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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Scaling Recruitment in Private Equity with Dina DeMarco of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions 5-28-25
In this episode, Dina DeMarco, President of Hueman Private Equity Talent Solutions, joins Scott Becker to share how her team bridges the recruitment gap for PE-backed portfolio companies—scaling hiring from staff to VP level with speed, flexibility,
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- [00:00]
Scott Becker
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by a brilliant leader. We're joined Today by Dina DeMarco. Deena's the President of Human Private Equity Talent Solutions. They've done an incredible job of building a company and building a division that serves private equity sponsored companies in the middle market and otherwise. Simply remarkable. Before I get started, I'll just make a quick note that the Becker Private Equity and Business podcast recently surpassed 7 million downloads on the podcast. We're thrilled with that. We're very thankful to our listeners and our guests for helping us do that. Tina, can you take a moment and tell us a little about yourself and about Human Private Equity Talent Solutions?
- [00:44]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, perfect. Well, Scott, thank you so much for for spending a few minutes with me today. As you've mentioned, I have been with human for 15 years and I have spent the majority of my time at the organization leading large scale RPO operations. So help organizations to build high performing recruitment teams. About five years ago I pivoted my role and I have helped to launch and subsequently lead our private equity division today within our PE division. We created this division after we realized that there was a gap in the market. Portfolio companies needed help hiring and not just with executives. There are tons of great executive search firms out there. But when it comes to hiring staff in middle management, what we found was there wasn't necessarily a great solution. So that's how we started this business. Today we partner with PE firms to ensure that their portfolio companies have access to scalable, flexible and affordable recruitment resources so they can help build out their teams quickly without having to rely on an overpriced headhunter or sometimes their under resourced internal HR teams. So that's what we do here in Human PE Talent Solutions Solutions. Myself, as I said, I've been with the organization for 15 years. I am based in Atlantic Beach, Florida. I do a good amount of charitable work. I was previously on the board of our local humane society. So anything with animals I love. I'm working on becoming a certified bird or wildlife rehabilitation specialist. That'll take a while, but that's the next thing on the docket for me.
- [02:29]
Scott Becker
So simply amazing. When you look at talent in the work that you do, is it at the middle level, the staff level, the executive level, all the above. Above. And is typically with the portfolio company of a private equity funded sponsored company. Talk to us a little bit about sort of the target and who you closely work with.
- [02:47]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, yeah. So what we found is that lower Middle market private equity firms that are investing in the lower middle market often have significant growth plans for their investment. However, those portfolio companies lack the resources and know how to effectively recruit. So rather than calling in a search firm, a different search firm for every role. Human is designed to be a holistic recruitment solution. So the majority of our partners are PE backed portfolio companies and we can come in and hire one role, up to 100 roles and that's anything from your staff level positions up to your VP level roles. And concurrently we're not only there to fill positions but, but we're also there to help these organizations build out their own recruitment functions. So we do something that we call an outsource to insource model where we actually help companies build a best in class recruitment process so when they're ready for their next transaction, they have the systems and processes in place to really maximize value.
- [03:56]
Scott Becker
Dino, let me ask you a question because one of the things I understand from having watched Human over the years and what you do is, is that you've got sort of a compelling pricing structure. Can you take a second and tell us about that? Because everybody's trying to make sure they're doing things efficiently and intelligently and they're not spending more money than they have. To talk a little bit about how Human sort of differentiates itself in the talent space.
- [04:22]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, I love that question. So. So first, I am a big believer in recruitment for all. And so I think that what we've realized is, is that you can provide really great recruitment service and it doesn't need to be at 33% of somebody's total year one cash compensation. We found that if we deliver really good results, we can help our partners out at a fraction of the cost. And so we're able to execute on searches anywhere from a third to half of what traditional agencies would charge. And at that rate, what we find is that our partners can come to us with more searches. It might be something that historically they would stay away from an external partner because they didn't want to pay the large price tag. But they can come to Human and they can get the same results and pay a fraction of the price. So we know that if we keep our rates low, we'll get scale.
