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[toc headings="h2,h3" title="Table of Contents"] Seattle has been a home for innovation since Bill Boeing started manufacturing airplanes in the city back in 1916. The city's status as tech hub was cemented in the late 1970s, when up-and-coming software engineer Bill Gates moved his new startup Microsoft to his home state of Washington, prompting other multinational corporations like Amazon and Tableau to follow in his footsteps. This reputation has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with data scientists, developers, and other tech workers flocking to Seattle as one of the top U.S. cities to advance their careers. Even Seattle's active talent market hasn't kept pace with the growing demand for data professionals, however. As the volume and type of data available to companies grows, so too does their need for analysts and engineers who can turn that data into actionable business insights. This increased demand has created a tricky situation for hiring teams, who often find themselves in competition for applicants and faced with steadily rising salaries for these hard-to-fill roles. For companies who are having trouble finding and attracting data science candidates, a recruitment agency can make all the difference. These firms have established networks of Seattle-based professionals ready to make a career move, including passive candidates that may be hidden from in-house hiring teams. Combined with their expertise on the Seattle job market and the data industry at large, this can make them a valuable asset for any company that needs to grow their data team. If you have a hiring challenge to solve in Seattle, consider whether one of the recruiting agencies below can help.
The 5 best data science recruiters in Seattle
1. Nexus IT Group
Nexus IT Group is a results-driven staffing firm that was founded and built by a team of dedicated IT recruiters. The depth of knowledge and experience you'll get from a Nexus team is one of their main strengths, along with their proprietary database of passive candidates. They've worked with more than a thousand clients in just about every major U.S. city, including industry leaders like Amazon and Deloitte, helping them build the top-tier data science teams that have driven them to the top of their fields. They don't just find any data engineer or analyst, they identify the perfect match for each opportunity, and their success is proven by their industry-leading Quality of Hire ratio. Read more about Nexus IT Group
2. CalTek Staffing
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, CalTek Staffing has offices throughout the western United States, including Seattle and Tacoma in Washington. Their focus is on finding the best IT, engineering, and machine learning talent for companies across industries, with clients ranging from startups in IT and emerging technologies to global corporations in aerospace, pharmaceutical development, and a host of other sectors. They're a particularly good fit for any employer who needs data scientists and big data professionals with proficiency in areas like deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), and AI/ML. Read more about CalTek Staffing
3. Herd Freed Hartz
Herd Freed Hartz is one of the leading executive recruiters in the data science field, named the Top Northwest Executive Search Firm by Forbes for the past three years running. While they're a national search firm, they mainly work with companies in Portland and Seattle, bringing employers in these cities the best executive talent from across the nation. They do it quickly, too, with an average time to hire of only 37 days and an impressive record of successful placements. Along with their retained search services, they also offer recruiting consulting with their Art of Recruiting services, making them a great partner for any Pacific Northwest company that wants to up their hiring game. Read more about Herd Freed Hartz
4. NuWest Group
From their flagship location in Bellevue, Washington, NuWest Group partners with companies across the United States to help them build exceptional data science teams. Their primary areas of focus are technical and healthcare roles, with services ranging from direct permanent placements to temporary and contract talent and on-demand, customized workforce solutions that include workforce reviews, compliance audits, and onsite management. This mix of services makes them particularly well-suited for growth-stage companies that need to quickly expand their team. Read more about NuWest Group
5. Craft Recruiting
A nation-wide staffing firm for engineering and technology talent, Craft Recruiting combines the reach of a large firm with the personalized attention and focus on relationships you'd expect from a boutique agency. At the start of each search, they scour their extensive network of vetted data science talent using their proprietary recruiting process to pinpoint candidates that will be an ideal fit for their clients' needs. They stay hands-on throughout the process, too, helping hiring managers make hiring decisions, negotiate offers, and onboard their new hires to ensure a seamless end-to-end process. Read more about Craft Recruiting
Typical costs of data science recruiting services in Seattle
This is a trickier question to answer than it might seem on the surface. For starters, there are a number of fee models that a recruiting agency could use. The most common for recruiting companies in the United States are contingency hiring and retained search. In a contingency hiring model, the agency doesn't get paid until they've made a successful placement. In a retained search service, the recruiter is paid a portion upfront and the rest of their fee after the employment process. In either case, though, their fee will be a percentage of the new employee's first year salary, normally around 15-25% though it can be as high as 40-50%. This percentage model means you may not know exactly what the recruiter's total fee will be until you've completed your search. You can get a rough idea of what they'll charge by knowing the typical salary of the role in your area. The average salary for a data scientist in Seattle is $117,000 a year, according to Glassdoor, so you can use that to estimate your recruiting costs if you don't yet know the specific salary of your position.
