Talent Acquisition as a Service
The best of both worlds. The accountability of both.
Most growing companies are caught between models that don't fit. Agencies fill seats and move on. Building in-house takes time and headcount you don't have. Neither gives you a partner who knows your business from the inside, reaches candidates others can't, and has skin in the game.
That's what we built.
Book a Discovery CallThe Problem
The gap nobody talks about.
Mid-market companies spend hundreds of thousands on third-party recruitment fees every year — paid on placement, not on performance. When a hire doesn't work out, the fee is gone and the search starts again. The agency moves on. The hiring manager picks up the pieces.
Building in-house sounds like the answer. Until you price it up. A dedicated talent acquisition team takes months to stand up, costs as much to maintain as it does to scale, and leaves you exposed the moment demand shifts.
There is a better model. Large organisations have used it for years. Until now, it hasn't existed in a form that works for companies hiring at the pace and sophistication of the mid-market.
The Model
What Talent Acquisition as a Service looks like.
A dedicated Lyle Alexander recruiter becomes part of your team. They use your tools, attend your meetings, learn your culture, and represent your employer brand the way an insider would. Behind them is the full infrastructure of an executive search firm — a deep candidate network, independent sourcing capability, and a methodology refined over decades.
You get the reach and quality of an agency. The accountability and depth of in-house. And a pricing structure that keeps us honest.
Our fees split between a monthly retainer — which keeps us focused, active, and embedded — and a success component tied to hires made. We can structure that success element around tenure or agreed performance milestones. Our incentive is not to fill a seat. It is to fill it with someone who delivers.
“This is not RPO. This is not contingency. This is a partnership built around your growth, priced to reflect shared risk, and designed to last.”
What's Included
What you can expect.
One dedicated recruiter, embedded in your team
One point of contact. One person who knows your business as well as anyone. Working to your priorities, at your pace, under your brand.
Executive search methodology, applied at scale
The same rigorous six-phase process we use for C-suite retained searches — discovery, planning, sourcing, screening, authentication, and commitment — applied to every hire we make for you.
Access to the passive market
Top performers rarely apply to jobs. They respond to people they know, conversations that feel different, and opportunities presented with genuine insight into what the role could mean for their career. That is how we work.
Performance-tied pricing
Success fees structured around outcomes. We can tie the second element of our fee to tenure, pre-agreed performance milestones, or both. You define what good looks like before we begin. We are accountable to it.
Executive search escalation
When a role demands the full weight of a retained search — a CRO, a Head of Delivery, a leadership hire — we escalate seamlessly within the same relationship. No new agency. No new briefing process. No starting from scratch.
Learn more about retained search →GC Index™ psychometric profiling
John Lyle is an accredited GCologist™. For leadership hires and team-building briefs, we use the GC Index to evaluate fit, challenge assumptions, and help you build a team with the right balance of energy — not just the right CVs.
Learn more about assessments →How It Starts
Three ways to begin.
01
The 90-Day Pilot
Not ready for a full commitment? Start with a scoped pilot — three roles, one dedicated recruiter, ninety days. We agree success criteria upfront. If we deliver, we convert. If we don't, you've lost a fraction of what you'd have paid in agency fees.
02
The Growth Partnership
For companies with a consistent hiring need of five to ten roles a month. A dedicated recruiting team, employer brand consultation, ATS optimisation, and quarterly business reviews — wrapped in a transparent retainer and success fee structure.
03
The Scale Partnership
For organisations building serious internal TA infrastructure while maintaining the quality and reach of an external partner. Workforce planning, DE&I sourcing, hiring manager training, and executive search escalation — all under one roof.
Pricing is tailored to your hiring volume, role complexity, and timeline. We will always recommend the simplest structure that achieves your goals.
Who This Is For
Built for companies at an inflection point.
Talent Acquisition as a Service works best for mid-market organisations — typically between 200 and 2,000 employees — growing faster than their internal infrastructure can comfortably support. Companies where every hire materially changes the trajectory of the business. Companies where the difference between the right person and the wrong one is not a rounding error.
If you lean too heavily on contingency agencies, know you need a more strategic approach to hiring, and want a partner as invested in the outcome as you are — this was built for you.
Why Lyle Alexander
The firm behind the model.
Lyle Alexander was founded on a simple idea: that the best recruitment work happens when the recruiter understands the client's world as deeply as the best candidates do — and is incentivised to care about the outcome long after the placement is made.
John Lyle built his career in executive search before spending five years in embedded RPO — seeing both sides of the divide, understanding exactly why neither model fully served the client. Jay Goldstein brings 35 years of staffing and consulting industry placement experience and an unmatched personal network.
This service is the product of everything they learned from both sides.
Learn more about how we think65+
Mid-senior professionals placed in 27 months
90%+
Offer acceptance rate
35+
Years combined placement experience
Ready to build something better?
Start with a conversation. We listen more than we talk, ask the questions that sharpen your thinking, and come back with a model tailored to where you are and where you are going. No obligation. No template proposal.
Book a Discovery CallOr reach us directly: info@lyle-alexander.com | (512) 522-2778