Fractional recruitment · Heavy industry · Canada & U.S.
Your hiring desk,
without the headcount.
Shadow Recruiters is a fractional recruitment partner for heavy industry — automotive and food manufacturing, shipbuilding, packaging, mining, industrial construction, oil & gas, and pharmaceutical & food science. We run your talent acquisition function on a flat monthly rate: sourcing, screening, scheduling, and offer support from the production floor to the executive suite.
No retainers. No placement fees. No long-term contracts. Month to month, cancel with 30 days' notice.
The model
Flexibility when you need it most
A fractional recruiter is an embedded, part-time talent acquisition function — your recruiting department, rented by the month. You get a dedicated industrial recruiter working your requisitions like an internal hire, without the salary, benefits, burden, ATS seat, job-board spend, or the risk of carrying a recruiter through a slow quarter.
Not an agency
We don't sell résumés
Contingency agencies are paid only when a body lands, so volume beats fit. We're paid the same whether you hire one millwright or eleven — the incentive is a hire who is still there at 18 months.
Not a retained search
No money up front
Retained search wants a third of the fee before a single call is made, and it covers one senior role. We cover your whole req list — welders, QA inspectors, shift supervisors, a VP of Operations — in the same month.
Not an in-house hire
No permanent headcount
A corporate recruiter is a salary, a benefits package, and a tooling stack before they source anyone — and you still own the ramp-up, the vacation coverage, and the severance. Scale us up for a plant expansion, down after the wave.
Cost effectiveness
What changes when you stop paying per hire
Every model below fills the same seat. The difference is what you commit to before it's filled — and what happens on the second, third, and fourth hire that year.
| Hiring model | How it's charged | On your next hire | Committed up front | Locked in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contingency agency | A percentage of the salary, per placement | Charged again, in full | Nothing | Per-hire fee, every time |
| Retained search | Instalments against one senior role | A separate engagement | Retainer | Exclusive, 90–180 days |
| In-house recruiter | Salary, benefits, burden and tools — busy month or slow | Absorbed, until capacity runs out | Payroll | Permanent headcount |
| Shadow fractional desk | One flat monthly rate for the desk | Included — no additional charge | Nothing | 30-day notice |
Predictable
One line on the budget
The same figure every month whether you hire once or four times. Nothing arrives after an offer is signed, and nothing moves when the market pushes wages up.
Volume works for you
Fill one, start the next
Close a seat and the next requisition moves into it the same week at no additional charge. On a per-placement model, every extra hire is another invoice.
The hidden cost
The vacancy itself
An open maintenance seat on a 24/7 line is paid in overtime, downtime, and missed schedule. Time-to-fill is the line item nobody budgets and everybody pays.
Why plants switch
Eight reasons a fractional desk wins
Predictable, budgetable spend
One flat invoice a month. Nothing arrives the week after an offer is signed, and nothing creeps upward when the market pushes wages up.
Zero risk on a slow quarter
No retainer to write off, no severance to pay. If the hiring plan pauses, you give 30 days' notice and the cost stops.
Candidates you actually own
Every résumé, note, and pipeline we build is delivered to you and stays yours. No ownership clauses, no re-fee if you hire a silver-medal candidate six months later.
Passive talent, not job-board applicants
The best 442A electrician in your region is employed and not on a job board. We work outbound — competitor mapping, trade networks, apprenticeship pipelines, veteran transition programs.
Real industrial fluency
We read the difference between a Red Seal millwright and a maintenance helper, between IATF 16949 and ISO 9001, between a CWB ticket and a CWI. Your hiring manager stops screening the unscreenable.
Full-stack role coverage
The same desk fills a shipper/receiver, a CNC machinist, a quality supervisor, a maintenance manager, and a plant director. One partner, one process, one point of contact.
Confidential when it needs to be
Replacing an incumbent, opening a greenfield site, or hiring against a competitor? We source without naming you until you're ready.
Speed measured in days
Intake within 48 hours of kickoff. First screened shortlist on most floor and trades roles inside 7–10 business days.
