By: Jessica Konopa

Need a new job? Or maybe you need to hire the perfect programmer? Whatever your employment and talent needs, there's a good chance that Aquent can help. Founded by three Harvard College undergrads out of their dorm in 1986, Aquent was built on the idea of providing specialized staffing services for Macintosh-skilled temps, high-end creative talent, and Web experts. Now, after 15 years in business, the company is the largest creative company in the world, boasting 57 offices in 12 countries and $200 million in revenue last year. Aquent is headquartered in Boston, Mass. And maintains its New York City office on 23rd Street.

Mia Wenjen, co-founder and director of Aquent, shared some thoughts on the current market for talent with Digital Industry editor Jessica Konopa.

DigIn: Your company serves the employment market in cities all over the world. How much do those cities differ in the kind of talent they're looking for and in their employment climate in general?

MW: Markets really vary. Some markets that had a lot of dot-com business were the hardest hit by the current downturn - markets on the West Coast, and actually Boston as well. Some markets have managed to replace the business faster than others. It really depends on how much manpower they can put against it. Our overseas markets are doing really well.

DigIn: How are Boston and New York doing in adjusting to the dot-com downturn?

MW: Boston and New York have been pretty successful at replacing the dot-bombs with other clients. They lost a little business, but they seem to be rebounding nicely. The Web was the area that was hit the hardest.

DigIn: How would you compare your business in Boston with your business in New York? Do you see pretty much the same kind of employment climate in both cities, or are there areas where one city seems to stand out?

MW: My sense is that it's pretty consistent. There are a lot of similarities. We might have more ad agency business in New York, because there are more ad agencies there. We have the same high quality in both cities.

DigIn: How do the salaries compare?

MW: New York salaries are definitely a little higher. Of course they need it, because the cost of living is higher there. You'll see huge differences if you compare New York to Indianapolis, for example. Basically, we pay market rate according to each market.

DigIn: What kinds of jobs are dominating the market right now?

MW: It's probably the same cross-section of jobs that we had last year. I think the Web jobs are still out there; they're just a little bit harder to find. We're hard at work pounding the pavement and the phones to stay connected with our clients so that we can be a great resource when they need flexible staffing. We need to understand where the client is at and try to helpful for them.

DigIn: Tell us a little about how you started your company - you've had an interesting history.

MW: We grew organically. We started a typesetting business out of a Harvard dorm room, then a self-service laser printing service, then a Macintosh temp agency (Mactemps), then branched out into design, tech, Web, writers, and illustrators. Our company philosophy: fail often, fail cheaply, fail quickly. We're known for innovation in our industry, and we've managed to maintain our entrepreneurial culture despite our rapid growth.

DigIn: How do you choose the best talent in each industry?

MW: It's a multi-tiered process. Mostly, it's all about having a really good resume with solid experience. We weed out two-thirds of the candidates based on resume alone. Then, if the person looks promising, we have him or her come in for a face-to-face interview and assessment. It takes a couple of hours to really meet and talk to a person and learn what he or she is really looking to do. At that point, we'll have a pretty good sense of if we'll be able to use that person. No one goes out sight unseen. Our screening is pretty rigorous. It's actually easier to get into Harvard than to get into our database: At Harvard, it's one out of seven, at Aquent it's one out of 10.

DigIn: What kind of relationship do you try to have with your talent?

MW: Our philosophy is to keep our database small and to keep those people working. Most staffing companies are the opposite. They keep very large databases of people and then most people don't even get called. The criteria vary from office to office based on what the local clients need. We're sensitive to people's time and if we don't think that we can find work for a particular person, we don't want to waste his or her time.

DigIn: How about your relationships with clients?

MW: We don't treat talent any differently from clients. In fact, it's a circle. Talent becomes clients and vice versa. So…it's a small world and what goes around definitely comes around. I think if you polled our talent and clients, they would tell you that we're nice people and genuinely committed to helping. Our staff is non-commissioned, which is unusual for the staffing industry, but the result is that we really do focus on making the best match.

DigIn: What's the best thing about being in your business?

MW: It's a great feeling to know that you've helped people find meaningful work and that you play a role in helping them with their careers.

DigIn: What about the hardest thing?

MW: Our Aquent agents are entrepreneurs running their own businesses, so they have a lot on their plate: recruiting talent, matching talent with clients, account management, client development, as well as a million other things that need to be done. It can be tough to juggle all the facets of the business. But it does make for an interesting job!

DigIn: What do you do to relax?

MW: Play with my 1.5-year-old daughter Zoe. I used to do a lot of art (watercolor painting and chalk pastel drawing) but haven't found time for it lately.