Enquirer Consulting Group

Reachable Buyer Map

Prepared for Kent Burns · Simply Driven · August 2026
In executive search, growth usually runs on relationships, and relationships have a shape. They reach the part of a market that already overlaps the network and stay quiet about the rest. This map is the rest, across the US. The segments your practice areas point at, who signs a search inside each one, and roughly how many companies sit there.
Manufacturers and industrial operators
The deepest pool for automation, robotics and engineering placements, and the segment where one funded automation project reopens hiring across engineering, maintenance and plant leadership at the same time.
Who signs: CHRO or HR director, VP of operations, plant manager, VP of engineering, and the CEO on leadership seats.
6,000 to 6,500
US manufacturing employers at 250 or more people; about 2,100 to 2,300 of them sit across the nine Midwest states
Machinery, vehicle and equipment makers
The sub-segment inside manufacturing where automation and robotics hiring concentrates, because the production line is the product and the engineering bench is rarely fully staffed.
Who signs: VP of engineering, director of automation, technical recruiting lead, COO.
1,000 to 1,200
machinery, vehicle and equipment employers at 250 or more people, with roughly another 900 to 1,100 in the 100 to 249 band
Technology, software and IT services
Where the information technology practice lands. Buying is fast and role-specific, and a single account tends to return several times a year rather than once.
Who signs: CTO or CIO, VP of engineering, head of talent acquisition, director of IT.
1,900 to 2,000
US software, IT services and information employers at 250 or more people; roughly 2,900 to 3,100 more sit between 100 and 249
Retail, restaurant and multi-site operators
The home of point of sale technology hiring. These companies run the same systems in hundreds of locations at once, so a rollout creates a hiring wave with a fixed deadline already attached to it.
Who signs: VP of retail technology, CIO, director of store systems, HR director.
3,200 to 3,400
US retail and food service employers at 250 or more people
Financial services, insurance and accounting firms
The finance and accounting practice, and the segment most likely to buy a search on technical qualification rather than on chemistry, which favors a recruiter who came out of the discipline.
Who signs: CFO, controller, chief accounting officer, HR director, and the managing partner at firms.
2,900 to 3,100
US finance, insurance and accounting employers at 250 or more people
Sponsor-backed and portfolio companies
Small by count and unusually valuable, because one relationship reaches several operating companies and because a change of owner almost always changes the leadership team inside the first year. Worth being straight about a limit: ownership is not recorded in any public employer register, so this group cannot be filtered out of the wider market from public data. It is identified one company at a time.
Who signs: the operating partner, the group CEO, the portfolio talent lead, the board chair.
No public register
identified account by account rather than pulled from a list, which is exactly why the segment stays open

Where the openings are

1
The buyer here is a seat, not a company. CHRO, VP of talent acquisition, CFO. Those seats turn over often, and a new one almost always reopens the search vendor roster inside the first two quarters. A channel built on named roles catches that moment. A relationship-led channel hears about it once the decision has been made.
2
The national count is roughly three times the Midwest one. Manufacturing alone runs to about 2,100 to 2,300 employers at 250 or more people across the nine Midwest states, and 6,000 to 6,500 nationally. Same practice areas, same titles, same buying logic. What separates the two is not credibility, it is reach.
3
Two services, two different doors. Retained leadership search is bought by a CEO or a board. Flexible workforce solutions are bought by an HR operations or plant leader. Those two rarely sit in the same conversation, and one relationship usually only opens one of the doors. Two named audiences is a different reach problem, and a solvable one.
4
The hiring trigger is visible from outside. A plant expansion, a new automation program, a funding event, a leadership departure. Watching several thousand employers for those signals and writing to the right seat within days is mechanical work, and it is the one thing a relationship-led channel cannot do at volume.
Built from public federal registry data covering US employers that file a benefit plan, current to the 2024 filing year. Counts are banded deliberately. Participant counts stand in for headcount, so the bands indicate scale rather than an exact staff number. Owner-only and very small employers are not published in this data, and sector codes are self-reported. Ownership structure is not covered by any public register and is described rather than counted. It describes the market rather than your business, and there is nothing to buy at the end of it.
ENQUIRER CONSULTING GROUP
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