Affinity Search Partners
For HR and talent acquisition leads

Technical requisitions are a different search. Hand us the hard ones.

Affinity Search Partners is a founder-led IT and information systems recruiting firm based in Brentwood, Tennessee, founded in 2013. When a cloud, software or data role has been open longer than anyone is comfortable with, we take the search and bring back a short list of people worth interviewing, while your team keeps the rest of the board moving.

Hand us a hard role Read about the firm

Requisition intake

Sample
  • Role title, level and reporting line agreed
  • Hiring manager and HR aligned on must-haves
  • Compensation range and flexibility confirmed
  • Written candidate profile signed off
  • Interview panel and loop mapped
  • Decision owner and offer approver named
  • Counter-offer plan discussed

Illustration of an intake in progress. Not a client record.

Where a technical hire gets hung up

Most open requisitions are not stuck for lack of effort. They are stuck in one of three places, and each one needs a different fix.

Speed

The calendar is slower than the candidate

A good engineer who agrees to talk is usually talking to other companies too. Every week spent finding a panel slot or waiting on interview notes is a week for someone else to close. We keep the loop tight and chase feedback so you do not have to.

Target

Nobody agrees what a good fit looks like

The hiring manager wants depth in one stack, the team lead wants range, and the requisition says both. We start with role definition and a written candidate profile that everyone signs, so the search is for one person and not for three different ones.

Character

The résumé says nothing about hard stretches

Skills are easy to list and hard to fake in a technical screen. How someone behaves when a release slips or a system goes down at the wrong hour is harder to see. Our scorecard covers motivation, compensation alignment and references alongside the technical fit, and we tell you what we heard.

What we need from you to start

Not much, and none of it polished. The first conversation is where we tighten the role together. Bring what you have and we will tell you plainly whether the search is one we should take.

Hand us a hard role
  • The requisition as it stands. A draft is fine. Titles, tools and the reason the seat is open tell us more than a finished posting.
  • An hour with the hiring manager. We ask about the work, the team, the last person in the role and what would make this hire a relief rather than a risk.
  • The compensation range and how firm it is. We check alignment early so nobody is surprised at offer stage.
  • How the interview loop runs. Who sits on the panel, who decides and who approves the offer. We coordinate around that rather than adding steps to it.
  • Prompt feedback after each interview. A short call or a few lines are enough. Fast feedback is the single thing that keeps strong people in your process.
  • Candour in return. If the budget moves, the role changes or an internal candidate appears, tell us. We will do the same.

Role families we place

Contract and consulting placements to cover a project or a gap, contract-to-hire when you want to see the fit first, permanent hires, and technology leaders. The employers we work with are in healthcare, manufacturing, financial services and technology, across Middle Tennessee and nationally.

Family Typical titles How they are usually engaged
Cloud and infrastructure Cloud engineers, systems engineers, network engineers, infrastructure and platform roles, help desk and support leads Contract for migrations and projects; permanent for people who will own the environment
Software development Software engineers, project and product managers, business analysts, quality assurance Contract-to-hire is common here; permanent for core product teams
Data and analytics Data engineers, data scientists, business intelligence developers and analysts, data analysts Permanent for the people who build and keep the reporting layer; contract for defined builds
Technology leadership Directors, heads of engineering, infrastructure and data leaders, senior individual contributors the business depends on Permanent searches, run with more discretion and a smaller shortlist

Working alongside internal recruiting

We are not here to replace your team or your process. Most HR and talent acquisition groups fill the majority of their requisitions well. The technical ones that need passive candidates, market knowledge and a lot of chasing are the ones we take, and we fit around the way you already work.

What we carry

  • Sourcing from warmest to coldest, with the emphasis on people who are not applying anywhere
  • A consistent screening scorecard: skills, motivation, compensation alignment and references
  • A shortlist of a few people worth interviewing, each with a note on why
  • Interview coordination and the collection of fast feedback on both sides
  • Offer strategy and counter-offer planning before the offer goes out
  • Onboarding check-ins and follow-up after the start date

What stays with you

  • Your employer brand, careers page and applicant tracking system
  • Approvals, offer letters, background checks and paperwork
  • Roles your team is already filling well from inbound and referrals
  • The relationship with the new hire from day one; we stay in the background
  • The decision. We advise, we do not push, and we say so when we think a search is not a fit for us

Which requisition has been open the longest?

Send us that one. A conversation about the role costs nothing and comes with no obligation. If we can help, we will say how. If we cannot, we will say that too.

Hand us a hard role Read about the firm