Going After the Right Staff

Canon Recruiting Group LLC may seem like a small operation on the surface with its single Santa Clarita office that houses about 10 employees, but it is recognized as one of the nation’s fastest growing companies. Tim Grayem started his professional staffing firm in Santa Clarita in 1980, but it wasn’t until about 2007 that things started to take off, continuing its growth into 2010. This year, the temp staffing company that often staffs for executive-level positions ranked 600th on Inc.magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the nation. Canon Recruiting’s revenues have skyrocketed over the past four years, increasing from $645,000 in 2006 to about $5.2 million in 2008. While the company’s revenues dipped to about $4.2 million in 2009 due to slowed hiring from the downed economy, 2010 revenues are projected to be about $5.5 million or higher. Several factors have contributed to the company’s growth spurt, said 56-year-old Grayem who started Canon Recruiting in 1980. One obvious factor is the company’s ability to land major contracts that helped to carry it through the recession. “Clearly the economy’s in the tank,” Grayem said. “People aren’t hiring left and right. So fortunately, we have clients now that need to staff for a variety of reasons and we’re not as affected by the economy right now, but I would say most of our competitors are.” Through a partnership with staffing company Adecco in 2008, a former contract with Countrywide became an even larger one with Bank of America once the bank took over the other company. Bank of America majorly reduced its pool of staffing agencies, signing larger contracts with only a select few, which included Canon Recruiting Group, Grayem said. Through the partnership with the larger staffing company, Canon Recruiting Group also landed a contract with Merrill Lynch. Both contracts now make up about 75 percent of the Santa Clarita company’s jobs. The company has also secured a strategic partnership with staffing agency Vault International. Other clients include American International Group, Inc., Zurich North America and Farmers Insurance. The company is even now in the business of staffing for catastrophe insurance adjuster teams, or CAT teams, that respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters around the country. “They are a very unusual niche market,” Grayem said, adding that his staff was recently following Hurricane Earl on the East Coast and preparing for potential calls from clients requesting the teams. Canon started out as primarily staffing for the insurance industry but now also staffs for other industries, which include banking and mortgage, entertainment, human resources, legal, medical, information technology, accounting, marketing and creative services. Since 2006, the company has gone from servicing only a handful of states to now conducting business in 25 states. Its number of staffing placements has doubled to about 350 to 400 last year. By 2012, staffing levels are expected to double again and Grayem is looking into options for opening additional offices, possibly out of state. Keeping the family feel Grayem entered the recruiting industry straight out of college, working at a Century City office for an international staffing company and later opening other offices for the firm in California and Texas. He eventually bought the data from the company’s Century City office and started his own company in 1980, setting up his office in Sherman Oaks. In the mid-1990s, he moved his business to Santa Clarita, where the company’s sole office has been located ever since. In 2005, after Grayem had a heart attack, he recruited his son James as general manager. Since his son joined the team, he has brought more aggressive technological search tactics to the company, including web spiders and web crawlers, which search the Internet for job seekers beyond the typical job posting sites. “We have to use kind of a guerrilla marketing strategy to find people that may not necessarily be looking or people that aren’t on the mainstream of maybe the Monster or CareerBuilder,” said James Grayem. “But we’ve been pretty successful in finding all those niche, hard-to-find types of positions.” For Tim Grayem, one important component to his company’s success is the ability to maintain the family feel in the office and the dedicated service to both clients and candidates over the years. “I think we are unique on the fact that we are focused like a laser beam on the needs of the client,” he said. “If the phone rings at 5:45 and a client needs something, there’s not a single person here that just wouldn’t stop and give the client what they need. Our clients have all our cell phone (numbers).” Bruce Glad, vice president of Acton-based Claims Resource Management, Inc., said the staffing firm has always been quick to respond to his company’s needs. Nearly half of his claims management staff started out as temporary workers from Canon. “One of the things that we like about dealing with Canon is they are responsive and relatively aggressive at seeking out viable candidates,” Glad said. Canon also makes sure to provide quality service for job seekers, Grayem said. The company offers its temporary workers direct deposit, credit cards and weekly payrolls, and only the hiring companies are charged for placement services. Canon has also never been late on a payroll during the 30 years of its existence, Grayem said. Canon Recruiting Group’s in-house team operates on what Grayem calls “the team concept.” “In terms of commissions, everyone’s paid a percentage,” he said. “So naturally, one party would always want to be helping the other party because everyone’s tied into the same structure. Everyone benefits when a job is well-done.” A changing industry The professional staffing industry looks very different today than it used to. “The whole dynamic of employment has changed,” Grayem said. “Most companies are doing the temp-to-hire thing even at the highest levels. Companies don’t want to take on more payroll than they have to because of the vicissitude of the marketplace.” Canon is also starting to see more job seekers come directly from the unemployment pool, compared to before when more candidates were generally switching jobs. James Grayem said he and his father pride themselves in the fact that they are able to help people find employment, especially during a time when people are losing their homes. “We have been given this awesome opportunity with this Bank of America account with all these open jobs, and it’s translated into us being able to help more people,” he said. “Helping people out is the bottom line.” Canon Recruiting Group LLC FOUNDED: 1980Location: Santa ClaritaCORE OF BUSINESS: professional staffingNumber of Employees: 10 permanent staff, 250 current contracted employeesRevenues in 2006: $645,000Revenues in 2007: $3.4 millionRevenues in 2008: $5.2 millionRevenues in 2009: $4.2 millionProgected Revenues in 2010: at least $5.5 million