Understanding that success in GovCon today requires creativity and often a look beyond your own walls to find the right partner, we sat down with Joe Barletta, Managing Partner at recruiting firm Procession Systems, to learn how their unique model achieves scale, greater cost-effectiveness, and higher candidate and employee satisfaction in solving one of the biggest challenges to growth.
Solving the Big Challenge of Industry
Recognizing that talent acquisition, particularly in GovCon, can be a challenge, Procession Systems was established to offer a long-term solution and cost effective solution to successfully recruiting cleared talent.
“For many leaders, their biggest pain point is recruiting, and there didn’t seem to be a cost-effective, scalable, and reliable solution. There’s a sea of recruiting firms out there, but they commonly take the same paths, failing to solve long-term problems and often carrying an expensive price tag. Many also ultimately become subcontractors. Our focus is different—it has always been designed to solve long-term recruiting challenges. We guarantee our results and make hundreds of cleared hires in a model that is more conducive to GovCon firms.”
“When I tell a potential client what we have achieved for other clients they often are shocked. We have a client that started with 50 employees and Procession has made every single hire that has helped them grow to 300 employees in the past 5 years in a cost model that saved them millions. We have another client that was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make 10 annual hires. That client is now making 50 annual hires for less cost than they were paying for 10 hires. I have not heard of GovCons successfully outsourcing recruiting at scale before and I truly believe we are unique in how we are solving a complex market problem.”
Procession understands that the “easy button” doesn’t exist in talent acquisition and looks for an investment from both sides to achieve results. That starts with developing proper infrastructure and creating a pitch that will resonate with in-demand talent. “We intentionally start small with each new client. We do this for several reasons, one being how much work goes into cleared recruiting and the necessity for both sides of the partnership to be aligned. Once we successfully prove out the model, we collaboratively create a customized long-term solution with each client.”
Delivering a Great Candidate Experience
“A lot of our clients are in that position of being serious about growth, willing to put their skin in the game and hold people accountable to act.”
Procession becomes a partner to its clients with a high-resource intensive effort. “We may spend hundreds of hours getting a single candidate for particular skill sets and we may do that multiple times over. We’re having phone conversations with thousands of cleared candidates every single month. We are on the hook to deliver our clients hundreds of cleared, qualified, vetted, and ready to interview every single month.”
Identifying and vetting candidates is just part of the work. The other is ensuring the company is prepared to deliver on their part of the experience. “There are a limited number of cleared candidates out there and companies also need to be ready with their best foot forward. Our reputation to the candidate market is of utmost importance to Procession. We must be representing the best firms with the best openings in order for candidates to want to work with us. One bad experience can turn off a candidate and if we do not have an attractive company to represent, we will fail. We say no to potential clients if we do not believe we will be able to offer an ideal home to candidates and provide a great candidate experience.”
Solving the Real Problem
While some talent-focused firms rely on contract-to-hire or subcontracting roles, Procession believes this approach doesn’t address the root problem: finding the right talent in a cost-sustainable model.
“When we speak to candidates, we aim to provide the same experience they would have if they were talking to the CEO of the company. That means we need to be truly knowledgeable about the company and convey the same passion as its leaders. We must be able to answer all questions and be able to talk specifics on all aspects of the company, position, and program.”
“When we submit a candidate to a client, we are doing so with the intent of that candidate being hired. We are deeply vetting each candidate and they are going into their first interview with a clear understanding of all aspects of the company and role. They are ready to interview and genuinely interested in being hired. Our goal is to ensure our clients feel confident that every candidate we provide is meticulously vetted and fully informed about the company and opportunity.”
Unique Business Model
While many staffing firms focus on making individual placements or charging by the hour, Procession sees this as a short-term approach which doesn’t necessarily guarantee results. “We focus instead on hiring dozens or hundreds of employees for our clients over time with a model that is much more cost-effective. It’s scalable and guarantees results that are ongoing. Each month we have a minimum SLA we must meet for each of our clients. Costs are correlated to real performance, not just hours spent and also not an exorbitant cost for a single hire.”
Procession partners well with internal recruiting teams providing consistent and reliable results. Often internal teams are using Procession support on roles outside of their typical wheelhouse allowing them to focus their effort on what they are best at with minimal time spent managing. For other clients, Procession serves as their entire recruiting function, managing all aspects of recruiting.
“Recruiting is something a lot of leaders don’t want to spend time managing. There is a perception though that every recruiting agency is doing the same thing on the same ineffective models. When we partner with clients willing to invest and collaborate, we consistently prove that Procession solves cleared recruiting in a way that’s highly attractive and effective.”
Leaning on Culture
Finding the right match for that quality candidate – not the one who changes jobs annually seeking higher pay raises – with the company that excels at retention isn’t rocket-science but does take time.
“Where people stay is not solely about money. Compensation is an important factor but believing in the company, feeling valued, having real growth opportunities, and being proud of the company you work for are often much more valuable than pure dollars in a paycheck.”
Business leaders need to understand what they are doing to differentiate their company, to make it a place people not only want to come, but want to stay. “Every cleared individual is being reached out to regularly by dozens of recruiters. What keeps them from picking up the phone is how connected they feel to their employer. We tell all of our clients to interview their top employees and determine why they enjoy working for the firm. Find out what those employees like and also what they want to see moving forward. Create your culture and offerings around that feedback.”
When meeting with potential clients, Procession maintains transparency by sharing the good, the bad, and even the challenging aspects of their reputation, as well as feedback they’ve received from candidates. This openness allows clients to reflect on areas for improvement. “They can be hard conversations but if they want to achieve the goals they have in mind, they will be willing to listen on where they can improve.”
A common piece of feedback Procession gets from clients is that candidates are coming in knowledgeable and do not need to be sold on the company, highlighting Procession’s intensive screening and thorough engagement process.
“I think everyone would say they’re trying to find people long term homes. I think the part of the conversation that people don’t talk about is how challenging – but also attainable – that can be.”
Those companies not interested in making change, not focused on delivering a great candidate experience will struggle to retain talent. “We will say no to business if we don’t believe that we’re going to be able to successfully hire or if we don’t believe that this is a place where employees will be happy to stay at for years.”
2025 and Beyond
After deliberately maintaining a low profile, Procession anticipates significant growth in 2025. Engaging with thousands of potential candidates monthly, the team is currently submitting over 300 fully-vetted, ready-to-interview talents to clients every single month. Procession made over 300 cleared hires for their partners in 2024 and expect that number to rise in 2025.
“We’ve always outperformed our competition and done so at a fraction of the cost. Now that we’ve achieved scale and are able to serve more clients, armed with more success stories and more proof of concept, we are looking to add new clients that fit our criteria.”
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