Where Creative Control Meets Big-Firm Security

Financial Post:

Tim Hranka and his sister, Christine Menard, saw the talent shortage coming in the late 1990s. Ms. Menard had spent about 30 years in the recruitment and staffing business, operating a small, independent firm in southern Ontario when she began to see the business potential of the demographic bulge moving ever closer to retirement.

‘It is absolutely the best time ever,’ Ms. Menard says of her industry. ‘Our clients are in a situation with the Baby Boomers retiring and not enough people following behind them, so our clients have to become extremely creative about where they’re going to find workers.’

In 1996, before most of the Boomers started leaving the workforce, Ms. Menard decided it was time to capture this rapidly emerging market. But her independent firm was small, didn’t offer enough career advancement opportunity for her loyal staff and she knew size mattered in this highly competitive industry. At the same time, Mr. Hranka was looking for a new business opportunity after spending years traveling around Canada and the United States on behalf of a consulting company. Read full story.