Benefits of using a recruiter for analytics talent in Seattle
Even for larger employers with an in-house hiring team, working with a recruiter can be a smart move for your company. This is especially true for roles like Senior Data Scientist or Head of Data Science, positions that require high-level knowledge and expertise, putting high-quality candidates in high demand. What are some specific advantages of using a recruiter to find solutions to your data hiring challenges? Here are some of the main benefits.
You'll hire better talent.
Recruiters have tools and resources to find and connect with professionals who are often hidden to the hiring managers within an organization. Established staffing agencies build an extensive network of candidates as they fill positions for clients, including passive job seekers who aren't actively checking job boards. They also have the time to reach out to these candidates and engage with them one-on-one about the role. Most in-house HR departments have too much on their plates already to give a search this kind of personal touch, and that can make a big difference, especially for hard-to-fill data analysis jobs. Along with access to more candidates, recruiters have experience matching job seekers to projects and positions. They know what to look for in a candidate's resume, skills, and background that indicates they'll be an ideal fit, and often use advanced research and candidate data analysis methods to gain information and insights in-house hiring teams don't have.
Faster time to hire.
A recruiting agency doesn't start from scratch for every role. They're already in contact with a variety of candidates before you approach them with your hiring needs, and that alone can significantly reduce the length of the recruiting process. Even if they don't have existing contacts for your job type, they know where to search for them and can focus on that work full-time. Because that's all they do, these firms also have a more comprehensive process and strategy than hiring teams in businesses, which allows them to find the right people more efficiently and deliver talent in less time.
Reduced overall hiring costs.
On the surface, it might seem like paying someone to recruit is an extra expense that will increase the costs of your business. While it's true you do need to pay recruiters for their services, you'll also save in other ways by using one. For one thing, your HR team can focus on their other work instead of searching for applicants and screening resumes. Employees hired using a recruiter are also more likely to be an ideal long-term fit for the role. It's incredibly frustrating when you think you've completed your search only to have to start it all over when the new hire quits after just a few weeks, or turns out not to have the skills you need for the role. Turnover isn't just expensive, it can also mean lowered workplace morale, wasted resources, and missed business opportunities. Those are all issues you can avoid by hiring the right person the first time, and working with a recruiter helps you to do that.
Tips for data science recruitment success
How can you make sure you get all those benefits of working with a recruiting agency? First and foremost, it's crucial to know what you're looking for from an ideal candidate and fully understand the needs and qualifications of the role. An experienced recruiter can help you refine your search parameters, but they don't know your business like you do. Before your initial conversation with a recruiter, have a planning meeting with the hiring team and company leaders to clarify what you're looking for. Once you're clear about your needs, the next crucial thing is to share that information with the recruiter. Be as transparent and honest as possible about your company, its culture, and the challenges you've encountered with hiring in the past. Even the best recruiter can't read minds, and they can't deliver the quality talent you need if they don't know what you're looking for. Finally, be communicative and responsive throughout the process. While you don't want to micromanage the process, you should stay involved in every stage of the search, from sourcing candidates to selecting and interviewing the top applicants. Ask questions when you have them, and if you think the recruiter is missing the mark, give them feedback that will help them refocus. The more open the communication between your team and theirs, the higher the odds that you'll find your perfect new hire.
Choosing the right data science recruiter in Seattle
There is no one best recruiter for finding data scientists, and that's going to be true in any city. It all comes down to what level and type of talent you need, what industry you're in, and how quickly you need to make hires. The bottom line is, if you're struggling to find people, tight on time or resources, or have a complex or specialized role you're not sure how to fill, a recruiter can be an invaluable asset to level-up your hiring.
