Welcome to P411 Recruiting & Consulting

Thank you for taking the time to visit P411 Recruiting & Consulting!

My connection to agriculture began long before my professional career. I grew up on a large row-crop farm in Northwest Ohio, where my family also operated a farm drainage business. Agriculture wasn't simply an industry I learned—it was the environment I grew up in, and one that shaped my work ethic, perspective, and appreciation for the people and the businesses that keep it moving forward.

I attended the University of Tennessee, earning a degree in Agricultural Economics before beginning my career in the marketing department at John Deere. From there, my career took me through custom manufacturing route, where I spent four years working as a sales engineer and then a national account manager in the plastic injection molding and wire harness assembly business.

I was then given an opportunity to help build up a new agricultural recruiting firm where I spent four years recruiting for manufacturers and dealers within the agricultural equipment sector.

Returning to the product side, I worked three years as a Territory Manager with Sioux Steel building a new territory from scratch before joining Fill-Rite, a manufacturer of fuel and chemical transfer equipment. During my ten years with the company, I began in product management and went on to launch and build its e-commerce operations from the ground up.

Throughout those experiences, I had the opportunity to work across different industries, ownerships, functions, customers, and business environments. When I looked back over my career, the work I found most rewarding was recruiting. That realization ultimately led me back into the recruiting world by founding P411 Recruiting & Consulting in 2025.

What Makes Me Different?

I believe there are fundamental problems with the way recruiting is practiced today.

Most recruiters have learned the mechanics of recruiting—sourcing candidates, conducting interviews, presenting resumes, and managing a hiring process. Far fewer have actually worked inside the types of roles, industries, and businesses for which they recruit. Without that real-world perspective, it can be difficult to truly understand what separates someone who can do the job from someone who can excel in it.

Combine this issue with a recruiting model that too often rewards the number of placements made, rather than the quality and longevity of those placements; the result is a frustrating experience for everyone involved. Candidates can feel like transactions, clients receive candidates who technically meet a job description but don't truly fit the organization, and recruiters become focused on filling today's opening rather than seeking out a successful long-term match.

I founded P411 to build a different model—shaped by the lessons learned during my earlier recruiting career and grounded in real-world industry experience, thoughtful evaluation, transparency, and a genuine commitment to finding the right fit. It builds on what worked, improves on what could have been better, and reflects how I believe recruiting should be done.

The best recruiters aren't driven by urgency. They're grounded in purpose.

A successful placement shouldn't simply fill an open position. It should be a win-win relationship that creates lasting value for both the client and the candidate.

I invite you to watch the introductory video on this site to learn more about who I am, how I operate, and what you can expect if we have the opportunity to work together. If you want to start a conversation, there is a link below to do just that.

Clay Davis
Founder/Recruiter
P411 Recruiting & Consulting