Enthusiasm fuels this talent hunt

The headhunter liked Kevin O’Neill, wanted the 20-something product manager to take the sales job he was offering on behalf of his client.
But after flying to Philadelphia and sitting through an interview at the recruiter’s office, O’Neill had to admit he just wasn’t interested.
“Well, what are you interested in?” the recruiter asked.
O’Neill looked around at the finely decorated office and gave a response that has shaped his career ever since: “Tell me what you do.”
More than 20 years later, O’Neill is the owner of a South Kingstown-based executive-search firm that locates top candidates for C-level jobs – CEOs, CFOs, CIOs – on down to lower-level management positions.
O’Neill Consulting Group LLC has tracked down chief operating officer candidates for Providence-based home and commercial technology manufacturer Nortek Inc., has helped fill the chief financial officer position for Nortek subsidiary Nordyne Inc. and has located a chief financial officer for telecommunications company Towerstream Inc. in Middletown.
But O’Neill Consulting’s reach goes well beyond Rhode Island.
The 17-employee search firm is wrapping up a recruiting effort for Dunkin’ Brands for positions in Ontario, Canada. The firm has also filled 100 positions in the last two years for Swiss food giant Nestle and a subsidiary, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. Most recently, the world’s largest mozzarella producer, Denver-based Leprino Foods Co., retained O’Neill Consulting to recruit 15 first-line managers to help operate an expanded factory in California.
“This all evolves out of relationships,” O’Neill says in explaining his company’s success. “My strength has always been client development. We develop a relationship with a company, understand the culture; we get to understand what their needs are. … We don’t do a lot of one-search deals.”
His methods have paid off.
This past year, the O’Neill Consulting Group ranked near the top of Providence Business News’ list of the fastest-growing private firms in Rhode Island.
In 2007, O’Neill reported $2 million in revenue. Although the final tally is not complete for 2008, O’Neill says the company’s numbers should improve by about 25 percent, despite the global economic downturn.
O’Neill certainly has come a long way from that interview in Philadelphia two decades ago, when he really wasn’t even aware that there were businesses that were retained to find candidates for high-level jobs for other companies.
But there was something about it that appealed to O’Neill immediately, and he pushed for the high-powered Philadelphia recruiting firm to hire him. It took six months to convince them to take a chance on someone with absolutely no experience.
“I was looking for an opportunity to work with decision-makers, executives in companies who create policy, who steer the ship,” O’Neill says now. “I really chased it.”
After 15 months of 18-hour days, he says he was the No. 2 revenue producer in a firm with 300 staff members.
That hard work drew the attention of one of his clients, Merrill Lynch, which recruited him into the world of investment banking, an industry he stayed in until the mid-1990s. That’s when he returned to his native Rhode Island and reentered the field of executive search.
At first, his consulting business was a one-man shop operated out of a home office, but soon he had more work than he could handle himself.
Now a staff of 17 at O’Neill Consulting operates out of a 3,500-square-foot office in Wakefield.
These days, firms such as O’Neill’s rely heavily on technology, running searches for candidates through the Internet and computer databases.
While O’Neill Consulting uses those tools, too, the company employs skills O’Neill learned in the 1980s, when few offices even had desktop computers.
“The recruiting process is personal,” he says. “It’s not this virtual relationship that runs over the Internet.”
When it comes to narrowing possible candidates to a short list, O’Neill insists on face-to-face interviews – he logged 300,000 miles flying last year – although sometimes the staff conducts these meetings through Web cams.
Adapting with the times, O’Neill has rolled out a new division of the firm, Career Transition Solutions, which can provide in-depth outplacement services for laid-off workers, services that are paid for by the company.
A crucial component to O’Neill’s success: He says he still possesses the enthusiasm for the search profession that he displayed in that headhunter’s office 20 or so years ago.
“You can develop very close relationships with people who are making major decisions – decisions that you’re reading about in the Wall Street Journal,” O’Neill says. “It’s exciting and thrilling.” •
COMPANY PROFILE
O’Neill Consulting Group LLC
OWNER: Kevin O’Neill
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Executive-search firm
LOCATION: 10 High St., South Kingstown
EMPLOYEES: 17
YEAR ESTABLISHED: 1996
ANNUAL SALES: $2 million in 2007