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Clients and candidates of Trinity Staffing Services can thank Nellie Hernandez — a lot! — for bringing Professional Recruiter Jo Settles to the Trinity team.

Jo and Nellie worked together for many years at a nationwide staffing firm with a branch in San Antonio.  Nellie left the company more than seven years ago and, a few years after she joined Trinity, contacted Jo about joining the Trinity team.

Jo’s favorite account was leaving her then-employer in late 2006 and so she figured that it would be a great time to leave the staffing industry.

Until she got Nellie’s phone call, that is.

Jo and Nellie had worked together to bring in that large account, Nellie as branch manager and head sales executive, Jo as the manager of day-to-day operations of the huge on-site account (with upwards of 1,700 workers).  Jo supervised other staffing agents who interviewed, placed and retained the large workforce.

“When I left that large account, I really thought it was time to do something new,” Jo says. “But then Nellie called me and invited me to come in and meet with J.P. and Sue Jones, the owners of Trinity Staffing, and I jumped at the chance. More than three years later, I’m still here!”

As a recruiter, Jo sources, interviews and places candidates in specialized professional positions as well as large-scale projects.  She evaluates candidates on their skills, work history, education, and salary requirements.  She also gets a feel for candidates’ personalities, their career aspirations and what types of environments are best for them, with the idea that she will help them find the best position for their talents and goals.

“Many of our positions today are temp-to-hire or long-term temporary assignments so we want to be sure both our client and candidate are a good match — long-term relationships often take place as result,” Jo says.

Jo traveled the world with her parents as a youngster (her father was in the Army). She met her husband, Art, when her father was stationed in Indiana. Art hailed from San Antonio and the couple moved here after their wedding to be closer to his family.

She and Art have two children, Kellye and Brad, both now grown, with Kellye engaged to be married in January 2011.

Jo truly feels San Antonio is her real home and she and Art have been long-time season ticket holders for the San Antonio Spurs.  “We enjoyed going to the games as a family,” Jo says, so much so that Kellye once was featured in the Spurs’ magazine. Jo and Brad started collecting David Robinson cards, a “hobby” she picked up to spend more time with her sports-obsessed son (Brad once was a gold medalist at the Junior Olympics in pole vault.)  “I got hooked though, and now you should see my collection of over 1000 cards!”

Whether you’d like to talk Spurs or whether you’d like to learn more about how Trinity Staffing Services can help you find your next great position or next terrific employee, contact Jo and her colleagues today!

Nellie Hernandez will be the first to tell you that her career in the staffing industry is one she lucked into.

She attended Texas A&I University (now Texas A&M) with plans to become an educator but soon decided she would much rather pursue a career in the business world and work with adults.

Her first human resources job was with a large San Antonio-area manufacturing company and, as part of her duties, she worked with different staffing services in the area to bring in temporary workers when her company needed extra hands. The branch manager at one of the companies saw a “staffing spark” in her and offered Nellie a position within her branch.  Since then, she has achieved great success in the staffing industry.

That was more than 20 years ago and Nellie has never looked back.

“I may not be a teacher in the usual sense, but I do believe I’m an educator,” she says. “I share my experience, skills and knowledge with the goal of developing a person’s talents to the best of his or her ability often through coaching opportunities. In our profession,  both clients and candidates measure us based on the results we produce for each – our clients rely on us to find that ‘stellar candidate’ and stellar candidates rely on us to find them that ‘hidden job opportunity.’  In the end, this is the most gratifying career I never planned on having.”

Nellie has worked at Trinity for seven years, first coming to the staffing firm as a consultant after a long career in management with a national staffing company. “I spent most of my career working for national staffing companies,” she says. “Working for a locally owned and locally managed company allows us to make business decisions quickly, which benefits our clients in the long run. I first came to Trinity as a consultant and I’m glad Sue and JP [Trinity's co-founders] invited me to stay.”

Nellie serves Trinity and its clients and candidates as the manager of Staffing and Human Capital Search. As such, she helps Trinity’s account managers/recruiters put together strategic staffing plans and proposals for client companies and prospects. She also has her own portfolio of distinguished clients.

“All of my clients have high hiring standards – I consider it a privilege to recruit for them,” she says, adding that she believes Trinity’s success lies in all of the firm’s staffing and account managers “getting to know our clients’ needs as if we were members of their own recruiting team.

“Everyone here at Trinity believes that we have two ‘clients:’ the companies we service as well as the candidates we place”.

When not making matches between candidates and client companies, Nellie spends time with her husband, Joe, who recently retired from the San Antonio Police Department, their dog, Willie, and her garden.

“I am pretty passionate about things I enjoy doing,” she says. “I spend a lot of time working on my garden and am always looking for that special plant to grow and add spark to my garden – plants are similar to people, they can reach their highest potential if they are in the perfect environment!”

If you’re in the San Antonia area and you need to find great people or need to find a great job, contact Trinity Staffing Services. We have been helping hundreds of candidates find great work in dozens of local companies since 1996, and we’ll do the same for you. Contact us today.

The primary reason Sue Jones, president of Trinity Staffing Services, enjoys her work so much?

“Giving someone a chance to make something better with his or her life,” she says. “We give people an opportunity and it’s so rewarding to see so many take it and run with it. There’s nothing like knowing you helped improve someone’s life in some way.”

Sue and her husband, J.P., have owned Trinity since 1996. They weren’t new to business ownership — the couple had owned the Pet Pantry Pet Store in San Antonio’s North Star Mall for about 20 years just prior to starting Trinity. Before the pet store, the couple owned an import business in Colorado.

So why start a staffing service, an industry known to be über-competitive, with small profit margins and numerous rules and regulations to follow?

“It’s all about customer service,” Sue says. “And we knew customer service from our other business ventures. And then, again, the chance to be an important part of our community, helping businesses find great employees and helping people find great careers. What’s not to like? We jumped at the chance!”

Even though she’s president of Trinity Staffing Services, Sue prefers to work behind the scenes performing operations tasks in support of the company’s eight account managers, who source, screen and place candidates and who also sell and service company accounts.

Or, who, as Sue says it,  “basically run their own mini-business.”

Loyalty to her staff is important to her, Sue says, and it shows: the shortest tenure for the staffing service’s current account managers is four years, while most others have been with Trinity at least seven years, a long time in an industry known for the churn of internal staff.

Much of Trinity’s new business comes from referrals. Sue attributes this to the Trinity staff’s aforementioned excellent customer service skills as well as the fact that “we’re a very ethical group of people,” she says. “We do what we say we will.

“We’re also here for the long-run with our clients. We’re not looking for the quick fix; we want to build long-standing partnerships.”

Sue grew up in the Southern California desert town of Indio, attended San Diego State University and earned a teaching credential. She then taught at an elementary school in Chula Vista for three years until J.P secured a position with Mobil Oil in Texas.

In her spare time, Sue enjoys Yoga, kickboxing and Pilates. She and J.P. also spend as much time as possible with their three grandchildren.

“There’s no better business to be in than staffing,” Sue says. “We help our client companies run more efficiently and we help people in one of the most important areas of their lives — work. I’m blessed!”

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If you’re in the San Antonia area and you need to find great people or need to find a great job, contact Trinity Staffing Services. We have been helping hundreds of candidates find great work in dozens of local companies since 1996, and we’ll do the same for you. Contact us today.