We are partners in your success by introducing the right people for your team’s healthy growth.
Great team players for excellent team builders.
TEAM BUILDERS
To be the best, hire the best
(then onboard, manage, and retain the best)
- Understand: To start a search we invest significant time to understand your company, the position, and strategizing how to attract the highly-qualified candidate.
- Execute: Once the foundation is laid we use our substantial proprietary database, connections, research, and recruiting tools to diplomatically represent your job to passive candidates. This is good, old-fashioned, headhunting.
- Collaborate: The candidates you are presented come with a substantial package consisting of their resume, letters of recommendation, run references, and audio clips answering your critical questions. Through the vetting process we will attend all the interviews and collaboratively screen the candidate with you. This is how we can be confident in sharing the hiring risk with you with our replacement policy.
- Enhance: Recruiting, attracting, interviewing, on boarding, and retaining are challenging subjects which depend on the unique nuances of your culture and values. We will help you hone your process within your priorities so that you see enhancements across your company, not just the candidates we recruit for you.
TEAM PLAYERS
Partnering with you for your career development.
- Understand: Everyone has different objectives. Stability. Team. Commute. Compensation. Career growth. Quality leadership. The list goes on and on. Let’s tailor your search to your needs together. We have a unique insight into the landscape of construction companies and what makes them uniquely successful.
- Execute: We leverage our relationships to discover and develop the right opportunity for you, with you. We talk directly with the hiring managers about your candidacy and their needs about jobs which are often not posted online. No more wandering through the online job application desert. Our methods protect your confidentiality and save you from repetitive applications.
- Collaborate: As you meet with companies and explore opportunities we will help you discover the real issues important to you which are challenging to explore in a traditional two-party interview. We help both parties be more transparent about their goals and needs.
- Enhance: We will help you make the best decisions with your candidacy and career. Our job is not done when you get a job, too. We are available on an ongoing basis for career coaching and consultation. We do this because we have a 100% commitment to your success. We provide listening and guidance in challenging situations.
TESTIMONIALS
The Ambassador Search Group team brought success to ours in many more ways than just finding the right person for the job. Their thorough process really defined what we needed in our candidates and our company to propel our growth. We will rely on them for all our future high-level hires!
TJ is the best recruiter I’ve known. He listens, asks probing questions, and understands that character matters more than skill sets. He’s brought people to us who love to learn and grow, who are driven to excel, who fit into our collaborative teams, and who care deeply about living and working with integrity. Many recruiters search resumes for keywords; TJ goes deeper, gets to know people, and finds matching values and ambitions. His communication is careful and clear, and he follows up on each step. I expect we’ll work together for a long time.
As a rule, I don’t like recruiters. I’ve used them a handful of times over the last 35+ years with little to no luck. Last year we were desperate for some new talent and having no luck on our own using the typical online and social media tools. A friend of mine recommended TJ, I shared with him the same information I opened with here; he suggested I be open-minded and give TJ a call. As they say, the rest is history. Even after telling TJ I didn’t like recruiters he convinced me to give him a try. In the last year, TJ has placed three people us. People we never would have seen otherwise; people we are ecstatic to have on our team. He has been, prompt, professional and spot-on in choosing the right candidates. I almost hate giving Mr. Kastning such a glowing recommendation, he’s been like a secret weapon for us.
Our small family company has never worked with a professional Recruiter so working with TJ was our first experience. I can highly recommend TJ for his outstanding attention to detail and his recruiting philosophy, fit with our company, updates on the process and progress, offer/negotiation effectiveness, endurance (our region made for a longer term working relationship). I give TJ high marks and look forward to working with him again.
Jonathan handled my transition to MN Builders. Extremely professional, with the ability to make me feel I was his only client! Listen to my needs and negotiated a favorable package. Jonathan followed up before and after each interview or conversation with my new team. Thank You, Sir, for your successful efforts most sincerely appreciated.
My experience of working with TJ was exceptional. From initial contact until he successfully placed me into my new role as Executive Assistant, he consistently supported me throughout the hiring process. He went above and beyond to ensure I was prepared for interviews and provided an approachable but professional service. I would highly recommend TJ and the Ambassador Search Group!
Ambassador Search Group has a respectful way of really connecting with people, making it easy to work with him, even for a professional project manager who has been leery of recruiters. He found me a great company, and a different role — neither of which I would have found on my own. When we talked, he must have listened more to who I am than to facts about me, because the position he recommended was not the role I named and it did not offer the superficial benefits I sought. Instead of a construction project manager position with a shorter commute, he landed me an estimator position with the same commute distance, but with an amazing company culture, a great workgroup, a better salary, and a role in which I could truly excel (with the training the company was willing to provide).
5 Recruiterproof Company Traits: Innovative Culture
The "Recruiterproof Companies" series articulates the characteristics which make a company attract and retain good people while being tough to recruit from. I'm here to tell you innovative companies are tough to recruit from and easy to recruit to. It's one of the five traits recruiterproof companies have. Innovative companies are attractive to candidates. Being attractive is critical to hiring the best talent to have the best company. Ergo, great companies must be innovative. Perhaps this is theoretically obvious, but the daily reality will play out differently if careful action isn't taken. Who wants to work where change is resisted? How do you foster innovation at work as either a member or leader of the team? The greatest generator of [...]
