Discipline is a method, not an adjective.
Every firm claims integrity and rigor. Here is the specific, checkable version of what those words mean at 2148 Industries, and what you can hold us to.
What shapes how we take work, run it, and account for it.
Veteran-Led Discipline
Military service teaches planning, accountability, and the habit of finishing what you started. Our engagements run on written objectives, defined phases, and standing reporting, so you always know where the search stands and what happens next.
Written mission brief approved before any candidate is approached.
Operators, Not Résumé Brokers
We have built and led the functions we now recruit and advise for. That means we can assess a candidate against the job rather than the job description, and tell a hiring executive when the role they have written is not the role they need.
Every engagement is run by a principal, not delegated to a research team.
Depth Over Volume
We take a limited number of engagements at a time. A slate of four assessed finalists is worth more than forty forwarded résumés, and you should not be paying anyone to filter a job board on your behalf.
Four to six qualified finalists per slate, every one defensible to your board.
Accountable to the Outcome
Placement is a milestone, not the finish line. We stay engaged through integration, measure against the baseline we set at the start, and carry a 180-day replacement guarantee on retained placements.
180-day replacement guarantee; 90-day integration built into every search.
How a 2148 engagement differs from the default.
Not every search firm operates the way described on the left. Enough of them do that it is worth stating our position explicitly.
| Dimension | The common default | 2148 Industries |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs your engagement | A partner sells it; an associate you never met executes it | A founding partner from brief to integration |
| What defines the role | The job description you already had | A written mandate: the outcomes required in eighteen months |
| What arrives on your desk | A high volume of forwarded résumés | Four to six assessed finalists with written dossiers |
| Where the market is searched | Active candidates and the firm’s existing database | A mapped universe, approached directly and confidentially |
| When the engagement ends | At the signed offer | After a structured ninety-day integration |
| How success is measured | Time-to-fill and the placement fee | Retention at twenty-four months, against a week-one baseline |
Terms of engagement.
- 4–6
- Assessed finalists per slate
- 180
- Day replacement guarantee
- 100–120
- Days to first slate
- 1
- Business day response
Never a stack of résumés, never a single favorite
On every retained placement
Typical retained search
To any client inquiry, at any seniority
Four positions we hold, including the inconvenient ones.
We will tell you when you are wrong
If the role as written will not attract the leader you need, or the compensation is below market, or the real problem is the hiring manager rather than the pipeline, we say so in the first conversation. Clients do not pay us to agree with them.
We decline work we should not take
If a mandate sits outside our markets, or the organization is not ready to make the decision the search requires, we will refer you elsewhere rather than take the retainer. A search we cannot win damages our standing with candidates.
Candidates are treated as principals
We do not submit anyone without explicit consent, we do not approach people without a real mandate behind the call, and we tell candidates when they are out rather than leaving them in silence. In concentrated markets this is also the only sustainable commercial strategy.
Confidentiality is structural, not a promise
Named-party disclosure is controlled by you at every stage. Confidential search is a core capability, covering succession and replacement situations where discretion is the primary constraint, and the process is built for it by default.
What to expect.
A principal responds within one business day and proposes a 45-minute conversation. That conversation is diagnostic, not a pitch. We are establishing whether the problem you have described is the problem you actually have, and whether we are the right firm for it. If we are not, we will tell you and point you somewhere better.
Retained search is engaged on a fee of 25% of the executive’s first-year total cash compensation, structured in two parts: 10% as a non-refundable retainer to begin the search, and 15% on successful placement. Recruiting consulting and leadership development are scoped and priced before work begins, never billed hourly and never open-ended.
Yes. Our engagements run nationwide rather than regionally, across aerospace, manufacturing, industrial, engineering, supply chain and logistics, and defense.
Entirely. Confidential search is a core capability, including succession and replacement situations where discretion is the primary constraint. We will sign a mutual NDA before the first call if you prefer.
Hold us to it.
Bring us a mandate and see the standard applied. A 45-minute conversation with a principal, confidential, and free of charge.
Or reach us directly at info@2148industries.com