Meet America’s Top Recruiting And Staffing Firms 2022

The U.S. labor market has undergone a rapid transformation—one that continues against a backdrop of geopolitical, inflationary and public health uncertainties. With 11.3 million job openings and a way of work that is unrecognizable from the pre-pandemic workplace, many businesses have turned to recruiting firms to compete for talent.

Forbes’ annual lists of America’s Best Executive and Professional Recruiting Firms, and America’s Best Temp Staffing Firms, feature companies helping employers do just that. To determine the lists, market research company Statista surveyed over 31,000 recruiters and 6,900 job candidates and human resources managers who had worked with recruitment agencies within the last three years. A total of 366 firms made the final lists.

At the onset of the pandemic, the staffing sector slumped along with the job market. Since then, though, demand has surged, and Richard Wahlquist, president and chief executive officer of the American Staffing Association, the trade association representing the industry, says recruiters have been laser-focused on getting people back to work.

“When people were returning to work and restructuring the where and the how of work, the industry was called upon to help build back talent benches,” says Wahlquist.

But rebuilding the U.S. workforce hasn’t been as simple as pressing play after a pause, he says. Many of those returning to work are doing so amid a new normal, while others are changing course and embracing new career paths. And after working from home for more than two years, some aren’t ready to return to the office—and are willing to change employers to avoid having to do so.

“We have seen a sea change in how workers view the world of work, and as a result, how organizations are viewing talent,” Wahlquist says. “There aren’t a lot of playbooks because we simply haven’t had a global pandemic in any of our lifetimes.”

At Robert Half, keeping the playbook fresh is top of mind for its senior executive director, Paul McDonald. With a history that spans three quarters of a century and a full-time payroll that exceeds 14,000, the Menlo Park-based firm—which earned the No. 1 spot on each of our three lists—is one of the biggest players in the recruiting game. McDonald, who has been with the firm for half its history, says technology, a medium in which change is the only constant, has been critical to keeping pace.

“We have invested heavily and continue to invest heavily in technology,” says McDonald, a contributor to Forbes. “We got on the train early, and thank goodness we did.”

As M. Keith Waddell, Robert Half’s vice chairman, president and CEO, shared during the company’s latest earnings call, AI powered recruiting technology has helped the firm more efficiently compare a client’s requirements with candidate profiles. Candidates determined to be a fit are automatically invited to apply to the position.

“It’s very effective—even in this tight labor market—in getting them to apply to our jobs,” Waddell said before teasing the release of a new feature that will predict candidates’ responsiveness based on their job-search activity. “In this market, the candidate side is everything.”

Los Angeles-headquartered Korn Ferry has also turned to technology by investing in its psychometric assessment, which it uses to determine whether a candidate might be a fit for a particular kind of role or workplace environment. Gary Burnison, CEO of the No. 2-ranked executive search firm, says better understanding a candidate’s competencies, abilities, personality and motivations—attributes that aren’t always apparent from a resume—is critical to retention, especially when 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“It’s really not about finding the talent—it’s about finding who they are,” he says. “We’ve put a lot of capital behind our intellectual property to find out who people are.”

Kelly Services, meanwhile, has gone back to basics, redefining what it means to be a qualified candidate. President and CEO Peter Quigley says the Troy-Michigan-based firm, which ranked No. 2 on both the professional and temp staffing lists, is focused on placing untapped talent, what Harvard Business School has dubbed “hidden workers”—the formerly incarcerated, those on the autism spectrum, veterans without a four-year degree and opportunity youth, for example. Quigley says simply removing broad strokes elimination questions on background checks immediately opens up a candidate pool to populations that are eager to work.

“When you consider today’s talent attraction challenges, knocking down these employment barriers is not just the right thing to do; it’s good business,” he says.

Quigley says he is excited to continue to rewrite the rules of recruiting. “We think that while 2021 was the year of the ‘Great Resignation,’ 2022 is the year of the ‘Great Redesign,’” he says. “Employers who embrace that idea will win the competition for talent.”

Methodology

To determine the list, Statista surveyed over 31,000 recruiters and 6,900 job candidates and human resources managers who had worked with recruitment agencies. Respondents were asked to nominate up to 10 recruiting firms in the executive search, professional search and temporary staffing categories. Firms could not nominate themselves; last year’s findings were considered. More than 22,400 nominations were collected, and firms with the most recommendations ranked highest. The survey period ran from December 2021 to March 2022.

For the full list of America’s Best Executive Recruiting Firms, click here.

For the full list of America’s Best Professional Recruiting Firms, click here.

For the full list of America’s Best Temp Staffing Firms, click here.

Editor's Note: Salo was mistakenly ranked among the best professional recruiting firms. The company doesn't specialize in professional recruiting. It has been replaced with another firm, Magellan Search & Staffing.