Seattle has been a home for innovation since Bill Boeing started manufacturing airplanes in the city back in 1916. The city’s status as tech hub was cemented in the late 1970s, when up-and-coming software engineer Bill Gates moved his new startup Microsoft to his home state of Washington, prompting other multinational corporations like Amazon and Tableau to follow in his footsteps.
This reputation has become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, with data scientists, developers, and other tech workers flocking to Seattle as one of the top U.S. cities to advance their careers. Even Seattle’s active talent market hasn’t kept pace with the growing demand for data professionals, however. As the volume and type of data available to companies grows, so too does their need for analysts and engineers who can turn that data into actionable business insights. This increased demand has created a tricky situation for hiring teams, who often find themselves in competition for applicants and faced with steadily rising salaries for these hard-to-fill roles.
For companies who are having trouble finding and attracting data science candidates, a recruitment agency can make all the difference. These firms have established networks of Seattle-based professionals ready to make a career move, including passive candidates that may be hidden from in-house hiring teams. Combined with their expertise on the Seattle job market and the data industry at large, this can make them a valuable asset for any company that needs to grow their data team. If you have a hiring challenge to solve in Seattle, consider whether one of the recruiting agencies below can help.
The 5 best data science recruiters in Seattle
1. Nexus IT Group
Nexus IT Group is a results-driven staffing firm that was founded and built by a team of dedicated IT recruiters. The depth of knowledge and experience you’ll get from a Nexus team is one of their main strengths, along with their proprietary database of passive candidates. They’ve worked with more than a thousand clients in just about every major U.S. city, including industry leaders like Amazon and Deloitte, helping them build the top-tier data science teams that have driven them to the top of their fields. They don’t just find any data engineer or analyst, they identify the perfect match for each opportunity, and their success is proven by their industry-leading Quality of Hire ratio.
Read more about Nexus IT Group
2. CalTek Staffing
Headquartered in San Francisco, California, CalTek Staffing has offices throughout the western United States, including Seattle and Tacoma in Washington. Their focus is on finding the best IT, engineering, and machine learning talent for companies across industries, with clients ranging from startups in IT and emerging technologies to global corporations in aerospace, pharmaceutical development, and a host of other sectors. They’re a particularly good fit for any employer who needs data scientists and big data professionals with proficiency in areas like deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), and AI/ML.
Read more about CalTek Staffing
3. Herd Freed Hartz
Herd Freed Hartz is one of the leading executive recruiters in the data science field, named the Top Northwest Executive Search Firm by Forbes for the past three years running. While they’re a national search firm, they mainly work with companies in Portland and Seattle, bringing employers in these cities the best executive talent from across the nation. They do it quickly, too, with an average time to hire of only 37 days and an impressive record of successful placements. Along with their retained search services, they also offer recruiting consulting with their Art of Recruiting services, making them a great partner for any Pacific Northwest company that wants to up their hiring game.
Read more about Herd Freed Hartz
4. NuWest Group
From their flagship location in Bellevue, Washington, NuWest Group partners with companies across the United States to help them build exceptional data science teams. Their primary areas of focus are technical and healthcare roles, with services ranging from direct permanent placements to temporary and contract talent and on-demand, customized workforce solutions that include workforce reviews, compliance audits, and onsite management. This mix of services makes them particularly well-suited for growth-stage companies that need to quickly expand their team.
5. Craft Recruiting
A nation-wide staffing firm for engineering and technology talent, Craft Recruiting combines the reach of a large firm with the personalized attention and focus on relationships you’d expect from a boutique agency. At the start of each search, they scour their extensive network of vetted data science talent using their proprietary recruiting process to pinpoint candidates that will be an ideal fit for their clients’ needs. They stay hands-on throughout the process, too, helping hiring managers make hiring decisions, negotiate offers, and onboard their new hires to ensure a seamless end-to-end process.
Read more about Craft Recruiting
Typical costs of data science recruiting services in Seattle
This is a trickier question to answer than it might seem on the surface. For starters, there are a number of fee models that a recruiting agency could use. The most common for recruiting companies in the United States are contingency hiring and retained search.
In a contingency hiring model, the agency doesn’t get paid until they’ve made a successful placement. In a retained search service, the recruiter is paid a portion upfront and the rest of their fee after the employment process. In either case, though, their fee will be a percentage of the new employee’s first year salary, normally around 15-25% though it can be as high as 40-50%.
