Direct Placement and Contract Recruiting.
Two ways to hire with one standard of quality, built on 15+ years of recruiting for the federal sector, government contractors, and professional services firms.
Direct Placement
Direct placement helps you fill critical positions that have stayed open too long. We specialize in roles that have been vacant for 30 days or longer: the searches where job boards have gone quiet, internal referrals are exhausted, and every week the seat stays empty costs the team momentum.
The engagement starts with a discovery conversation, not a resume database. We learn the role as your hiring manager sees it: the must-have skills, the clearance or compliance requirements common in federal sector work, the team it joins, and what the first year of success looks like. From there we map the market, tap a network built over 15+ years of recruiting relationships, and approach qualified candidates directly, including the passive ones who never see a job posting.
Every candidate you meet has already been screened against the role, briefed on your organization, and confirmed to be genuinely interested. You receive a curated shortlist rather than a flood of resumes, and we stay engaged through interviews, offer negotiation, and onboarding.
Who it’s for
- Hiring managers with critical roles open 30+ days and no qualified pipeline
- Federal contractors and professional services firms that need niche or cleared talent
- Teams that want a recruiting partner accountable for results, not activity
What you receive
- A curated, pre-screened shortlist for each role
- Market and compensation insight gathered during the search
- Interview scheduling, offer support, and onboarding follow-through
- A 90-day placement guarantee on every hire
Because pricing is success-based, you pay only for positions we actually fill. There are no retainers and no charges for a search that doesn’t end in a hire. It’s a risk-free way to take your hardest searches off your desk.
Contract Recruiting
Built for hiring that ebbs and flows, contract recruiting supports your short- or long-term needs. Instead of paying a fee per hire, you get dedicated recruiting capacity by the hour: an experienced recruiter working as an embedded extension of your talent acquisition team.
This model was built for the rhythms of federal sector and professional services hiring: proposal and capture efforts that need staffing plans and contingent candidates on short deadlines, contract awards that trigger a surge of openings at once, and seasonal or project-based demand that doesn’t justify a permanent recruiting hire. We plug into your process, your applicant tracking system, and your hiring managers, and we run the full cycle of sourcing, screening, scheduling, and offer support under your banner.
The terms stay flexible. You set the hours, we track and report them, and you can scale up, scale down, or cancel at any time without penalties. When the surge ends, the engagement ends, with no severance, no bench, and no long-term commitment.
Who it’s for
- Contractors staffing up after an award or preparing a proposal bid
- Talent acquisition teams that need surge capacity without adding headcount
- Growing organizations that need senior recruiting expertise a few days a week
What you receive
- A dedicated recruiter embedded with your team, hour by hour
- Full-cycle recruiting: sourcing, screening, scheduling, offers
- Transparent time tracking and regular pipeline reporting
- The freedom to scale or cancel anytime, without penalties
The result is flexibility: recruiting help exactly when you need it, at a predictable hourly cost, without the overhead of a permanent hire or the per-placement fees of a search firm.
Which Service Fits Your Need?
| Direct Placement | Contract Recruiting | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Critical roles open 30+ days | Surge hiring, proposals, project-based needs |
| Cost model | Success-based: pay only when we fill the role | Hourly: pay for the recruiting time you use |
| Timeline | Until the right candidate is placed | Short or long-term, scales with your needs |
| Guarantee | 90-day placement guarantee | Cancel anytime, no penalties |
From First Call to Placed Candidate.
Discovery
We learn the role, the team, and what success looks like.
Sourcing
We tap our network to surface qualified, interested candidates.
Vetting
You meet a curated shortlist, not a flood of resumes.
Placement
We close the offer and stay engaged through onboarding.
Frequently Asked Questions.
What is direct placement recruiting?
Direct placement recruiting is a success-based hiring model: we source, vet, and deliver candidates for a permanent role, and you pay a fee only when you hire one of them. The Wheaton Group specializes in direct placement for hard-to-fill positions that have been open 30 days or longer, and every placement is backed by a 90-day guarantee.
How does the 90-day guarantee work?
Every direct placement is backed for 90 days from the candidate’s start date. If a placed candidate leaves or is released within that window, we restart the search and replace them at no additional fee. Combined with success-based pricing, that means you only ever pay for a hire that sticks.
What is contract recruiting?
Contract recruiting gives you dedicated recruiting capacity on an hourly basis instead of a per-hire fee. It’s built for surge hiring, proposal and capture efforts, and short- or long-term projects where you need an experienced recruiter embedded with your team. You scale hours up or down as demand changes and can cancel anytime without penalties.
What industries does The Wheaton Group specialize in?
The Wheaton Group specializes in the federal sector, including government contractors and consulting firms supporting federal agencies, along with professional services, finance, and technology roles. That focus is built on 15+ years of recruiting relationships developed by our Principal, William Hwang.