- [05:14]
Scott Becker
And so Human Private Equity Solutions and the company Human has got this wonderful reputation in great depth today. Talk a little bit about how that pivot came to be into the private equity space. I know back in the day you were in the, you're in the healthcare world, worked at University of Chicago at Baptist, you also, as an aside, served as the president of the National Brain Tumor Registry. I think did amazing work there too. That's on the charitable side. But talk for a second about the pivot into private equity several years back and sort of how that's going and what you've learned and some of the trends you're watching.
- [05:50]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, yeah, great question. So we still have a very large portion of our business that's concentrated in health care, but we carved out a nurse staffing company and we actually sold that business to private equity in 2017. And it was during that transaction, we developed a really great relationship with the firm that purchased that organization. And what happened was they kept coming back to us at Human saying, hey, we know you know how to recruit. We've just acquired this company and they need to hire a financial controller. But we don't want to pay 30% or we've just acquired this company. It's peak season. They need to hire 40 H VAC technicians. Can you help us figure out do it, how to do it? And so we had this informal relationship and we were doing that for about 12 months, and then we had a light bulb moment and we said, wait, there is nobody out there that is serving this, this group with a really scalable and affordable recruitment resource. And so that's when I had the opportunity to figure out what this business looks like. And that's when we decided to formally launch this, this practice.
- [06:57]
Scott Becker
That's amazing. And that is fantastic. And I know that original set of funds is a really highly regarded funds that, that sought you out and worked with you on those things. So that's high credibility as a reference organization and one of the best in the business. What trends are you watching in talent and hiring today? Harder, easier to hire a couple years ago. What are some of the trends you're watching?
- [07:21]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, yeah. So it's, it's very interesting right now. So obviously everybody is watching the economy. Being a talent person, what I'm watching is the labor market, and I like to describe it as cooling, but optimistically resilient. So I look at the jolts report every month and we're seeing this continued downward trend in job openings. But what's interesting is the number of hires is remaining relatively stable and the number of quits are remaining relatively stable. So we know that people are confident enough to make job changes, but we also know that employers are trying to hold on to talent. So it tells me that we're in really a strategic phase of hiring where organizations are doing precise hiring. And so we have to focus on quality, efficiency and making sure that we are putting forth the best candidate experience that we possibly can. From the candidate perspective, candidates are willing to take jobs. It takes a bit more convincing than it than it would have historically. A couple of years ago, for example, what we know is there's not as many active job seekers, but if you have a compelling position, candidates will have the conversation and they'll explore it as additional opportunities. The other thing we're watching, which I think everybody is watching this as well, is AI and how can we use AI in the recruitment function? So this is something that we're leaning into heavy and it can greatly increase our recruiter productivity. It upgrades the roles of recruiters. It just creates better candidate experience and search outcomes. So I love the use of AI in recruitment. I'm excited to see how this can continue to evolve and I'm excited to see how it really upgrades the role of recruiters as well.
- [09:10]
Scott Becker
Let me ask you on AI, I mean it seems like you would right now. Recruiting and talent back in the day was sort of a lot of networking, a lot of posting ads, a lot of sifting through lots of different candidates to find the right candidates potential fits. Will AI be something where you plug in the AI, use an AI algorithm and it does much better job of providing you with 10 possible candidates, but then you start to reach those candidates to see if they have an interest, to see if there's a fit. How do you sort of see some of that AI applying to both high level searches, sort of executive searches and just massive searches where you're trying to fill lots of spots like the 40H vac seasonal workers in a hurry.
- [09:53]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah.
- [09:54]
Scott Becker
How do you see some of that applying?
- [09:55]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, so I'm so glad you asked this question. This is one of my favorite favorite discussions. So I think that depending on the candidates that you are trying to attract, there are different use cases for the AI tools that are out there. So when we think of the 40h vac technicians at that point, what we're dealing with is a high volume of candidates. So what we want to look for in an AI platform is something that is going to help us get through a volume of candidates more quickly. So there are some AI tools that will do preliminary candidate screening and take that pipeline from, you know, let's say 250 candidates down to 25 candidates and then let's have the recruiter hop on the phone and speak with those 25 candidates before they were having to look at all 250. If we look at the other end of the spectrum and think about executive hiring. There are some systems out there that I love from a note taking perspective that really allow you to capture every aspect of a conversation that you're having with a candidate. I like that because I know when I'm talking to a leader, I want to listen and I want to focus on that conversation and not necessarily have to worry about taking all of the notes. So I love some of the note taking features that are out there as well.