This percentage model means you may not know exactly what the recruiter’s total fee will be until you’ve completed your search. You can get a rough idea of what they’ll charge by knowing the typical salary of the role in your area. The average salary for a data scientist in Seattle is $117,000 a year, according to Glassdoor, so you can use that to estimate your recruiting costs if you don’t yet know the specific salary of your position.
Benefits of using a recruiter for analytics talent in Seattle
Even for larger employers with an in-house hiring team, working with a recruiter can be a smart move for your company. This is especially true for roles like Senior Data Scientist or Head of Data Science, positions that require high-level knowledge and expertise, putting high-quality candidates in high demand.
What are some specific advantages of using a recruiter to find solutions to your data hiring challenges? Here are some of the main benefits.
You’ll hire better talent.
Recruiters have tools and resources to find and connect with professionals who are often hidden to the hiring managers within an organization. Established staffing agencies build an extensive network of candidates as they fill positions for clients, including passive job seekers who aren’t actively checking job boards. They also have the time to reach out to these candidates and engage with them one-on-one about the role. Most in-house HR departments have too much on their plates already to give a search this kind of personal touch, and that can make a big difference, especially for hard-to-fill data analysis jobs.
Along with access to more candidates, recruiters have experience matching job seekers to projects and positions. They know what to look for in a candidate’s resume, skills, and background that indicates they’ll be an ideal fit, and often use advanced research and candidate data analysis methods to gain information and insights in-house hiring teams don’t have.
Faster time to hire.
A recruiting agency doesn’t start from scratch for every role. They’re already in contact with a variety of candidates before you approach them with your hiring needs, and that alone can significantly reduce the length of the recruiting process. Even if they don’t have existing contacts for your job type, they know where to search for them and can focus on that work full-time. Because that’s all they do, these firms also have a more comprehensive process and strategy than hiring teams in businesses, which allows them to find the right people more efficiently and deliver talent in less time.
Reduced overall hiring costs.
On the surface, it might seem like paying someone to recruit is an extra expense that will increase the costs of your business. While it’s true you do need to pay recruiters for their services, you’ll also save in other ways by using one. For one thing, your HR team can focus on their other work instead of searching for applicants and screening resumes.
Employees hired using a recruiter are also more likely to be an ideal long-term fit for the role. It’s incredibly frustrating when you think you’ve completed your search only to have to start it all over when the new hire quits after just a few weeks, or turns out not to have the skills you need for the role. Turnover isn’t just expensive, it can also mean lowered workplace morale, wasted resources, and missed business opportunities. Those are all issues you can avoid by hiring the right person the first time, and working with a recruiter helps you to do that.
Tips for data science recruitment success
How can you make sure you get all those benefits of working with a recruiting agency? First and foremost, it’s crucial to know what you’re looking for from an ideal candidate and fully understand the needs and qualifications of the role. An experienced recruiter can help you refine your search parameters, but they don’t know your business like you do. Before your initial conversation with a recruiter, have a planning meeting with the hiring team and company leaders to clarify what you’re looking for.
Once you’re clear about your needs, the next crucial thing is to share that information with the recruiter. Be as transparent and honest as possible about your company, its culture, and the challenges you’ve encountered with hiring in the past. Even the best recruiter can’t read minds, and they can’t deliver the quality talent you need if they don’t know what you’re looking for.
Finally, be communicative and responsive throughout the process. While you don’t want to micromanage the process, you should stay involved in every stage of the search, from sourcing candidates to selecting and interviewing the top applicants. Ask questions when you have them, and if you think the recruiter is missing the mark, give them feedback that will help them refocus. The more open the communication between your team and theirs, the higher the odds that you’ll find your perfect new hire.
Choosing the right data science recruiter in Seattle
There is no one best recruiter for finding data scientists, and that’s going to be true in any city. It all comes down to what level and type of talent you need, what industry you’re in, and how quickly you need to make hires. The bottom line is, if you’re struggling to find people, tight on time or resources, or have a complex or specialized role you’re not sure how to fill, a recruiter can be an invaluable asset to level-up your hiring.