Benskin Talent Partners

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Benskin Talent Partners Benskin Talent Partners is a relationship-driven executive search firm helping organizations build exceptional teams. People. Purpose. Placement.

Specializing in Accounting, Executive Search, Finance, and Human Resources. At Benskin & Hott, our team of Executive Search Partners is committed to delivering an individualized search to each unique client. We put ourselves in the mindset of your organization - your talent goals are our talent goals. We see ourselves as true business partners and extensions of your business. With our team's combined 45+ years of recruiting experience, our network of talent is both wide and deep in a range of markets, industries and functions, giving our clients total access to the top talent that will fill their needs. Our specialties lie in the Human Resources, Accounting & Finance and Supply Chain Management functions, where are networks run the deepest. Whether you're a candidate searching for your next great career opportunity or a future client seeking to partner with a search firm that will gain a true understanding of your organization's culture, once you work with Benskin & Hott, you'll find that we really "get" talent and why we're the very best in the business.

10/23/2026

Having someone else handle the negotiation is a bigger relief than most people expect and one of the most valuable reasons to work with a recruiter.

After all, you may be working with the hiring manager in just a few weeks. Negotiating directly can feel uncomfortable because whatever is said about salary, time off, or flexibility can linger after the offer is signed. When I negotiate on your behalf, I create some healthy distance. I can ask the difficult questions, test what is possible, and hear “no” without making it personal or creating awkwardness in a new working relationship.

I’m the conduit. Advocating for you while protecting the relationship on both sides is a large part of what I’m there to do.

That is also why our first conversation matters more than the offer conversation.

Long before we get anywhere near a number, I want to understand what genuinely matters to you—not the polished answer, but the real list, in order of importance.

Salary is usually near the top. Time off is often a close second, far more often than people admit. Sometimes those priorities are reversed. For some people, flexibility matters more than compensation. For others, it is the right title for their next career move, a manageable commute, better benefits, or a schedule that fits the rest of their life.

Knowing the order tells me where to push, where there may be room to trade, and what we can afford to let go. A recruiter who knows only your salary target can advocate only for your salary. A recruiter who understands your full set of priorities can negotiate for the offer you actually want.

So tell me the whole list. Nothing on it will sound greedy to me, and I have never thought less of someone for knowing what they wanted.

10/21/2026

The hiring mistake isn’t being impressed. It’s deciding too quickly what that impression proves.
Some people are exceptionally good at the first conversation. They read the room, put people at ease, and know exactly what to say. Those are real skills, and they matter.

But they are also immediately visible. Judgment, self-awareness, accountability, and the ability to work through disagreement take more effort to assess.

That’s where hiring gets tricky. Everyone leaves the interview feeling good. Momentum builds. “We really liked them” starts turning into “They’re the right person.” Asking harder questions begins to feel like an objection to a decision the room has already made.

I’ve been caught in that, too.

The question isn’t whether the rapport was real. It’s whether we’ve learned enough about the person beyond it.

So have the next conversation. Move beyond the polished career story. Discuss a real dilemma the person would face in the role. Ask what they would do, what tradeoffs they see, and what might change their mind. Ask about a time they got something wrong…and listen for what they believe was theirs to own.

You’re not trying to catch someone out. You’re trying to understand how they think when the answer isn’t obvious and being agreeable isn’t enough.

Executive presence matters. So do the judgment and emotional intelligence behind it. We need to assess both…not assume one proves the other.

A great first impression should earn a candidate a deeper conversation, not exempt them from one.

10/19/2026

Somebody left a comment on one of my posts a while back, and I deleted the whole post. That is the honest version. What I had written was about retained versus contingent search, and a man came into the comments to tell me it was sad that I did not think every client deserved my best candidate, whether they had paid up front or not. Which is not what I had said. He took the words and turned them around, and instead of answering him, I sat there getting more and more upset until I made the post disappear.

I wimped out. That is my word for it, and I have not found a better one.

And I was furious afterward. Not at him particularly, more at myself, because the post was true and it was mine, and I let one person I have never met decide it should not exist.

