31 business days from discovery to accepted offer. 3 hours of client time invested. The engagement that became the foundation of a national talent partnership.
| Performance Metric | ATS Result | Industry Average |
|---|---|---|
| Time to Accepted Offer | 31 business days | 56 to 112 days (8 to 16 weeks) |
| Client Hours Invested | 3 hours | 15 to 25+ hours |
| Talent Pool Depth | 727 profiles | 50 to 100 profiles |
| Market Penetration Rate | 57.1% | 15% to 20% |
| Cold Outreach Engagement | 400 of 700 addressable | 15% to 25% reply rate |
| Search Completion Rate | 100% (1 of 1 placed) | ~60% completion |
| Competitive Landscape Mapped | 38 firms, 94 talent points | Typically 3 to 8 named targets |
The client had never sourced senior technical talent in Jacksonville. Prior model: relocate from headquarters or hire entry-level. This search built the first regional bench from scratch.
The departing senior engineer was relocating back to headquarters. This hire was the immediate replacement, the client-facing escalation point, and the future site lead with team to build under them.
T3 capability with full MSP fluency in a market dominated by tier 1 and tier 2 talent. The required technical stack ran from Hyper-V and SonicWall to JAMF and Active Directory.
38 Greater Jacksonville MSPs and adjacent technology firms were mapped. The landscape produced 94 addressable talent points (current and former employees of mapped firms), representing the strongest known concentration of Tier 2 and Tier 3 MSP talent in the metro.
| Source Tier | Current | Past | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 3 Tier 1 Regional MSPs | 20 | 51 | 71 |
| Mid-tier MSPs (5 firms) | 5 | 9 | 14 |
| Boutique & specialty firms (8 firms) | 5 | 3 | 8 |
| Adjacent firms with no active talent (22 firms, included for landscape completeness) | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Landscape Total | 31 | 63 | 94 |
Title-level analysis of the engaged pool. The market is heavy on Tier 1 and Tier 2 support roles with a thinner concentration of senior MSP-fluent engineers, which validated the original brief that this caliber would require deeper market penetration than a typical Jacksonville IT search.
Metro Jacksonville (downtown anchor zip 32202). Active candidates pulled from Jacksonville proper, Orange Park, the Beaches corridor (Atlantic, Neptune, Jacksonville Beach), Saint Johns, Ponte Vedra, and St. Augustine.
Middleburg, Green Cove Springs, and the Fernandina corridor were evaluated for commute-feasibility and held as expansion zones if the primary pool failed to convert. Primary pool depth made this unnecessary.
Pool comp data was collected on 33 engaged candidates with reported desired base salary. The market spread reveals a meaningful gap between the client's stated ceiling and the median expectation of the qualified pool.
$105,000
Roughly 10.5% above the client's ceiling. This is the market reality for T3 MSP talent in metro Jacksonville at the time of search.
57%
Of the engaged pool with reported salary expectations, the majority desired base compensation exceeding the client's $95K ceiling.
100%
Final accepted offer landed within the client's budget window without sacrificing technical caliber. The methodology absorbed the comp gap by penetrating deep into the pool, not by stretching the budget.
The full progression from sourced universe to accepted offer. Each stage represents an intentional gate, not natural attrition. The funnel demonstrates that 727 profiles compressed into one placed hire through 8 layers of qualification.
Discovery on 3/10/2025. Offer accepted on 4/21/2025. 31 business days end-to-end.
Of the 400 engaged candidates, the following breakdown reflects documented reasons for non-progression. Each reason is captured as live market intelligence for the client's future hiring strategy in the region.
The Senior MSP Site Lead engagement was this client's first search with ATS. The placement performed. The methodology earned trust. What followed was not a transactional vendor relationship but a multi-channel partnership where talent flow runs in both directions and client referrals run in both directions.
The original brief specified culture-first criteria, MSP fluency, and the personality to be the highest escalation point in a region. None of those were optional. The placed candidate met all three.
3 hours of client time was not the result of skipping steps. It was the result of front-loading the work in market research, deep screening, and finalist assessment, then giving the client a single portal where every artifact, video, and stakeholder comment lived in one place.
Performance retention is the only true test of a search. The Site Lead remained in seat and grew with the role, validating both the technical and the cultural alignment work executed during the engagement.
Every shortlist candidate is presented as a complete case file: written overview tying the candidate to the client's stated need, full interview transcript, resume, social profiles, relevant accompanying documents, and two recorded candidate videos. One is the full interview. The second is a uniform short-form video built on identical SOP questions asked of every candidate, so the client can review and compare finalists side by side in a single sitting.
Every stakeholder on the client side operates inside the ATS client portal. Feedback, commentary, status, and direction live in one place. No scattered emails, no parallel threads, no calendar tag chasing. This is the structural reason a search of this complexity consumed 3 hours of client time. The work happens in the portal where the client controls when and how they engage with it.
727 sourced profiles, 700 addressable, 400 engaged. Full Clockwork CRM record with status, decline reasoning, and disposition for every candidate.
38-firm competitive landscape map for Greater Jacksonville MSPs, comp distribution across 33 reporting candidates, title-level pool composition, and geographic concentration analysis.
Each finalist was assessed for alignment against the role's specific requirements: technical capability, MSP fluency, client-facing posture, and readiness to operate as the highest escalation point in a new market. The assessment was alignment-focused, not a behavioral benchmark exercise.
Per finalist: written overview tied to client need, full interview transcript, resume, social profiles, accompanying documents, and two recorded videos. One full interview, one short-form uniform interview using identical SOP questions across every candidate for side-by-side comparison.
Every stakeholder on the client side worked inside the ATS client portal. Feedback, commentary, status updates, and direction lived in one place. No fragmented email threads, no parallel comms. This is the structural reason 3 hours of client time was sufficient to move from discovery to accepted offer.
1 placed hire, on-site at the client's downtown Jacksonville location, in seat as Site Lead. 31 business days, 3 client hours, no second cycle required.
If your team is staring down a new market, a critical succession, or a role you have never hired for before, this is what the engagement looks like. Three ways to start. Each routes directly to Michael Russo. No gatekeepers.