Established · Chicago · Worldwide
"The Perfect Match. Every Time."
Boutique Placement · Unconventional Methods · Extraordinary Results
Our Philosophy
Perfect Match Staffing was founded on a single, radical belief: the perfect match is never the position. It is the person you become while trying to survive it.
Our placements may occasionally appear — to the untrained eye — chaotic, mismatched, or deeply inadvisable. We assure you they are none of these things. They are precisely calibrated to unlock the specific version of you that your previous employment history was actively suppressing.
We have placed people in cryo spas, children's publishing houses, grief boutiques, fiber cereal companies, and, on one memorable occasion, an alpaca sanctuary where the alpacas had recently unionized. Every single one of those people is better for it. The alpacas are also doing extremely well.
What We Offer
We match you with a short-term position carefully selected to be completely, specifically wrong for you on paper and profoundly correct for you in ways you will not understand until approximately six weeks later. Duration varies. Transformation guaranteed.
*Perfect Match Staffing is not responsible for viral videos, unexpected promotions, or personal reinventions resulting from placement.
For clients in the in-between. You know who you were. You are not yet certain who you are becoming. We find this deeply interesting and professionally useful. Please bring a change of clothes. The assignments can get unpredictable.
*Clients are advised that "in-between" is not a temporary state. It is, in our experience, the most permanent one.
Our in-house Placement Wellness Advisor, Alexis Fields, is available for complimentary sessions following any assignment. Sessions consist primarily of Alexis telling you about Alexis. Clients report finding this unexpectedly helpful. We cannot explain it either.
*Sessions are capped at 90 minutes. This cap is largely theoretical.
For organizations seeking top-tier talent who do not yet know they are top-tier. We find them. We place them in something that seems inadvisable. They exceed every expectation. You are welcome.
*We reserve the right to decline any placement we determine to be "too obvious."
A proprietary evaluation process developed by Ms. Lockhart over thirty years of watching people discover themselves in increasingly unlikely professional situations. The assessment takes one meeting. The results are immediate. We do not share them with you. We use them to find your assignment.
*The assessment is not a personality test. It is something else entirely. We prefer not to elaborate.
Our most successful placements come through referral. If someone gave you our card, please know that this was not accidental. Someone who knows you well determined that you need us. We suggest you reflect on what that says about where you currently are in life.
*Perfect Match Staffing does not cold-call. We do, however, send letters. Occasionally from hotel balconies.
The People Behind the Placements
Perfect Match Staffing is staffed by four professionals who collectively represent decades of experience, one near-constant state of mild alarm, and an unwavering commitment to placing people exactly where they need to be — whether or not they asked to go there.
Founder & Owner · President · The One Who Decides
Ms. Lockhart founded Perfect Match Staffing after a personal and professional revelation she describes only as "the incident" and declines to elaborate on further. What followed was nearly a year of drifting — freelance work, temp assignments, international travel, and the kind of profound self-discovery that typically requires either a very good therapist or a very bad job. She experienced both.
What she observed during that year became the foundation of this agency: the temporary jobs changed people more than the permanent ones. She watched a failed accountant become a chef. A laid-off teacher become a comedian. A receptionist become a CEO. She decided, with characteristic decisiveness, to make this her business.
Ms. Lockhart conducts all client-facing communications via Zoom. Her locations have included a hotel balcony in Monaco, a jazz bar in Berlin, a boat of unspecified origin, and, during the memorable Season — the memorable quarter — of 2023, what appeared to be a vineyard in Tuscany with very strong wifi. She has never once explained where she is. She does not intend to start.
She believes the perfect match is not a job. She has believed this for thirty years. She will continue to believe it regardless of what you think.
"I don't find you the right job. I find you the right version of yourself. The job is simply the container."
— Ms. Lockhart, from somewhere with excellent room serviceSenior Recruiter · Client Relations · The One Who Actually Answers the Phone
Bakari joined Perfect Match Staffing after being placed by Perfect Match Staffing, which he describes as "a natural progression" and which the rest of the team describes as "exactly the kind of thing that happens here."
As Senior Recruiter, Bakari is responsible for client intake, relationship management, assignment coordination, and maintaining the genuine, specific, occasionally overwhelming enthusiasm that has become his professional signature. He loves this job. He loves it in the way that some people love a sport or a religion — with full commitment and no particular interest in whether you share his feelings.
