Kirk Podawiltz

Senior Leadership in Corporate Staffing and Recruiting successful at establishing the vision and strategies necessary to ensure companies have the necessary manpower with the right skills, right time and right location in order for them to successfully execute strategic business objectives. Successfully built and revitalized recruiting organizations with domestic and international responsibilities by redefining the role of the recruiter, streamlining processes, and building strong partnerships with management and peers within HR. Excelled at leading company-wide retention program by decreasing first year attrition by focusing on candidate assessment and interview processes, on-boarding and new hire assimilation, and training. Strong skills in developing workforce planning tools and complex staffing models to re-position recruiting organization from being reactive to proactive by knowing and understanding hiring objectives for the company. Kirk Podawiltz has over 15 years of corporate staffing leadership and executive recruiting experience; working in corporate staffing leadership positions with companies such as Nortel Network, Lucent Technologies, Google, and Merrill Lynch. He has also spent many years working as in-house and external executive recruiter. Some of his in-house engagements have been with Apple, Intuit, and CSAA where he has successfully executed recruiting strategies and developed leadership assessment guide for almost every search he conducted to hire top executives for his clients. These leadership assessment guides were developed so there would be structure, consistency, and reduce subjectivity in the hiring decision. Kirk’s last full time position as Vice President of Staffing & Retention with Merrill Lynch, where he had a broad scope of responsibilities; developed his strategic business plan centered around retention and quality of hires; which resulted in developing and implementing “Hiring Right from the Start. This initiative consisted of developing structured interview programs for key areas of the business; focusing on a structured process, relevant questions asked consistently to each candidate interviewing for the same functional positions, and in some areas assessment tests, and role play scenarios. One key area of the business was for Sales/Financial Executives that his staff hired for branch location throughout the United States. After implementation of Hire Right From the Start, the company saw a reduction in first year attrition by 12%. Kirk is still involved in corporate recruiting but with the state of our economy he started to see friends, neighbors, and family members lose their jobs and many of these people haven’t had to look for a job in over 15 years. So he doesn’t consider himself a career counselor and encourages individuals to utilize services offered from a career outplacement service; however, he brings a different perspective in terms of advising job seekers on their overall job search strategies, interview tips, networking, and other basic fundamentals, which gives job seekers more tools to be better prepared for their job search journey.