- [11:12]
Scott Becker
Fantastic. And Dina, talk about this. You're somewhat of what I would refer to as a force of nature and just this wonderful, incredibly competent leader, plus incredible personal skills. Talk a little bit about over the last 24 months or so, what are you sort of most proud of what you've been accomplishing at Human Private Equity Talent Solutions?
- [11:35]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah, yeah. You know, there's first, we've had a lot of fun. One thing I would say is that we love the work we do here. So I think making sure that my team is happy and my team is engaged is something that I'm always very proud of. But if we look at some of the successes that we've had at our partners, I have two examples which I would love to share. So one of our portfolio company partners recently recapitalized and in their sim under investment highlights, they had five bullet points and one of those bullet points was best in class centralized recruitment. And at Human we did that for them. We partnered with this portfolio company early in their hold period to de risk their recruitment and we leaned into what we call our outsource to insource model where essentially we took over recruitment for them for 24 months and during that time we built them a best in class recruitment function. So we streamlined processes, we implemented technology, we did a full employer brand revamp and then we transitioned it back to their team where we hired them recruiters, we hired their recruitment leader and so by time they were ready to go to exit, they had this thorough, high functioning, high performing recruitment function. So I was super, super proud to see that. And then the other thing I love is that we've been included in several of our PE partners annual investor presentations. And specifically they talk about the partnership that they have with Human and they reference the enterprise value that we've helped to generate through either cost savings or accelerated hiring. So those two things that I, I.
- [13:14]
Scott Becker
Like to brag on, that's fantastic and you do a wonderful job of it. Talk for a moment about Dina. What are you most focused on and excited about the rest of this year and going forward in 2026.
- [13:25]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah. So we know that private equity firms are very good at most things that they do. But what we're seeing is that there is this gap around understanding talent acquisition as a lever. So what I want to do is I really want to push forth this idea, a talent acquisition playbook. And so we know there are playbooks for operations, accounting and finance, almost every other facet of the business. But what we don't see is this concept of a talent acquisition playbook. And really that's what we are in human PE talent solutions. We are your TA playbook. And so I'm focused on really bringing that to our partners and figuring out how we can further develop this concept. It's something that we're doing organically, but to really have it crystallized is something that I'm really excited about.
- [14:17]
Scott Becker
That's fantastic. And talk for one moment. You've had this phenomenal career, phenomenal growth of human. Talk a little bit about sort of what advice you would give to private equity sponsored companies and private equity funds about building out their talent plan, their talent playbook. What advice would you give to people?
- [14:37]
Dina DeMarco
Yeah. So let's see. So first, don't overlook the middle. And when I say that, I think you can talk to nearly any PE firm and they're going to know really great partners for their C suite hiring. But when it comes to hiring that financial controller, they're not going to have a go to resource. They don't know what to do, they don't want to pay Korn Ferry 33%. So understand how to address the middle roles and understand how important they are. Build your recruitment resources early in the process. So have a partner in place who can help you scale and who can help you understand what the levers are to pull within a recruitment function. That's a shameless plug for human right there. But I think it's important that people have a good recruitment partner. And then my final tip would be, and this one's slightly controversial, depending on who you ask is consider decoupling recruitment from HR in its entirety. I think that oftentimes people think that recruitment is just a subset of HR functions, when in reality recruitment is a strategic lever, it's not just a piece of hr. So I think it's important to evaluate is this something that should be decoupled from the HR function and really have a seat at the table.
- [16:00]
Scott Becker
Thank you. I think that is a brilliant take that HR is one role and a critical, critically important recruiting should be another role. And a critical, critical role particularly as you grow as a company so, so important that you're getting the right people in and then you're making sure they excel and they're and they thrive and so forth. I just love that thought. Again what a fantastic pleasure today to visit with Dina demarco a magnificent leader, the president of Human Private Equity Talent Solutions. Dina, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [16:34]
Dina DeMarco
Scott, thank you. I appreciate it. It was my pleasure.
- [16:41]
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