Bakari identifies candidates through a combination of proprietary assessment tools, careful observation, and what he describes as "a feeling." His success rate is extraordinary. His methods are his own. He will not be explaining them.
Clients frequently report that Bakari seemed to know something about their professional trajectory that they had not yet told him. When asked about this, Bakari smiles, sips his tea, and says something warm and entirely non-specific. This is intentional.
"I didn't assign you to the alpaca sanctuary to be difficult. The alpacas needed you. You needed the alpacas. That's the job."
— Bakari, during what he described as a "routine check-in"Front Desk · Office Operations · Institutional Memory
Nesta has been at the front desk of Perfect Match Staffing for longer than anyone currently employed here can account for. No one has asked her directly. This is widely considered the correct decision.
Her responsibilities include managing incoming inquiries, processing assignment paperwork, maintaining client files, and occasionally singing the answer to a question nobody asked out loud. The singing is not listed in her job description. It has never been addressed in a performance review. It will not be.
Nesta's first words to every new client are "You look like you've disappointed people before. That's good." She has said this to every client. Without exception. Without elaboration. She has never been asked to stop.
Those who have worked with Nesta long enough report that she knows things she has no discernible way of knowing. When this observation is raised with Ms. Lockhart, Ms. Lockhart says "Yes" and changes the subject. This is the entirety of the official agency position on the matter.
"In this office, a warning and a welcome are the same thing. I'd like that to be very clear from the start."
— Nesta, orientation day, every orientation day, alwaysPlacement Wellness Advisor · Life Coach · Energy Realigner · Spiritual Strategist · Part-Time Candle Designer
Alexis Fields joined Perfect Match Staffing as Placement Wellness Advisor following an extensive personal journey that she is always prepared to describe in detail and which typically takes between forty-five and ninety minutes depending on whether she gets to the Bali portion.
Her coaching philosophy is "radically client-centered," which in practice means that every session begins with the client's concern and arrives, via a route that defies conventional navigation, at a story about Alexis. Clients consistently report leaving sessions clearer than when they arrived. None of them can explain how this happened. Alexis cannot explain it either, but she has several theories about it that she would be happy to share.
Alexis does not use incense, crystals, or meditation in her sessions. Her coaching style is purely verbal and performative, which she describes as "a choice" and which her former acting coach described as "the only thing you know how to do." She has not spoken to her former acting coach since.
She auditions regularly. She has not booked anything. She considers this a temporary situation. She has considered it a temporary situation for several years. Perfect Match Staffing does not comment on this internally, except occasionally, quietly, to one another.
"Sometimes the wrong door opens because the right one is still painting its nails. Be patient. Also — do you want to hear about the time I organized a charity bake-off and literally no one thanked me? Because it's relevant. I promise."
— Alexis Fields, Session 1, every Session 1, alwaysClient Experiences
I was placed at a cryo spa. I accidentally locked a wellness influencer in a chamber. The video went viral. I have a new career now. I don't entirely understand what happened but I'm not unhappy about it.
Former Executive · Current Success Story · Ongoing Mystery
Alexis told me a forty-minute story about her aunt's book club that turned out to be a kombucha pyramid scheme. Somehow I left knowing exactly what I needed to do with my life. I cannot explain this and I have stopped trying.
Senior Recruiter · Believer · Tea Enthusiast
Nesta told me I looked like I'd disappointed people before. I cried. She handed me a tissue and said "Good. That means you felt something." I start my new position Monday. The alpacas send their regards.
Placed · Transformed · Requested Anonymity · We Respect That
Available Positions
All positions are temporary. All positions are intentional. If one of the listings below seems wrong for you, that is almost certainly the point. Applications are reviewed in the order that feels right. This is not the same as the order received.
"Don't see a position that's right for you?"
That is because the right position for you is not yet listed. It does not exist yet in any conventional sense. We are working on it. We will be in touch.
Perfect Match Staffing · The Perfect Match. Every Time.
Non-Serious Inquiries Only
If you have received a card, a letter, or a Zoom call from Ms. Lockhart, you are already in the process. If you have not, and you believe you should be, we invite you to reach out. We will assess your inquiry. We will assess you. We will be in touch when we are ready.
No Need To Apply.
The people who want to apply for our listed positions are precisely the people we would not place in them. You understand.
*Perfect Match Staffing does not guarantee that the match you receive will be the match you requested. We guarantee it will be the match you needed. These are different things. We have always been very clear about this.