An overseas customer that you've been seeking for a long time has just signed on and placed a large order with a deadline that seems almost impossible. Not an hour later, you learn that your operations manager has handed in his resignation. There is no way you have the time to advertise and search for his replacement, plow through stacks of résumés, check references and still fill the order from the overseas customer.

**********

You own and manage the family business that has been passed down from your great-grandfather. You're nearing retirement age and you're ready for that move. But none of your children are interested in taking over the business. You need to find a successor who will uphold the ideals and business reputation that your family worked so hard to build.

**********

These are just two scenarios that drive home the value of hiring a recruiter, a move that is more crucial than ever in today's competitive, global marketplace.

Today, "there is world pressure on labor, on wages, on money, on time," says Tom Jack, CPC, owner of Baldwin Recruiting & Consulting LLC, based in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

This means that recruiters provide a value-added role. "Either you talk to your customer or you go through the résumés on your desk," Jack says. "Our job is to give you back your time."

Jack is an industry specialist serving pharmaceutical, medical device, packaging and consumer goods companies. Recruiters also include generalists and occupational specialists.

"The benefit of an industry specialist," Jack says, "is that I help you build your organization in total. In doing so, I have an investment in your success."

Estimates are that there are more than 30,000 staffing, personnel services and employment companies in the United States.

Jack's history of recruiting over the past decade illustrates many of the challenges facing recruiters today, as well as the benefits that accrue to companies that hire them. (Jack worked for another recruiting company in the Midwest before moving to Rhode Island and establishing Baldwin in 2001.)

Baldwin recently placed an operations manager at a point-of-purchase display company.

The incumbent was struggling with maintaining order in the plant. He had failed to follow procedures. The boss was upset. The man was the second who had failed him. The boss had a turnover problem. He needed someone who knew what he was doing and who could gain the respect of customers.

Baldwin found a man who came in, restored order, quickly enforced procedures to reduce scrap and regain customer confidence. Jack says he found the man through a referral and a job board. By talking to the candidate, Jack determined that his personality would mesh with the boss's and solve both of their problems.

Another of Jack's clients was a sulfuric acid manufacturer that was looking for a solution to a problem with contaminants. Through what Jack calls "old fashioned detective work," he found a man who had patented a system for screening contaminants to get them to the minimal level allowed under government regulations. When Jack reported this to the owner of the sulfuric acid company, the owner insisted "we need this guy!"

The man was hired. He spent several years at the company and retired from there. The company was eventually bought by a Canadian firm and became a world leader in sulfuric acid manufacturing. "Through my efforts, I was able to raise their quality of product," Jack says proudly.

"I'm a detective," Jack says. "When you get a résumé, it's a great clue. You look for gaps in service. Where did the candidate go? If he or she is on a promotional track and they flatten out, why did that happen? Are they not leadership material? Is he or she not a doer or thinker? Do dates line up with the how long it takes to do the activity? One never assumes anything; one just can't."

The general manager of another of Jack's clients, a company that engaged in the heat treating of metal, was thinking of retiring. The company insisted that he hire his replacement.

Jack got on the job and called the quality managers or operations managers of all vacuum heat treating firms east of the Mississippi River. He interviewed a total of four dozen candidates.

The 49th turned out to be a man who worked for a family-owned company and, because top management was all family, he could not move up. His interviews with the general manager of the heat treating plant went very well, but top management at the heat treating plant balked at the man's request for help with moving.

Jack had noticed that the candidate appeared to be "a clone of the general manager." He wanted to build the relationships and make it work.

He talked to the candidate's wife, and then got the company to agree to fly the family to Grand Rapids around Christmastime.

"Grand Rapids is a very festive place between Thanksgiving and Christmas," Jack says. "I painted a picture of what it's like to live there."

The company, Jack and the candidate began negotiations. The company eventually agreed to help sell the candidate's home, pack and move his family, buy another home, provide temporary housing until the family could move in and provide benefits from Day One.

The candidate did well and the company prospered.

**********

It is no accident that Jack has had such success. Much of it stems from his broad and deep history in manufacturing. Before he entered recruiting, Jack spent 13½ years in manufacturing.

During that time, Jack's efforts facilitated corrective action teams that saved a company $45,000 a month by running machines through breaks and utilizing SMED principles of minimizing external tasks and streamlining internal make-ready functions.

He saved one employer $270,000 per year in reduced scrap by instituting a printing book system to run print scrap during press make readies.

He has saved $200,000 by training people to lead safety committee meetings, conduct inspections and eliminate hazards that caused accidents and therefore lost work time. He has reduced plant conversion waste by 3 percent, of $270,000 per year, by inaugurating a waste measurement and booking system.

**********

Tom Jack is a Certified Personnel Consultant, conversant with state and federal laws. He is a member of the National Association of Personnel Services.

He is co-chairperson of the Small Business Network of the North Central Chamber of Commerce, based in Johnston, Rhode Island; vice president of the Providence Chapter, Number One, Business Network International, in Providence, Rhode Island; and president of Ocean State Toastmasters, of Warwick, Rhode Island.

He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and raised in Kenilworth, Illinois. He was an Eagle Scout who obtained 21 merit badges and ran a community service project called EDITH (Exit Drills in the Home.) Through that project, he distributed pamphlets to every home in Kenilworth showing how to evacuate in case of a fire.

Jack attended Denison College, in Granville, Ohio, where he majored in history. It was in college that he met his wife, Sandy, who was from East Douglas, Massachusetts. Sandy longed to return to the East Coast and, in 2001, when she got a job in Rhode Island, the family moved there and Jack established Baldwin Recruiting & Consulting LLC.