Thursday, April 12, 2007

$2 Million Handout For Staffing Company

An announcement today by the Indiana Economic Development Corporation should have every staffing company in Indiana fuming. The IEDC is awarding $2 million in tax credits and $60,000 in training grants to Princeton One, which is among dozens of staffing companies already doing business in Indiana. A press release from the IEDC reads:

PrincetonOne, a global executive recruiting firm, announced today that it is expanding its Indiana operations, creating more than 200 new high-paying jobs.

The company, one of the 10 largest recruitment firms in the nation, made the announcement from its newly renovated offices in the Century Building on south Pennsylvania Avenue.

“This is one more step on the long uphill climb toward a stronger and more diversified economy,” said Governor Daniels.

PrincetonOne provides a fully integrated menu of assessment, recruitment, retention, staffing, training and organizational development services from its 15 offices in the United States, three in Europe and one office in Asia. Headquartered in Skillman, N.J., PrincetonOne’s U.S. offices placed about 2,700 people in 2006 alone.

"The workforce in Indiana, particularly in Indianapolis, is a very well-educated and skilled workforce," said Dave Campeas, PrincetonOne’s chief executive. "In fact, were able to find some of the most qualified people in our business right here in Indianapolis."

The Indiana Economic Development Corporation offered the company $2 million in tax credits and $60,000 in training grants to bring the new $35-an-hour jobs to Indiana.

“PrincetonOne is another great example of a successful company that could have expanded anywhere in the country, but they chose to make a significant investment and create hundreds of new, high-paying jobs right here in Indianapolis,” said Mayor Bart Peterson.

“This expansion says a great deal about PrincetonOne’s commitment to our city and shows the continued strength of our surging economy.”

The $3.9 million expansion included consolidating the company’s Greenwood and near-Carmel locations with the Indianapolis office.

“PrincetonOne’s decision to invest in Indiana is another example of the growing confidence in our economy,” said Nathan Feltman, Indiana Secretary of Commerce and chief executive officer of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. “With our highly educated workforce and competitive business climate, businesses around the globe are choosing Indiana as a place to grow.”

So what makes PrincetonOne more special than all the other staffing companies? Why would a state ever award incentives to a staffing company? Is there anyone over there at the IEDC who has any common sense? What a joke! I can't believe anyone would be so stupid as to put out a press release bragging about this. There is absolutely no bottom line benefit to the state's economy in handing out tax subsidies to staffing companies.

It would be interesting to find out who the major investors are in this company. For $10,000 a job, we should be told a hell of a lot more about this company than the IEDC shared in its press release. The company's website sheds no light on its ownership, or the company's history for that matter. The press release provided this small bit of information about the out-of-state company:

Headquartered in Skillman, N.J., PrincetonOne provides its clients with a cohesive strategy for recruiting, retention, staffing assessment, training and organizational development. With 30 years of experience, PrincetonOne has earned annual revenue of more than $30 million by delivering unified recruitment solutions and measurable results for more than 600 clients around the world.


If anyone knows more about the company, please share with us.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The President/CEO is Dave Campeas. All indications are that it was simply a Management Recruiters Inc. franchise that went independent. It doesn't even seem to be particularly large for a staffing firm.

Elwood Staffing has 18 offices in Indiana alone; PrincetonOne has 19 worldwide.

Anonymous said...

Correction, it appears that it is still a MRI franchise. If you click on the "Search jobs" button, you're taken directly to a MRI database.

I can't fathom this. There were already a couple of local MRI franchisees that do "executive recruiting".

Anonymous said...

Sorry I didn't get this all in the first post, but here's a list of all the job titles they are presently recruiting for in Indiana:
Drug Safety Surveillance Specialist Diabetes Care Specialist
Institutional Diabetes Care Specialist
Financial Coordinator
Receptionist
Receptionist
Account Executive
Account Executive
Trucking Sales Rep
Trucking Sales Representative
HVAC & Controls Technician Manager
Controls Tech
Major Accounts Sales Rep
Commercial Finance - Business Development Manager
Process Engineer
Engineering and Maintenance
Sr. Post-Sales Engr
Account Executive

These jobs don't seem to be any different than the myriad other jobs recruited for by local staffing firms.

Anonymous said...

It sounds like a head-hunting firm that wants to be around Indy so it can syphon off the creme of the workstaff to jobs into other states if not other countries. And we're paying $2 million to be robbed of the best of Indiana.

If you have the need for a job-search ability then the service should pop-up here unaided. If you have to pay them to come here, you're not promoting jobs in Indiana, you're promoting the raiding of Indiana companies. What else will the PrincetonOne branch do here to justify itself to its corporate headquarters?

-- Lynn David

stAllio! said...

from IBJ:

The New Jersey-based firm has 19 locations in the United States, Europe and Asia. But Indianapolis accounts for 40 percent of its business and has been its fastest-growing market, CEO Dave Campeas said in an interview.

...

PrincetonOne, formed in 2002, claims it is one of the nation's 10 largest staffing firms. It has done work for such companies as Xerox Corp., GlaxoSmithKline and Microsoft.

PrincetonOne helped Lilly launch a new infectious disease drug by training and helping Lilly hire 200 sales people for specific markets. The 6-month staggered process was designed "to save Eli Lilly from hiring employees before they were ready," according to the company's Web site. It did not name the drug for which the sales people were hired.


despite only being founded in '02, PO claims in its ads that it has "33 years in the business", presumably because of older companies that it acquired.

this press release isn't very interesting, but has a photo of MMM with CEO campeas and several partners.

this podcast has an interview with dave campeas... but i'm not sure whether it's actually worth listening to.

Anonymous said...

Hiring pharmaceutical sales people doesn't really sound like "executive recruiting". The vast majority of executives aren't sales people, engineers or representatives.

Way to go Indianapolis, $2 mil would have gone a long way to clearing up abandoned housing. I doubt any of the "executives" recruited will live in Marion County anyway.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Stallio's reference to work the company has done for Lilly is interesting. I know it is very difficult to become a staffing contractor for Lilly. There are several local companies who fought very hard to obtain that status. It appears in that case that any work PrincetonOne does for Lilly is just taking away work from the other staffing companies. I just can't see how the state or the city benefit in any way from subsidizing a staffing company.

Anonymous said...

Anybody recognize any of these PrincetonOne names from the photo taken with Mitch?
Mark Haering (Senior Partner),
Brad Reynolds (Senior Partner),
Dave Campeas (President and CEO),
Bill Kuntz (Vice President),
Dennis McCall (Senior Partner),
Matt Lemmons (Senior Partner),
Mark Risley (Senior Partner),
Dave Hickman (Managing Partner)

Here's the link to the article:
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2007/4/prweb518548.htm

Mark Haering, Brad Reynolds, Bill Kuntz, Dennis McCall, and Dave Hickman are with the Indianapolis base PrincetonOne office.