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

Dave Allen

President / Professional Agricultural Recruiter at AGRI-SEARCH

Tricia and Jason are exceptional teachers with an uncanny way of getting the concepts across to their students. We had three of our staff involved in the class and we were all very well pleased with the results. They share an amazing ability to clearly and concisely answer questions and present complicated information so that it is very easy to understand…even for those of us who didn’t grow up with computers!

Christina Grisillo

Contracts Administrator

I took essentials through Tricia January 2012. With being a newer recruiter in my industry I have found this course to be extremely helpful. I never knew there was a technique out there with name sourcing besides calling straight into companies. I can write search strings on my own time and be able to recruit during my normal business hours without wasting anytime. I would definitely recommend this course.

Christina Tchividjian

Chief Operating Officer at Recovery United

I recently had the pleasure of attending the eSSentials course, which was amazing! I really enjoyed the information taught in the class as well as Tricia and her wonderful teaching skills. I would definitely recommend this course to anyone looking to greatly improve their searching capabilities. Ive also never had so many takeaways from one course as I did from this one. Thanks again Tricia!

Suzanne Ramos

Managing Partner, Excelon Partners

Tricia is a savvy, dynamic trainer with great expertise in the finest points of e-sourcing. She provided me with techniques I would never have found on my own and that I expect will greatly enhance my pool of high-performance candidates.

Walt Brod

Recruiting HVAC & Energy

Tricia is a gifted trainer and understands and communicates the subject well. I had some background in Boolean search but after the course of four sessions I am throughly familar and experiencing results of the training.

Cody Ruby

THE MS Stack Headhunter

Tricia practices what she preaches therefore is constantly innovating the training material to benefit students and her own business. She was always willing to move at the collective pace of our class or kept her door open offline for additional questions. Tricia’s training style was well received by all in our group. Any executive recruiter looking for new paths in sourcing passive candidates will quickly get their ROI if they participate in and implement Tricia’s eSSentials tutelage.

Gregory Todesco

Sector Leader, Natural Resources for NA within Korn Ferry’s Professional Search Practice.

In my time working with Tricia I learnt much more than I expected. Going in I thought I was great at searching, only to find out that I was good. After the class I realized what great was. Tricia has a passion for the material, a passion for business and in her teaching all of that comes out – she truely is one of the best in our industry, and a business woman who I greatly respect. Although the class was focused on sourcing online, personally I learnt so much more about the business of recruiting, and saw first hand the result of hard work as a business professional in Tricia. I feel honoured to have taken this course with her, and I highly reccomend working with Tricia in this class, as a client, candidate or partner.

Andrew Moore

Relationship Director

For any recruiter wishing to exponentially amplify their desk, I would highly recommend enrolling in Tricia’s e-sourcing class. Not only does she know her way around the internet like she helped invent it, Tricia is incredibly passionate about sharing her knowledge and teaching students how to harness the latest search tools and methodologies to ferret out hard-to-find candidates.

Christopher Ogden

VP Sales and Marketing at ESP with over 30 years in the bus bar industry

Tricia was hired to recruit for a very specialize position. She never gave up until she found us the right candidate which we hired. I would highly recommend Tricia and her team.

Edward Waszak CAM

Skilled Community Association Manager

I had the pleasure of being a coworker of Tricia’s when we were both senior recruitment professionals at a global technology consulting firm. I have never met anyone more dedicated to the profession of human resources in the search and staffing arenas. It is difficult to find one word that describes Tricia’s professional abilities so I will submit seven, Professional Effective Impressive Overachieving Resourceful Dedicated Unrelenting In the world of executive recruitment Tricia is truly crème de la crème. If the perfect candidate is out there, Tricia will find them!