Industry focus
Twelve sectors, one recruiting desk
We recruit where the work is loud, regulated, safety-critical, and hard to staff. If it runs on shifts, tickets, and tolerances, we know the vocabulary.
Role coverage
Production floor to executive
A single fractional desk covering every level of an industrial org chart — hourly, salaried, skilled trades, technical, supervisory, and leadership.
Engagement
How the desk runs
A real sequence — each stage depends on the one before it.
Scoping call & intake — week 0
Twenty minutes on your req list, shift structure, wage bands, and what's been failing. We map the roles, the local labour market, and a realistic time-to-fill before you commit to anything.
Desk goes live — days 1–5
Intake with each hiring manager, scorecards built, job ads written for search engines and for tradespeople, sourcing channels opened. No setup fee, no onboarding invoice.
Sourcing & screening — ongoing
Outbound to passive candidates, inbound triage, phone screens, ticket and certification verification, wage-expectation alignment, and shift-fit confirmation before anyone reaches your inbox.
Shortlist & interview coordination
You get a short, ranked slate with screening notes — not a résumé dump. We book the interviews, chase confirmations, and handle reschedules.
Offer, close & start-date protection
Offer coaching, counter-offer management, reference checks, and stay-in-touch through notice periods — the window where industrial hires most often evaporate.
Monthly review — you decide what's next
Pipeline metrics, source-of-hire, time-to-fill, and market wage feedback. Scale the desk up, scale it down, or give 30 days' notice. No renewal to negotiate.
Subscriptions
Flat monthly. Cancel with 30 days.
Priced by desk capacity, not by placement. Every tier includes unlimited roles within its active-requisition count — fill a seat and the next one moves in at no additional charge. Rates are quoted after a scoping call, once we know your req list and your market.
Single site
Line Desk
- Up to 3 active requisitions at a time
- Production, warehouse & skilled trades focus
- Sourcing, screening & interview scheduling
- Job ads written and posted under your brand or ours
- Employer portal access & bi-weekly pipeline report
Multi-department
Plant Desk
- Up to 8 active requisitions at a time
- Floor through supervisory, QA/QC and maintenance
- Dedicated recruiter + sourcer
- Competitor and wage-band market mapping
- Offer coaching & counter-offer management
- Unlimited job board postings included
Multi-site & leadership
Group Desk
- Unlimited active requisitions across sites
- Confidential executive & director search included
- Greenfield, expansion & ramp-up staffing plans
- Employer-brand and careers-page support
- Quarterly labour-market and compensation briefing
Billed monthly in advance. No setup fee, no placement fee, no exclusivity, and no minimum term. Pause or cancel any month with 30 days' written notice. Ask for a rate on a scoping call — we quote against your actual req list rather than a published tier.
For candidates
Your name doesn't move until you say so
Blind submission by default
Employers see your skills, tickets, and experience before they see your name. Your identity is released only after you give explicit consent — so you can look without your current shop finding out.
We don't shop your résumé
No mass submissions, no blasting your profile to twenty employers to see what sticks. You are never "owned," never locked into exclusivity, and never a line item in someone's placement quota.
Looking for industrial work?
Skilled trades, maintenance, QA/QC, supervisory, and plant leadership roles across Canada. Track your applications in the candidate portal.
Questions employers ask
Fractional recruitment, answered
What is a fractional recruiter?
How is this different from a staffing agency?
Are there really no retainers or long-term contracts?
Do you charge a placement fee when we hire someone?
Can you fill hourly production and warehouse roles, or only salaried ones?
Why aren't your rates published?
Which industries do you recruit for?
Do you replace our HR department?
How fast is the first shortlist?
What if we only need help for one hiring wave?
Do you work in the United States as well as Canada?
Start here
Scope a fractional desk
Tell us what you're hiring and we'll come back with a realistic time-to-fill, a market wage read, and a monthly rate. No obligation, no retainer to start the conversation.