About our Founder
Robert ("Rob") Lockard
Since 2018, Rob has built a talent consulting practice around one belief: finding the right person for an organization can be one of the hardest or one of the most rewarding aspects of any business, and it deserves to be treated that way.
Because of his experience, Rob enjoys working most with founders and small business leaders to positively impact their organizations. He highly values it when a single great hire or a specifically tailored talent strategy genuinely changes the strategic trajectory and delivers results well above expectations.
Though he finds them cool, Rob doesn't just use AI tools in his work or try to sell them to clients. He lends his HR experience to guide leaders into the AI era, moving Teams from reluctance and skepticism to leveraging them as trusted resources. His focus is on everything from auditing current workflows & processes, to training teams and navigating current AI compliance. His approach is embodied in the name of our firm: emineo (Latin for "to be remarkable".) This belief is the standard to which every client engagement is held.
Meaning behind our name
The Latin word emineo (meaning "to stand out" or "be remarkable") has iconically been followed by a period n our logo for almost 8 years. Our work sits at the intersection of recruiting execution, talent strategy, HR technology, and practical leadership insight. Bolstered by our founders' years of experience in the employment industry, emineo talent has built a reputation for recruitment excellence
and proven that our services are all that is needed for clients to get their hiring right.
Across every pillar, the goal is the same: help leaders make better people decisions with more clarity, less noise, and stronger alignment.
emineo helps organizations hire remarkable, build remarkable, and become remarkable.
Our Specialties
We specialize in a variety of industries, including healthcare, finance, IT, and engineering. Having built an in-depth knowledge of each industry, we match candidates' skills and experience with job opportunities to make client environments remarkable.
Our Commitment
At emineo talent, we are committed to providing exceptional service to both job seekers and employers. We believe in building long-term relationships with our clients and candidates, and we work tirelessly to ensure their success.
Recruiting
For organizations that need the right person, not just more applicants.
Recruiting is where strategy becomes search execution. emineo helps organizations clarify what they need, identify aligned talent, evaluate candidates with discipline, and move through the hiring process with confidence.
This pillar is best for leaders who have a specific role to fill, a critical hire to make, or a hiring process that needs hands-on support.
This can include:
- Role Intake & Search Strategy
Clarifying the business need, role outcomes, must-have qualifications, success profile, compensation realities, and hiring timeline before the search begins.
- Job Description & Position Messaging
Turning internal hiring needs into clear, market-ready role messaging that attracts the right candidates and filters out poor fits.
- Talent Sourcing
Identifying active and passive candidates through targeted sourcing, market research, referral mapping, and strategic outreach.
- Candidate Screening & Evaluation
Assessing candidates against role requirements, business priorities, communication style, motivation, and alignment with the hiring environment.
- Interview Process Support
Helping structure interview steps, candidate scorecards, evaluation criteria, and hiring manager feedback loops.
- Candidate Communication & Engagement
Managing candidate touchpoints so the process stays clear, professional, timely, and competitive.
- Offer Strategy & Negotiation Support
Helping leaders think through compensation, candidate motivation, offer positioning, objections, and closing strategy.
- Hiring Process Clean-Up
Improving the flow of an active search when too many resumes, unclear expectations, or slow decision-making are creating friction.
Common client situations
- “We need to make a critical hire, but we do not have time to run the search well.”
- “We are seeing candidates, but not the right candidates.”
- “The hiring manager and the market are not aligned.”
- “The role has changed, but the hiring process has not caught up.”
- “We need someone who can help us move faster without lowering the bar.”
Talent Advisory
For leaders who need clarity before they hire, restructure, scale, or make a people decision.
Talent Advisory focuses on the decisions surrounding hiring, team design, role clarity, workforce planning, and talent risk. This is the strategic layer that helps leaders understand what they actually need before they spend time, money, and energy searching for it.
This pillar is best for organizations that need better hiring judgment, cleaner role definition, stronger people infrastructure, or a more intentional approach to growth.
What this can include
- Hiring Strategy Advisory
Helping leaders determine which roles matter most, when to hire, what the role should own, and how the hire connects to business outcomes.
- Role Clarity & Success Profiles
Defining what success looks like in the first 30, 60, 90, and 180 days so the hiring process is built around outcomes instead of vague responsibilities.
- Talent Planning for Growth
Mapping current team capability against future business needs to identify talent gaps, sequencing priorities, and hiring risks.
- Organizational Design Input
Helping founders and SMB leaders think through reporting structure, role overlap, ownership gaps, and whether a role should be hired, outsourced, fractionalized, or delayed.
- Hiring Manager Coaching
Equipping leaders to interview better, evaluate consistently, reduce bias, and make decisions with more confidence.
- Candidate Evaluation Frameworks
Building scorecards, interview guides, competency models, and decision rubrics that bring more discipline to hiring decisions.
