Duffy Recruitment Research™: A Strategic 5-Step Process
to Unearth Hidden Talent

Duffy Recruitment Research™: A Strategic 5-Step Process to Unearth Hidden Talent

In an industry where contingent and retained search models are predominant, Duffy Group is pioneering a new approach — informed search — anchored in its proprietary Duffy Recruitment Research™ model.

While retained search firms often use research to unearth candidates, Duffy Group was one of the first to bring a structured approach to in-depth research and analysis directly to corporate America.

This five-step process has helped organizations nationwide take charge of the hiring process and cultivate a candidate pool geared toward long-term, quality results.

How Duffy Recruitment Research™ Works

1. Strategy Development
We begin with a thorough intake, asking targeted questions to understand your needs, role, organization and culture, as the first step in Duffy Recruitment Research™.

2. Name Generation
Our next step is identifying people who are in the roles you are looking to recruit, recognizing highly skilled passive candidates aren’t actively job hunting or scouring job boards.

3. Position Promotion
Then, we tell your story to spark interest in your position, ensuring candidates are fully informed about the job, company culture and search nuances.

4. Candidate Evaluation
Once we’ve piqued the candidates’ interest, we fully vet their background and experience, creating a profile with details beyond the resume.

5. Presentation & Report
When presenting candidates, we deliver a curated database of candidates and key market insights, steering you toward the right match while preparing your organization for strategic hiring in the future.

1. Strategy Development
We begin with a thorough intake, asking targeted questions to understand your needs, role, organization and culture, as the first step in Duffy Recruitment Research™.

2. Name Generation
Our next step is identifying people who are in the roles you are looking to recruit, recognizing highly skilled passive candidates aren’t actively job hunting or scouring job boards.

3. Position Promotion
Then, we tell your story to spark interest in your position, ensuring candidates are fully informed about the job, company culture and search nuances.

4. Candidate Evaluation
Once we’ve piqued the candidates’ interest, we fully vet their background and experience, creating a profile with details beyond the resume.

5. Presentation & Report
When presenting candidates, we deliver a curated database of candidates and key market insights, steering you toward the right match while preparing your organization for strategic hiring in the future.

How Duffy Group Redefines Talent Partnerships

Get a peek into the art and science of Duffy Recruitment Research™

Duffy Does It Different

Unlike the contingent search’s quantity over quality approach, retained search’s costlier upfront fees or contained search’s hybrid model, informed search is a customized, research-driven strategy that delivers a short list of interested, qualified candidates and market data for smarter hiring strategies. It’s insightful, cost-effective and future proof.

Fully Customizable & Scalable: No one-size-fits-all solutions here. We conduct a thorough analysis of your unique demands and plug gaps where you need it most.

Hiring Speed: In just 10-15 business days, our clients receive qualified and interested candidates, providing them with a competitive edge in fast-paced hiring environments.

Access to Passive Talent: We actively pursue passive candidates — those not actively seeking new opportunities — to uncover talent traditional recruiting models or search engines might miss.

Culture-Focused Talent Matching: We’re all about finding the right fit for your culture and values, ensuring the best long-term match for your team.

Partner Collaboration: We function as an extension of our clients’ teams, collaborating closely with HR partners and hiring leaders to deliver unmatched value, competitor data and carefully vetted candidates.

Fully Customizable & Scalable: No one-size-fits-all solutions here. We conduct a thorough analysis of your unique demands and plug gaps where you need it most.

Hiring Speed: In just 10-15 business days, our clients receive qualified and interested candidates, providing them with a competitive edge in fast-paced hiring environments.

Access to Passive Talent: We actively pursue passive candidates — those not actively seeking new opportunities — to uncover talent traditional recruiting models or search engines might miss.

Culture-Focused Talent Matching: We’re all about finding the right fit for your cultureand values, ensuring the best long-term match for your team.

Partner Collaboration: We function as an extension of our clients’ teams, collaborating closely with HR partners and hiring leaders to deliver unmatched value, competitor dataand carefully vetted candidates.

Frequently Asked Questions

Customized for each industry and market dynamic, our proprietary five-step process enables us to collaborate with client teams and become an integral part of their internal process. This integration ensures candidates don’t realize they are interacting with a third party.

It enables us to match them not only based on skills but also on alignment with company values and culture, leading to better matches and higher retention rates, as employees are more likely to stay with the company long-term.

Duffy Recruitment Research™: A five-step method connecting companies with qualified and in-demand passive talent through comprehensive research and a flexible, hourly pricing model. This approach provides pre-screened candidates fitting organizational needs, not just resumes, and includes competitive intelligence for future recruitment strategies. It involves the following steps:

  1. Strategy Development: Conduct a comprehensive intake, asking targeted questions to thoroughly understand your needs, role, organization and culture.
  2. Name Generation: Identify potential candidates who are in the roles you are looking to recruit, recognizing highly skilled passive candidates aren’t actively job hunting or scouring job boards.
  3. Position Promotion: Generate enthusiasm to attract interest in the open position, providing a clear understanding of the role, company and culture.
  4. Candidate Evaluation: Rigorously screen candidates, going beyond the surface to gather comprehensive information including competitive insights to help clients understand what their competitors are doing and paying.
  5. Presentation & Report: Deliver a curated candidate database and key market insights for strategic hiring now and in the future.

Retained Search: An initial fee-based search for senior or specialized roles, emphasizing a detailed, phased approach and exclusive partnership, with fees tied to total first-year earnings.

Contingent Search: Fee-based upon successful placement, ideal for urgent filling of intermediate roles, using extensive databases but with less focus on cultural fit.

Our approach enables clients to choose the service level best suited to their needs. Options range from full-scope, outsourced recruitment to front-end name generation and candidate screening, where we supply a list of qualified candidates for internal teams to handle the further search stages.

Proficient in talent acquisition and deeply familiar with their industries, our research teams are particularly adept at targeting and engaging candidates for mid- to executive-level roles, as well as highly skilled and specialized roles that can be challenging to fill.

Your search will be in the hands of our practice leaders who guide our recruiting teams to ensure your requirements are met. They collaborate directly with you throughout the process.

Customizable and flexible, our innovative informed search model allows organizations to strategically deploy Duffy Recruitment Research™ where they need it most.

This enables us to become vigilant stewards of our clients’ recruiting dollars, billing only for actual time worked and offering significant savings.

In 2023, our searches cost an average of just 14.5% of salaries, offering significant savings compared to the industry standard of 20%-35%.

We guarantee to connect interested, qualified candidates with companies, effectively presenting the opportunity, determining their interest and gaining competitive intelligence.

Our Duffy Recruitment Research™ model is versatile, spanning from mid- to executive-level positions, as well as highly skilled, specialized roles.

We excel in engaging passive talent — those experienced individuals who aren’t actively job hunting but are open to the right opportunities. This makes our model well-suited for niche, high-volume and hard-to-fill positions across diverse industries.

Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Duffy Group provides recruiting services nationally and internationally, with a virtual workforce in 14 states. We serve clients across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Central America, Europe and Asia, specializing in sectors such as nonprofit, healthcare and renewable energy. Find out more about the industries we cater to.

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Recruitment Research

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