ConsultNet and the Trouble With One More Hire

A healthcare data company had tried to move to Jira Cloud twice. Both launches failed. By the time ConsultNet entered the picture, the organization had accumulated the familiar souvenirs of rapid expansion: tangled workflows, overlapping software, and decisions made in spreadsheets. Buying another tool would have been easy. Deciding who would put the house in order was harder.

In its March 2026 account, ConsultNet says it rebuilt the migration plan, introduced operational dashboards, and reviewed software usage. It reports closing more than 100,000 backlog tickets and finding $296,000 in annual Atlassian license savings. These are company-reported results for an unnamed client. They are also a rather good illustration of its proposition: the right person matters; the arrangement around that person matters too.

“Our corporate culture is based on principled behavior and a commitment to our core values.”Don Goldberg, company announcement, 2016

The vacancy is only the beginning

ConsultNet Technology Services and Solutions occupies the busy intersection of recruiting and technology consulting. A customer can hire a contract specialist, recruit a permanent employee, assemble a technical team, or commission project delivery. Its expertise includes cloud and data work, application development, infrastructure, engineering, and delivery management. In other words, the firm can help fill a seat or help organize the work that makes the seat necessary.

Founder Don Goldberg, a Boston native, established the business in Utah in 1996 after recognizing an opportunity in the state’s technology market. He remains executive director. Alisia Genzler Chesen is now CEO. The origin is wonderfully unromantic: businesses needed technical expertise, and someone had to connect them with people who possessed it. Thirty years later, the connection has acquired rather more moving parts.

The customer list is best understood by the work. ConsultNet describes serving startups, midmarket businesses, and large enterprises. Its published sectors include healthcare, finance, manufacturing, education, and media. These buyers have different problems, but a recognizable predicament: a technology commitment has arrived before the necessary capacity. A deadline is remarkably indifferent to an unfilled requisition.

Three ways to buy a team

There is a consequential choice hidden inside a staffing request. Does the buyer need a person to manage, a team with technical oversight, or somebody to run the project? ConsultNet’s engagement models address those different levels of responsibility. Its Managed Talent Program includes delivery and technical directors, hiring and onboarding support, and performance monitoring. Managed Services extends into project management. Advisory work helps define the roadmap; talent development addresses skills already inside the organization.

That choice puts ConsultNet in competition with staffing agencies, systems integrators, and development firms. A staffing provider may be sufficient when the client already has strong technical leadership. A delivery partner becomes more useful when coordination itself is the missing skill. ConsultNet’s appeal is that these conversations can happen within one business relationship. Buyers should still put the boundaries in writing: who approves changes, who accepts the work, and who answers when it slips.

Its business model follows the engagement. Companies pay for recruited talent, contracted capacity, or consulting and delivery services. Direct Search also offers high-volume recruitment and retained executive search, with an emphasis on passive candidates. This is a service business shaped around customer requirements, rather than a software subscription with a checkout button. Procurement has to buy a scope as well as a skill.

Guadalajara joins the stand-up

ConsultNet’s nearshore operation makes geography part of the design. Its Guadalajara development center provides recruiting, local leadership, and bilingual project management. The attraction is working together during compatible hours. A question asked in the morning can become a conversation that morning. That modest convenience has consequences when requirements keep changing.

The company advertises project resource costs 40-60% below local market rates. That comparison concerns resources. It should not be read as a promise that every completed project will cost half as much. Management, onboarding, and rework still belong in the buyer’s arithmetic. An inexpensive hour spent correcting an avoidable misunderstanding remains an expense.

One September 2024 case describes a client struggling to find Go developers for cloud migration. ConsultNet organized roughly forty interviews over three days in Guadalajara, assembled twenty bilingual developers and testers, and expanded beyond thirty within three months. A project manager and ScrumMaster supported execution; client leaders visited for training and meetings. ConsultNet reports 65% savings against a similar U.S. project. The useful detail is the client’s participation: this was a relationship with a working rhythm, not a remote team abandoned to an inbox.

The interview process gets an interview

A separate case, involving an online auction platform, starts with scattered global agencies and contractors. The client wanted a centralized Mexico tech hub. ConsultNet reports growing it from zero to twenty people in three months, using a three-step selection process that combined internal review, hiring-manager assessment, and targeted competency questions. DevOps, .NET, and data engineering roles came first.

The reported hiring timeline fell to three weeks. Competitive pay and benefits accompanied assessments of technical and communication skills. The company's plan to exceed one hundred people was a future ambition in that account, rather than a completed result. For a reader building a team, the transferable idea is concrete: decide which capabilities come first, make the interview stages purposeful, and assess how people communicate before they need to rescue a release together.

The platform is installed. The work continues.

Specialist enterprise platforms give ConsultNet another way into a customer’s operations. Salesforce work runs through SaltClick, whose services include implementation, integrations, and managed support from administrators, developers, and architects. That ongoing work matters because a system’s launch is merely the beginning of requests, fixes, and decisions about what to improve next.

ConsultNet also describes a Workday Analyst Program built with Workday. Its purpose is to develop certified analyst talent for administration, configuration, and support, giving experienced internal teams more bandwidth. The logic is sensible: allocate routine work to people trained for it, so scarce senior specialists can spend their time on harder problems. Training becomes part of capacity planning.

AWS and ServiceNow partnerships broaden the technical remit into cloud modernization and enterprise workflows. The buyer’s question remains practical: does the proposed team understand this environment and this problem? A partner badge introduces the conversation. Delivery responsibilities, relevant experience, and a credible plan have to carry it.

AI meets the contracts drawer

ConsultNet’s February 2026 AI case concerns a national consumer-products sales and marketing services company with more than a thousand manufacturer partnerships. Teams wanted to use AI, but vendor agreements and NDAs had not been written with those tools in mind. Manual commission calculations were also causing errors. Enthusiasm had got ahead of permission and process.

ConsultNet describes establishing an AI Center of Excellence, recruiting automation and generative-AI engineers plus an AI security architect, reviewing agreements, and building security policies. Proofs of concept used Azure and Power Automate. The reported improvement was a repeatable way to adopt AI, alongside more accurate commissions and quicker agreement review. This is a useful reminder that some technology work begins with reading documents.

The owner belongs in the budget

ConsultNet’s stated values are teamwork, integrity, and professionalism. There is some historical evidence behind the culture pitch: its Great Place To Work profile, updated in July 2018, reports that 91% of employees called it a great workplace. Its 2016 announcement records awards for both client and consultant satisfaction. Dates matter here; those recognitions describe particular periods, rather than issuing a perpetual warranty.

The wider lesson survives without a badge. Specify the work before adding people. Choose a delivery model that matches your ability to supervise it. Compare complete costs and agree on outcomes that someone can measure. Nearshore teams need access, communication, and engaged customer leadership; managed services need a scope and authority. Where those conditions are absent, another supplier can inherit the same confusion.

ConsultNet’s most interesting sale is the arrangement between the people and the project. A developer, an analyst, and a migration lead can all be excellent in isolation. The useful question is who makes their efforts add up. Put that name in the plan before putting another name on the roster.