business

With Fortune 500 companies and other clients stepping up post-recession hiring, McKinley Group, a Minnesota-based executive recruiting firm, is feeling even better about its own prospects.

Last month the firm moved into larger, more appealing offices in St. Louis Park as it pursues aggressive growth and, yes, hiring goals of its own this year.

"There are some exciting things going on in recruiting now," McKinley Group partner Tony Sorensen said. "It's been 18 months to two years of trying to hunker down and survive. We finally have something positive to look forward to."

In one positive sign for the economy, the increase in companies calling McKinley Group for help in filling positions that began in 2010 is continuing this year, Sorenson said. Like last year, marketing continues to be hot. "That's an area we're very bullish on in 2011," Sorensen said. "Marketing positions will continue to be plentiful."

McKinley Group, the largest local corporate recruiting firm and an Inc. 5000 member in each of the past five years, has gotten off to a fast start in 2011 as well.

The firm is projecting revenue of $15 million, up from $11 million in 2010, Sorensen said. It expects to make more than 400 placements, after topping 300 last year. McKinley Group has 36 employees after making seven of the 20 hires planned this year.

Contributing to that revenue growth is partner firm McKinley Consulting, which has 50 consultants working on contract projects with local Fortune 1000 clients. McKinley Consulting offers full-service consulting in program and project management, application development focusing on .Net and Java technologies.

"Our diversification was what carried the day the last couple of years," said McKinley Group partner Chris Ohlendorf. "What we're excited about, and this is the first time we've seen it, is that all of our business units are trending up right now. Typically when we're trending up, that's good news for everybody out there."

Ohlendorf, Sorensen and partners Kurt Rakos and Paul Beard were all recruiting-industry veterans when they founded the firm in 2003, a couple of years after an online job website bought the firm where they had worked.

In recent months, McKinley's partners also have been working with consultant Michael Harvath, president and CEO of Revenue Rocket Consulting Group in Bloomington, to discuss expansion options for McKinley Group and McKinley Consulting.

"We've recommended that they invest in certain areas to scale and grow their business organically and, if the deal is right, through acquisition," Harvath said.

"As we've worked together in their consulting business, we've seen opportunities to help in their search business. "

In keeping with those recommendations, McKinley Group's hires this year have included key leaders who head different specialty areas, Sorensen said. New hires, in keeping with the specialization strategy, often have degrees and corporate experience in the specialty area in which they recruit.

McKinley Group's move to new offices was intended to create a more attractive environment for clients and its own employees, Sorensen said. The new headquarters includes a lunchroom with booths, a big-screen TV with a Wii game console and Minnesota-themed conference rooms that feature wall-sized murals of lake scenes and the new Twins stadium.

Those clients include SPS Commerce, a Minneapolis-based publicly traded company that offers on-demand supply management solutions.

"Their big advantage is that they're local and they spend the time to understand our business, our culture and what kind of person is really going to fit," said Archie Black, CEO of SPS Commerce. "They truly are a good partners. Some recruiters will start throwing candidates at you, and that's not a huge value-add for us."

Ted Risdall, chairman and president of the full-service advertising, interactive and social media agency Risdall Marketing Group in New Brighton, said the McKinley Group has played an important role in identifying affirmative action and equal opportunity candidates. The Risdall agency also has referred clients to McKinley Group for recruiting help.

"They can cover the breadth and depth of what we do," Risdall said. "They've got good reach and they've got a great reputation."

The expert says: Harvath, the business consultant working with McKinley Group, said the firm's partners had done well in executing their specialization strategy and in continuing to challenge themselves to grow.

"One thing [they have] done exceptionally well is build a very strong business in what they know before looking at expansion strategies to what they may not know as well," Harvath said. "Adjacency strategies often fail when they're more than one degree of separation from the core. Companies like General Electric take that to heart. They don't buy something they don't know, can't integrate or is more than one degree from any business they consider core. That has served them well over the years, and McKinley Group has done the same thing."

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Woodbury. His e-mail address is todd_nelson@mac.com.