Hello. One of us has probably written to you.
Maybe you run a team with an open technical seat, and we mentioned a person. Maybe you are that person, and we asked whether a particular role might be worth a conversation. Either way, this page exists to say who we are and why your name came up.
Affinity Search Partners is a recruiting firm based in Brentwood, Tennessee, founded in 2013. We place IT and information systems people: contractors and consultants who join a team for a stretch, contract-to-hire, permanent hires, and the leaders who run technology groups. Most of our work is in Middle Tennessee. Plenty of it is not.
We do not write to people at random. A note from us means one of two things happened. An employer we know described a role, and your background looked like it might fit. Or a person we know described what they want to do next, and your company looked like a place where they could do it. Both are guesses until we talk, and you are the one who decides whether talking is worth your time.
If the timing is wrong, reply in any words and we will not write again. If it might be right, keep reading. The rest of this page explains how we work with employers, how we work with candidates, and what happens once somebody picks up the phone.
If you are hiring
You have a technical role open and the inbound applicants are not the people you need. Somebody on your team is covering the gap, and the longer the seat stays empty the more that costs in ways nobody puts on a spreadsheet. That is where most of our employer work begins.
What you get from us is a short list, not a pile. We would rather send you two or three people you want to interview than twenty you have to sort. Every person on that list has been screened against the same scorecard: the skills the role needs, why they want to make a move, whether compensation lines up, and what their references say. We look at cultural fit alongside the technical side, because a hire who cannot work with your team is not a hire.
We also tell you the truth. If a search is not something we can do well, we say so at the start rather than string you along. If your compensation range will not land the person you are describing, we say that too. And if you want to run the search yourself and only need a sounding board, we are glad to be that.
Three ways an engagement can run
- Contract. A contractor or consultant joins for a defined stretch of work, then rolls off when the work is done.
- Contract-to-hire. Someone starts on contract, both sides see how it goes, and the role converts to a permanent one when it makes sense.
- Permanent and leadership. A direct hire from the first day, including the senior people who set direction for a technology group.
If you are the person we wrote about
You may not be looking. Most of the people we talk with are not, at least not actively. Our note reached you because someone we work with described a role, and what we could see of your experience suggested you might be a fit. That is the whole reason. There is no list you were put on and no pitch you owe us a reply to.
If you do want to hear more, here is how we treat you. We tell you what the role is, who the employer is once we are allowed to, and what the compensation range looks like, before anyone spends an afternoon on interviews. Your details do not go to any company without your permission. Nobody hears that you are considering a move unless you decide they should.
Once you are in a process, our job is to be on your side of the table. We prepare you for each conversation, bring back feedback quickly instead of leaving you in silence, and talk through an offer with you before you accept or decline it. If the role turns out to be wrong for you, saying so costs you nothing with us. We would rather keep in touch for the right one later than push you into the wrong one now.
What we will ask you
- What you are doing now and what you would want to be doing instead.
- What would make a move worth it, and what would make it not.
- Where you stand on compensation, so nobody wastes a week finding out late.
What we will not do
- Send your profile anywhere without asking you first.
- Describe a role as something it is not.
- Keep writing after you have told us to stop.
The areas we work in
Our searches fall into three families of technical work, for employers whose products are software and for employers whose products are not.
- Cloud and infrastructure. Cloud engineers, systems and network engineers, and the people who keep environments running and secure.
- Software development. Software engineers, project and product managers, business analysts, and quality assurance.
- Data and analytics. Data engineers, data scientists, business intelligence developers, and analysts who turn data into decisions.
The employers we serve are software companies, healthcare organizations, manufacturers and financial firms. Some are building a product. Others are running a hospital or a plant and need technical people who understand that the system serves the operation, not the other way round.
How a conversation starts
Nothing on this page commits you to anything. A first conversation is a phone call or a video call, and it goes differently depending on which side of the search you are on.
For an employer
- You describe the role and the team it sits in.
- Together we settle the shape of the right hire before anyone is sourced.
- We write a candidate profile and check it with you.
- You receive a short list of people worth interviewing.
- Interviews run with feedback moving quickly in both directions.
- We plan the offer together, including what a counter-offer might look like.
- After the start, we check in to make sure it is going the way both sides hoped.
For a candidate
- You tell us what you want next, and we listen before we pitch anything.
- We describe the role plainly, including the parts that might give you pause.
- If you want to go ahead, we introduce you with your permission.
- We prepare you for interviews and bring feedback back promptly.
- At the offer stage we talk it through with you, and we respect the answer.
- After you start, we stay in touch.
The steps above describe how our searches are meant to run. Every role and every person is different, and the order bends when it needs to.
Ready to talk, or just curious
Whether you have a role to fill or a note from us sitting in your inbox, the next step is the same: a conversation with no obligation attached.