When Getting the Hire Wrong Gets People Killed

Most recruiting firms measure success by offers accepted. Jake Frazer watched that metric send unqualified people into a war zone. That was the moment he decided the industry was broken — and spent the next decade building something different.

Frazer is not a recruiter. He is a government contracting operator who watched from the inside as one of the largest defense contractors in the world staffed programs the wrong way and paid for it in the field. He served in the Army, ran logistics at KBR pumping 2,000 people a month into theater, then built and sold a $200 million prime contractor. When he launched Precision Talent Solutions ten years ago, he made one decision that changed everything: he refused to run it like a recruiting firm.

PTS does not hire traditional recruiters. Seventy percent of his 25-person team came out of govcon operations — people who have been on programs, who know what the mission costs, who have been ghosted by a bad recruiter and remember how it felt. They use a full assessment platform — personality profiling, cognitive scoring, custom video interviews — because Jake believes the resume, especially now, reveals almost nothing. He made hiring a P&L responsibility inside the firm because he learned at KBR that whoever owns the gate owns the outcome.

In this episode Jake shares the framework that took him from a failed SaaS startup to one of the most respected executive search firms in the govcon space — including how he has placed over 50 transitioning generals, how he is positioning PTS for the European defense surge, and why he believes the recruiters who survive the AI wave will be the ones with the deepest industry expertise and the most genuine empathy. The ones who treat candidates and clients with the same level of care. The ones who understand what is actually at stake.

In government contracting, Jake says, a bad hire does not just cost you a fee. Sometimes it costs something else entirely.

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🔗 Jake Frazer on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakefrazer/

🌐 Benjamin Mena → http://www.selectsourcesolutions.com/

🔗 Benjamin on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminmena/

📸 Benjamin on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/benlmena/