Here is what I did not know at the time. You can delete the comment. Just the comment. Somebody had to tell me that, months later, and I felt about two inches tall.

I am not taking a post down again. If somebody disagrees with me, they are welcome to, and their comment can sit right there underneath mine where everybody can weigh the two.

One person pushing back is one person pushing back. The people who agree with you almost never say so, because agreeing never feels like it needs saying, so the one voice starts to sound like everybody.
It isn't everybody. It is one person with a keyboard and a strong opinion about fee structures.

10/06/2026

A client I had for years always led with their best and final. No dance, no back and forth, just the number they actually meant on the very first pass, and I put a disclaimer on every single offer I presented for them. This is their best and final. There is no negotiating this one. I wanted every candidate to hear it from me before they heard the number, so nobody walked into it blind, and most of them took it as intended.

One of them countered anyway. A Senior Director of Human Resources, and I honestly cannot remember what she asked for. It wasn't much more than what was on the table; I know that.

As a recruiter, you can only control somebody so much, and if they want us to go back and negotiate, then we go back and negotiate.

The client pulled the offer.

I will never forget it, because she did not expect it. Nobody in that room expected it.

For a long time, I thought that client was in the wrong. I don't even know where I picked up the idea that leading with your best number was wrong, but I believed it for years, and then I watched it work. There is something almost kind about a company telling you exactly where you stand on the first pass instead of making you guess your way toward it.

So, when an offer comes, ask the person handing it to you which kind you are holding. Some of them have room in them. A few really don't.

09/08/2026

I meet people who are one person at work and a completely different one at their own dinner table.

Somewhere along the way they picked up the idea that the office needs a more buttoned up, more careful version of them. And keeping that second version going all day is exhausting. You're doing your job and playing a role at the same time, and both take energy.

When I interview candidates, I'm looking for somebody whose work life and personal life are the same person. Same humor, same directness, same way of explaining things. When those match, I trust everything else I'm hearing a lot more.

So show up as yourself. In the interview, in the new job, all of it. You'll have more energy for the actual work, and the people who hire you will have hired the person who actually shows up on Monday.

09/04/2026

Some companies have one person who can truly read other people. If you've got one, put them in your interview loop, whatever their title says.

In 25 years I've met maybe a handful of people with that internal reader. They sit across from a stranger for an hour and come away seeing what that person is actually capable of. It's a rare gift, and resumes and interviews only tell so much, which is exactly why it's worth so much when somebody has it.

You probably already know who yours is. Their hires keep working out, year after year, and people still quote their read on a candidate long after the meeting ends.

So the next time you're hiring, look past the org chart. If they have the eye, get them in the room.

09/02/2026

If they offer you a water at an interview, take the water.

You might not be thirsty. Doesn't matter. Take the water.

The advice came to me secondhand, from a career counselor by way of a friend of a friend, and the idea is to be a guest. When somebody offers you a water, or ten minutes to freshen up before you start, they're hosting you. Accepting lets them. Every little yes makes the visit warmer, and every reflexive no, polite as it feels, keeps things stiff.

Interviews are visits, and everybody in the room is reading everybody else. Taking the water says you're comfortable being there. It gives the other person the small pleasure of having looked after you.

So take the water. Worst case, you sit through the interview holding a free water.

08/31/2026

Before you set the salary for an open role, ask your recruiter one simple question. What are people with these skills actually accepting right now?

I love getting that call. Somebody is about to budget a new role, and instead of guessing, they want to hear what the market is really doing. And I can tell them, because offers get accepted and turned down in front of me all year long.

Pay has been moving faster than published ranges can keep up with. What the last person made, the range on some website, the number that worked two years ago, the market has moved on from most of it.

When a role has been sitting open for months and good people keep saying no, the first thing I check is whether the pay fell behind the market. It usually did. And when the number is right from day one, the whole search feels different. Candidates come to that first call interested, and offers get signed instead of dragging through weeks of back and forth.

So before you post the range, make the call. It's one conversation, and it can save you months.

Address

15455 Conway Road, Suite 220
St. Louis, MO
63017

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 4pm

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