Micromanagement: Toxic to Healthy
Often we talk with people frustrated by micromanagement. It's a common source of employee turnover and quite costly to naive employers. Why are people micro-managed? It's easy to confuse who is causing the micro-management. There are two potentials that are often conflated. The first is that the leader does not have the ability to trust their employees as a systemic trait. They do not understand delegation, cannot accept the risk of failure, and have a limited growth capacity. This leader will not elevate their subordinates, will serve as the chokepoint, drive away strong performers, and attract co-dependants. This is a leader to avoid! The second is a competent leader (still flawed) who has not yet seen the behavior or performance [...]
On Onboarding
While getting the offer and setting a start date is a fundamental element of your transition, the first ninety days will be even more fundamental; The first impressions are made, partnerships established, and, not to be too dramatic, the trajectory of your career there is set. Opinions formed during the first 90 days can be changed, but with great effort. In addition, companies look for employees to demonstrate cultural and system familiarity within 90 days, if not sooner. The first 90 days are worth special attention. This is not business as usual. Transitions are most often learned through the school of hard knocks. However, there’s been enough study to recognize the trends in successful transitions. Be quick to learn new [...]
TLDR: Building Respect & Time-Invested Are Keys To Hiring Well
Everyone who is honest with themselves finds interviewing, job-seeker or employer, challenging; infuriatingly, bewilderingly, and expensively challenging. There are so many unknowns. Personalities, performance expectations, relationship dynamics, cultural standards, and more. The fact is, and I speak from extensive experience, everyone finds interviewing extremely challenging. The best companies I know with phenomenal leadership, top-tier work, and very engaged teams often get it wrong, despite very sincere efforts. Good companies tell me all the time they can't tell if they made a good hire for three to six months. But here's the hard truth: turnover is expensive, hurts morale, creates instability, challenges client relationships, and now you have to do all that work over again. It's not worth it. Don't make [...]
The Friendliest Interrogator Everyone Wants to Work for
Interviewing is a heavy responsibility. An interviewer holds the future of their company and someone's career. Will it be a good fit? Will everyone be disappointed? Will expectations be aligned properly? Frankly, good interviewing is a friendly version of an interrogation - Just watch these recorded police interrogation of suspected criminals. The purpose is to get to the bottom of a matter; whether candidacy or crime. These attributes will go a long way for an interviewer interested in everyone's success. Warm, friendly, hospitable. Facilitates the interview without dominating it. Conversation flows easily. Comfortable letting the other talk more Keen listener which is demonstrated by asking keen followup questions. They understand how important the 'why' is to everything. Why people do things [...]
To manage people is to study people. Management is intensely anthropological.
We provide assessments for clients who are ready to invest the time, and sometimes that investment is considerable compared to wham-bam fast hiring processes. But isn't that the point? Don't we want to understand the people we hire at a deep level so we can be most effective with them. Deciding to hire is one thing - deciding how to manage is completely another! If hiring is the single most critical thing a leader/owner/manager does, then doesn't it make sense to invest significant effort into it? Wouldn't you want to invest huge effort into seeing the best candidates, developing sophisticated interviewing skills, interviewing them most perceptively, building respect and rapport with them, setting expectations, and building buy-in around the problem [...]
Mortal Interviewing Sins: Qualified Questions
Most interviewers and interviewees qualify their questions too much. Meaning, you ask a question and then provide options for what the answer might be before an answer is provided. Qualified questions are inherently close-ended and will net sub-par insight for the interview. They choke authentic information flow. Qualified questions can mean a few things. - The question may be poorly structured and qualification is required to clarify. This means more question prep is needed. - The questioner may be uncertain that the answerer understands the context of the question. This needs to be assessed without qualification. Don't throw lifejackets in an interview, this complicates assessing their qualifications. - The questioner may be insecure about the validity of their question and [...]
Break A Leg; Video Interviewing Challenges & 9 Techniques To Solve Them
Video interviews are a unique type of interview because of the interpersonal nature of video but the unrelational distance involved. So, it can be really challenging to find an easy flow. These best practice points apply to interviewers just as much as interviewees. 1. Budget your time. There is limited time in the interview so try to spend it carefully. Don't spend a lot of time agreeing when a simple nod or "understood" will suffice. Move the conversation forward. 2. When specific questions are answered, answer with specific details. The temptation is to talk generalities. 3. When you setup, try to have more light on your face than on everything else. Avoid a bright background and a dark you. 4. [...]
Industry Secrets From A Recruiter: Five ways to maximize your attractiveness with honest and critical references
Some consider them a fool’s game, others, a talisman. And still yet, others consider them a formality akin to providing your driver’s license number on an application - a part of the process, but not affecting your candidacy. I am talking, of course, about job references. Despite their occasional stigma, professional references can have a decisive effect on one’s candidacy. They have resuscitated unpromising candidates, highlighted humility and strong relationships, and even unveiled fallow candidates which were otherwise the paper-perfect-fit but doomed to disappointment. Reputations absolutely do make a difference to how skilled hiring authorities piece together their final picture of you. But with such stakes at hand, how do you choose wisely, and what exactly should they say? Five [...]
Should You List Every Job No Matter How Short It Was? Does It Matter? What Can Go Wrong?
Can I answer a question with a question? Would it be appropriate for a company to conceal certain elements of a job description because they didn't want to talk about it in the interview or thought it might make them look bad? No? That would be terrible, you say? Why would it be okay for candidates then? Job interviews are trust building exercises. Trust must be built on truth. Both parties must pledge allegiance to truth and let the chips land where they may. Anything else is a farce and all bets are off. How will the company find out? Trust me, the world is a small place. Your industry is much much smaller. Let me tell you what happens [...]