First, what is this?

Nobody really wants a CV, a hire, or a website – they want what’s on the other side of it. You set that target state. We close the gap, together.

What you can count on

Right now “we” is one person and a standard – hold me to it.

We say what we actually think,
not what’s polite

Starting with whether the thing you asked for is the thing you need. We ask why until the real goal turns up – then you get our honest read: firm where the experience runs deep, open where it doesn’t, updated when someone shows us better.

We don’t: take money for work we’d advise against, or pretend a certainty we don’t have.

Costs us: the occasional sale, and being wrong in public now and then.

Buys you: advice you never have to discount for what we’d earn from it.

So we ask what it’s for before we build it; give you the likely read – recruiter, hiring manager, or your customer – not the flattering one; say when the brief is the problem, and when we had it wrong.

We’re honest about the trade-offs – and we don’t make the person pay for them

We’ll say when the role, the product, or the purchase is the wrong one – whichever side of the table we’re on. Someone’s paying, and someone else is living with the result – we don’t resolve that by sacrificing whoever isn’t holding the cheque.

We don’t: keep anyone hanging as a backup, disappear instead of delivering the no, or bank today’s win and leave someone else tomorrow’s problem.

Costs us: the easy resolution, and occasionally the potential client.

Buys you: guidance that doesn’t change sides.

So we name the tension openly; give straight guidance either way. Sometimes the CV isn’t the gap – the fit is – and you hear that from us, not from the silence.

We show the working

Everything we hand over comes with the reasoning, built so you can run it without us. Expertise is worth paying for – withholding it isn’t.

We don’t: gatekeep the process to look more valuable, or hand you something only we can drive.

Costs us: the advantage of being the only one in the room who knows how it works – and the repeat business that dependence would have bought.

Buys you: work you own outright – it runs the same on the days we’re not in the room.

So we explain why the CV leads with what it leads with, and how to run it in the interview; show why a site says what it says, in that order; publish what we work out.

Why did I start this?

Most people fall into recruitment. I chose it. In my early twenties I decided I wanted a life on my own terms. What does that take? Money. Where does money live? Businesses. What do businesses run on? Hiring the right people. So recruitment: learn how, get paid, help people find jobs. Turns out, like everyone at that age, I thought I knew better. targetState House is eight years of finding out it wasn’t that simple, and the fix I’m building. For me, not the model.

Here’s the not-simple part. Contingent recruitment isn’t broken. For common roles it’s quick, and there’s nothing to pay unless it fills. But the selling point is the problem: the fee only exists if the role gets filled, and the client pays it. So the candidate isn’t the customer. They’re closer to the product. Nobody plans it that way. The maths just does it. Feedback never stops being part of the job either. It just stacks on top of everything else. A straight no risks being wrong, and it costs you a maybe you might need later. Keeping someone warm costs nothing. Nobody sets out to go quiet. The day just runs out before the call gets made.

I learned I was good at the job. I never made peace with that part of it. And over those years, some parts of it weren’t good for me either.

Balance is hard to get right in any job, and some give and take is fair. Half an hour extra tonight because the search taught you something worth chasing, half an hour back some other day. Give or take, that’s just work. This was different. I want my name on whatever I send out, and the model doesn’t pay for that kind of care. So I paid the difference myself. Less sleep, skipped the gym, longer days. I even moved next to the office, and the time it saved went straight back in. I was building my life around the work, and it cost me my health. It left me with the sentence everything here runs on: build the work around the life, not the other way round.

I’ll say the quiet part. The fix is self-interested. The models here don’t pay me to go quiet. Sometimes the person is the customer. Sometimes the fee is for the search itself. Either way, the invoice stops arguing with the truth. The work is built to finish. I’d rather do myself out of the job than keep one by keeping you needing me. The hours that frees go to the people on the same side of the table, the tools worth building, and the life the work has to fit around. And it means my shortcut and your straight answer are the same thing.

Everything under this roof comes from what those years taught me. The same three lines: be honest about where things are, be honest about the trade-offs and who carries them, and show the working.

Michael TranFounder & Director

So, what is the target state?

A world where people and businesses get where they meant to go. They come back when the next gap opens – and show the next ones how.

How might we get there?