About Tricia Tamkin

Tricia Tamkin grew up in the Chicago suburbs, the only girl in the boys’ baseball league, and spent her teenage years fitting in gymnastics, cheerleading, and a starring role in Grease between innings.

At 19, she interviewed for a job she’d never heard of – Headhunter. The next morning, she called the agency owner and told him she was going to be a recruiter, either for him or someone else. He hired her. She was the top producer in the firm before she was old enough to order a drink.

When a boss told her to play nicer in the sandbox, she opened her own executive search firm instead. She ran it for nearly two decades, survived more than most people face in a lifetime, and eventually pivoted into training when a client asked her to build a recruiting team rather than fill one.

For the past sixteen years, Tricia has been a recognized leader in both the recruiting industry and the emerging application of AI to recruiting work. She’s the co-founder of Moore eSSentials and creator of The Complete Library and has accumulated over 175 testimonials on LinkedIn from practitioners at every level of the industry. She still makes cold calls and answers her own phone.

Go ahead and call her at 630.240.4454. She’ll pick up. Just make sure it’s because you want to invest in yourself. She’s been in recruiting long enough to know within thirty seconds if you do.

Timeline

2026

Retirement. Balance. Joy. Peace.

2025

Began reclaiming personal identity and meaning through therapy

2024

MARS program launch. The most complete recruiter support program ever.

2023

Co-launches first ever ChatGPT program for the recruiting industry.

2022

After more than a year of having a waitlist for Private Coaching, co-launched Group Coaching program for the recruiting industry.

2021

Major overhaul of both sourcing and sales programs, and development of over 100 hours of new recruiting training.

2020

Heads down in Church of Executive Search Private Coaching Practice. Help dozens of recruiters generate millions of dollars.

2019

Presented Keynotes and Breakout Sessions at 14 conferences in one year.

2018

Co-Founded Church of Executive Search, while simultaneously training and recruiting.

2017

Attended Tony Robbin’s Business Mastery- overloaded with ideas.

2016

Expanded Moore eSSentials staff and focused on building training and speaking business.

2015

Launched Client Cornucopia. Married again, third time’s a charm.

2014

Taught Pinnacle Society for the first time (top 80 headhunters in North America) to rave reviews.

2013

Co-launched first ever Facebook sourcing class, 18 days after Facebook launched Graph Search.

2012

First time speaking at ASA, traveled around North America and Canada training recruiters.

2011

Taught first Sourcing Class and first Private Training for an executive search firm.

2010

Retained to recruit, hire, train and build external recruiting department for client.

2009

Second Husband dies, better knock this off. Let everyone go and moved recruiting desk home.

2008

Build Wolftec to 10 recruiters and 3 support staff.

2007

Launch FastGround, a web-based real estate collaboration platform.

2006

Win award from Cognizant Technology Solutions for executive search excellence.

2005

Son is born, husband is diagnosed with terminal blood cancer.

2004

Closed Lockwood Ross (it was profitable, but not fun!) Returned to sole focus in recruiting.

2003

Generate 1M from one client for first time (Accenture).

2002

Launch Lockwood Ross, an outplacement firm. Married second husband.

2001

Closed $150K engaged deal (50/50/50), biggest to date.

2000

Tech bubble bursts, closed Padigent, bought Disney property.

1999

First husband dies, started traveling extensively and launched Padigent, and HR company for startup firms.

1998

Only accepted 100K jobs. Blanked for 5 months. Closed 11 deals in 10 weeks. Took 3 months off.

1997

Started Wolftec, an executive search firm still running today, took first class in Boolean.

1996

Top internal recruiter with 72 starts, 94% of which were unassisted with over 19% executives.

1995

Accepted internal recruiting position at Whitman Hart.

1994

Top producing recruiter in 15-person agency, billing 272K in first twelve months.

1993

Left college after 2 years to become a commission only agency recruiter in IT.

1991

Graduated from St. Francis High School, and began college at Eastern Illinois University.

1985

Won essay contest to be the Attorney General of Bloomingdale for a day.

1978

Played the Grand Prize Game on Bozo’s Circus and missed the first bucket.

1973

Born September 17th, an only child.

Enthusiastic Love from Tricia's Clients

Natasha Garcia

Professional & Small Business Advisor at True North Scotiabank Solutions Center

Tricia was one of our trainors for a two day Esourcing training seminar in Winnipeg, MB. She is very good at communicating/training the theory to us during. Great instructor!

Margaux Miller

Global MC, TEDx Speaker, Tech & AI Event Host and Moderator

The Pinnacle team was so pleased to be able to bring in Jason and Tricia for an intensive two-day “In-House”. Their training program is very advanced and yet they made the information accessible and interesting for our entire team. They are ahead of the curve and an absolute delight to work with. Time and money well spent!

Lesa Ong

Legal Recruitment Consultant at NagataConnex Executive Legal Search

I attended a seminar that was taught by Tricia, and really appreciated how approachable and knowledgeable she was. She took the time to explain things until everyone understood the how and the why. Thanks Tricia!

Kevin Tennant

Partner, Executive Interim Management

Tricia was a Trainer at the eSourcing workshop that I attended recently. Unlike many workshops, we spent the vast majority of the time applying the skills we learned. Tricia spent considerable time “desk-side” coaching us through. The workshop was so valuable because Tricia has walked in our shoes.. it was practical and immediately useful. It also became very clear that she lives to a very high ethical standard in her business and personal life.

Lezlie Phillips

President of Lezlie Phillips & Associates

Tricia was a joy to learn from and easy to approach. Her style is eay going fun and yet very professional. She is very technical and knowledgable in her field and would love to have her on my team! I would love to have her teach me more…..and I have been in the business a long time. I highly recommend Tricia Lezlie Phillips

Monica Tambasco

IT Recruitment and Sales

Tricia is a superb trainer with outstanding ideas. She communicates dense content in a dynamic way, making her instruction relevant to the group’s goals and feedback. I am looking forward to learning more from Tricia!

Mary Beth Elmer

Personnel Associates, Syracuse NY

Well done, Tricia, it was a pleasure to learn from a Master of eSorcery! You exceeded my high expectations and made learning advanced Boolean search techniques fun. I finally have the foundation for e-sourcing best practices.

Steven Sloane

Ex PWC CPA & Recruiter.

We’re always told to “under promise and over perform.” This certainly describes Tricia. I was very skeptical when I signed up for her webinar due to less than stellar experiences with other webinars. Flat out, I was wrong and what I received was far in excess of what I paid Great experience + a wonderful sense of humor … Steven Sloane

John Dunlap

Owner, John Dunlap and Company, Inc. and Staffing and Recruiting Consultant

ricia and her training partner, Jason Thibeault, were dynamic and engaging through an intensive course of instruction, forcing me to learn and apply Boolean methodology to my somewhat retro recruiting arsenal. The decision to hire Tricia to guide our quick move out to the leading edge was fortunate: I am now getting fast, fantastic results in both the sourcing and contact phase of executive search work, utilizing advanced search strings in the creative manner she so ably teaches. It has been an amazing value-add for a classically trained recruiter like myself. I’ve found I’ve had to throw away almost nothing. To the contrary, principles which have brought success in the past are now being used more profitably.

Susan Laser

Sales Manager at CarMax

I just finished Tricia’s eSSentials class, and it was well worth the investment! I learned some wonderful new and useful skills, and was able to begin using these skills after only our first session. Her expert knowledge would be useful to any recruiter!