- Talent Market Insight
Providing practical market intelligence around compensation, candidate availability, role competitiveness, and sourcing realities.
- Retention & Fit Risk Review
Identifying where a role, manager, team, or process may create early turnover risk before the hire is made.
Common client situations
- “We know we need help, but we are not sure what role to hire first.”
- “We keep hiring for activity instead of outcomes.”
- “Our managers interview differently, and decisions feel inconsistent.”
- “We are growing, but our roles and structure are getting messy.”
- “We need someone who can challenge our assumptions before we make the hire.”
AI Strategy for HR
For HR and business leaders who want AI to become a trusted resource, not a reckless shortcut or rep
AI Strategy for HR helps organizations evaluate, adopt, and use AI in ways that improve efficiency while protecting human judgment, compliance, candidate trust, employee trust, and decision quality.
This pillar is best for leaders who know AI matters but need practical guidance on where to start, what to use, what to avoid, and how to bring their teams along responsibly.
AI Recruiting & HR Workflow Audits
Reviewing current recruiting, HR, and administrative workflows to identify where AI can reduce manual work, improve consistency, and create better decision support.
AI Opportunity Roadmaps
HR AI Tool Selection Support
Prioritizing realistic use cases based on business value, risk level, team readiness, and ease of implementation.
HR AI Tool Selection Support
AI Policy & Usage GuidelinesGet job search support
HR AI Tool Selection Support
Helping leaders evaluate tools, platforms, vendors, features, integrations, risks, and practical use cases before investing. Connect with employers and learn about job opportunities from the comfort of your own home with our virtual job fairs.
AI Policy & Usage GuidelinesGet job search support
AI Policy & Usage GuidelinesGet job search support
AI Policy & Usage GuidelinesGet job search support
Creating clear internal guidelines for how AI should and should not be used in recruiting, HR, employee communications, documentation, and decision support.
Prompting & Workflow Enablement
AI Policy & Usage GuidelinesGet job search support
AI Policy & Usage GuidelinesGet job search support
Training HR teams, recruiters, managers, and consultants to use AI for better drafts, summaries, analysis, communication, planning, and repeatable workflows. Looking for a job that you can do from anywhere? Browse our remote job listings and find your next opportunity.
Hiring Compliance & Bias ReviewJoin our talent network
Evaluating AI use in hiring workflows to reduce risk around bias, adverse impact, overreliance, candidate data, and inconsistent decision-making.
AI-Enhanced Recruiting Process Design
Building recruiting workflows where AI supports sourcing, messaging, intake, interview preparation, documentation, and follow-up without replacing human discernment.
Team Training & Adoption Support
Team Training & Adoption Support
Helping teams build comfort, confidence, and practical fluency with AI so it becomes useful instead of theoretical.
Fractional Insight
For leaders who need senior-level people judgment without adding a full-time executive seat.
Fractional Insight gives founders, SMB leaders, and HR/People leaders access to experienced recruiting, talent, and HR AI perspective on a flexible basis. It is part advisor, part sounding board, part execution partner, and part strategic problem-solver.
This pillar is best for organizations that need senior-level support but are not ready for a full-time Head of Talent, Chief People Officer, Recruiting Leader, or HR AI Strategy role.
What this can include:
- Fractional Talent Leadership
Providing ongoing recruiting and talent leadership for organizations that need structure, strategy, and execution without hiring a full-time leader.
- Founder & Executive Advisory
Serving as a thought partner for founders and senior leaders making high-stakes decisions about hiring, team structure, talent risk, and growth.
- HR/People Leader Support
Supporting internal HR leaders who need extra capacity, outside perspective, recruiting strategy, AI guidance, or project-based expertise.
- Talent Function Assessment
Reviewing the current state of recruiting, hiring operations, role clarity, candidate experience, technology, metrics, and decision quality.
- Recruiting Process Optimization
Improving intake, sourcing, screening, interview flow, candidate communication, hiring manager alignment, and offer management.
- People & Talent Decision Support
Helping leaders think through whether to hire, promote, restructure, outsource, fractionalize, pause, or redesign a role.
- Market & Business Insight Briefings
Providing practical perspective on hiring trends, compensation pressure, candidate expectations, AI adoption, and talent market shifts.
- Special Projects & Strategic Initiatives
Supporting defined projects such as building a recruiting process, launching an AI-enabled HR workflow, preparing for growth, improving hiring documentation, or cleaning up a stalled search.
Common client situations
- “We need senior talent guidance, but not a full-time Head of Talent.”
- “Our HR leader needs a strategic partner, not another vendor.”
- “We are growing, but our people decisions are becoming more complex.”
- “We need someone who can see around corners.”
- “We need practical insight, not a 60-page consulting report.”
