Case studies

The work, and how it turned out

We do not hand clients a stack of resumes and disappear. We embed, run the search, and leave the function stronger than we found it. Here is what that looked like across clean energy, med tech, eldercare and legal tech, in engagements running from a single quarter to more than three years, from a company’s first marketing hire to an engagement that ended with us recruiting the client’s own in-house recruiter.

Swift Solar // Clean energy, hardware

Two years embedded, then we hired our own replacement

~2 yrs: Embedded engagement
PhD-level: R&D, hired US and abroad
Capstone: Recruited their own recruiter

The situation

Swift Solar, a perovskite solar company, was scaling its research, process and product teams with no in-house recruiting function. The hardest roles sat at the PhD level, R&D engineers and scientists in a narrow, specialized talent pool, and the right people were spread across the US and abroad rather than concentrated in one market.

What we did

We embedded for roughly two years, running full-cycle search under Swift's brand. We ran deep searches for PhD-level R&D engineers and scientists, sourcing both nationally and internationally, and filled their process technician and process engineering teams alongside product development and hardware roles. As Swift's needs shifted, the searches shifted with them, without renegotiating a contract each time.

The outcome

We hired across R&D, process, product and hardware, then closed the engagement with the role that mattered most: the first recruiter for their People team, someone who could operate with a founding mentality and carry the function forward. We did not just hand off a pipeline. We recruited our own replacement, then handed them the scorecards and market maps. The function outlived the engagement.

Nick Kimball has been an invaluable recruiting partner for the past several years, and I recommend him without reservation.
When we set out to scale hiring at Swift Solar, an early-stage solar startup, Nick helped us build the structures and processes that made our hiring efficient and effective — the kind of infrastructure that's easy to underestimate until you don't have it.
He's also been essential in filling some of our hardest-to-source roles, including scientist positions that require sourcing through channels like Google Scholar to find candidates with the right research background. Beyond just filling seats, he helped us think strategically — reviewing the depth and diversity of candidate pools for key roles and surfacing sourcing strategies we hadn't considered.
One of the most valuable things Nick did was help us find a great full-time recruiting partner to carry that work forward, setting us up for long-term success beyond his own engagement. And his engagement model has been a great fit for an early-stage company: we can ramp him up when hiring picks up and scale back down when it slows, then bring him back in when we need him again.
I'd recommend Nick to any startup — especially one navigating niche or technical hiring — looking for a recruiting partner who thinks beyond just filling roles.
Bettina Aristorenas
Head of People Ops, Swift Solar

MedGEO // Med tech

Senior engineers and OR nurses, one engagement

1 quarter: 3-month engagement
3: Functions closed
Eng + sales: + clinical implementation

The situation

MedGEO, a med-tech company, had multiple roles open at once across very different profiles: software and integrations engineering, territory sales, and clinical implementation. It is the classic post-raise burst, more open roles than a founder can staff alone, and the wrong moment to pay a percentage of salary on every hire. They brought us in on a single three-month engagement.

What we did

We ran the roles in parallel rather than in sequence, each against its own scorecard. The mix stretched from Senior Software Engineers and a Senior Integrations Engineer, to Territory Sales, to per diem implementation trainers, a role that called for OR nurses and clinical informatics specialists rather than generalist trainers. Sourcing specialized clinical talent and senior engineers inside one engagement is exactly the breadth a single embedded team is built for.

The outcome

Inside that one quarter we closed hires across all three functions: Senior Software Engineers, a Senior Integrations Engineer, Territory Sales, and the clinical implementation trainers. A single three-month engagement covered what would otherwise have taken several separate agency relationships, at a flat monthly fee instead of a percentage on each hire.

Eldercare Resource Planning // Eldercare services

A sales team built where the talent actually was

3+ yrs: Ongoing engagement
8+: Hires, mostly sales
Mexico: Most inside sales based there

The situation

Eldercare Resource Planning has now worked with us for more than three years, and it started with a familiar problem: they needed to build sales capacity, and the US was proving a difficult market for the role they needed. They had hired in Mexico before, but through Upwork rather than by recruiting talent directly. Filling seats on a gig platform is a different thing from building a team you can lead and keep.

What we did

We looked at where the talent actually was and focused the search on Mexico, where the pool was strong for exactly the profile they needed. We recruited and stood up the team ourselves, running outreach and screening across the border under the client's name, across sales and administrative roles, mostly sales.

The outcome

We placed more than eight hires across sales and administration in Mexico. Over time, most of the company's inside sales moved there, with leadership and outside sales based in the US and some inside sales still stateside, a structure built around where the best talent was rather than where the org chart assumed it would be. It is the clearest example of the model working across borders, and three years on, the engagement is still running.

JusticeText // Legal tech

Their first full-time marketer, still in the role

1 quarter: 3-month engagement
1st: Full-time marketing hire
1+ yr: Still in the role

The situation

JusticeText, an early-stage legal-tech company, was ready to make its first dedicated marketing hire. A first hire in a brand-new function is high stakes: no one internal has done the job, so there is no benchmark for what good looks like. They needed someone who understood a growing startup, with real experience across the Seed and Series A stages.

What we did

We defined the role and built the scorecard from scratch, then mapped the market for marketers who fit an early-stage legal-tech context: people who had built through Seed and Series A rather than run one slice of a larger machine. The search ran under JusticeText's brand, and candidates met the company, not an agency.

The outcome

In a single three-month engagement we placed their first full-time marketer, who has now been in the role for over a year. A short engagement, a hire that stuck: the fit was right, not just fast. The founders came away with a repeatable definition of the role for whenever they grow the team.

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