A planned expansion to Providence this fall for the O’Neill Consulting Group is an outgrowth of the executive search firm’s success in producing results for its clients, says Kevin R. O’Neill, president and CEO.
When LoJack Corp. in Canton, Mass., recently needed a chief technology officer, the firm turned to the O’Neill Group to help find the right talent, said O’Neill.
An executive search led to a short list of candidates that resulted in the hiring of CTO Emad S. Isaac. Having already had a relationship with company executives, the search firm took that to the next level by becoming “LoJack insiders,” O’Neill said.
“We work face to face,” he explained. “We do not have transactional, distant relationships with our clients. We spend time with them, get on site, breathe the air, listen to them. We want to hear their story. So we were allowed incredible access to the CEO, the head of [human resources], the team doing this critical search.”
O’Neill Consulting is paid based on the anticipated compensation of the executive that is being hired, O’Neill said. Clients are not necessarily paying for a result, he said, although the firm’s process “historically leads to a very good result.” The firm typically fills “C-level” positions: CEOs, chief financial officers and so on.
“We don’t aggressively pursue middle market work but that tends to come as we build senior relationships,” he said.
Besides forming a team to conduct national or international searches, O’Neill’s company does extensive background research on the best sources of talent and develops “a long list of target candidates” for its clients in the fields of consumer goods, private equity, industrial and manufacturing, life sciences, health care and wellness, and general services like technology, insurance or nonprofits, he said.
For the first half of 2014, revenue for the O’Neill Group nearly matched annual sales of $3.2 million for the entire previous year, O’Neill said, positioning the company for rapid growth.
“We’re in full-court-press mode,” he said.
Emphasizing the “Three C’s – consistency, commitment and care,” O’Neill has 18 employees based in South Kingstown, two in a Dallas office, and one in Raleigh, N.C. Three satellite marketing offices in Boston, London and Shanghai provide access to contractors, O’Neill said.
“We wanted to clearly articulate and memorialize what we were already doing well and create more form [for] it,” he said. “The search industry is broken. There are a lot of unhappy clients, candidates and colleagues. Our view is: We’re going to take a holistic approach and do our best to transform what we can touch.”
One of the world’s top executive-search firms, Heidrick and Struggles, recently reported in a study that 40 percent of newly placed job candidates leave their new jobs in the first 18 months, O’Neill said.
O’Neill Consulting, by comparison, fills 98 percent of the positions it’s hired to fill – 18 percent above market standards. More than 80 percent of the candidates who accept positions stay two years or more, he said. The company also manages to fill executive positions on average in 89 days as opposed to the industry average of 145 days, he added.
“We have a better sustainable result, which means a happier client,” he said. “Ninety percent of our business over the years is repeat business. Care … doesn’t stop when the candidate is hired. … The way we get to these great ‘stick’ rates is because we develop relationships with these people once they’re hired.”
While O’Neill, a South Kingstown native, didn’t form the consulting group until 1996, he had worked in executive search for other firms since 1989. He says his natural sales ability and inclination as “the guy bringing people together who don’t normally mix” led to the career he has today. He calls the search process “the combination of logic and magic.”
“Throughout the process, not only are we understanding the client, so when we go into the marketplace we can tell their story really well, but we’re also a trusted adviser to the candidate,” he said.
“We get very much involved in the lives of the people we touch,” he said. •
COMPANY PROFILE
O’Neill Consulting Group
OWNER: President and CEO Kevin R. O’Neill
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Executive search
LOCATION: 10 High St., South Kingstown
EMPLOYEES: 21
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1996
ANNUAL SALES: $3.2 million
