more information, please visit www.bgcpartners.com.

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