Black Belts

Redefining the IT Consultancy Business

Black Belts is an IT consulting company combining headhunting and IT consultancy. We focus on filling customers’ technical key positions with senior consultants with 15+ years of relevant experience. Each consultant is headhunted from the entire market based on the customer’s request. To ensure the perfect match, each case has been validated in advance by Black Belts, the customer, and the consultant. Our price average is 125€/h, of which 80% is always compensated to the consultant.

How do we differ?

Black Belts Approach

Minimal Operational Costs: Black Belts does not maintain a bench of idle consultants, reducing overhead and ensuring customers only pay for active, matched talent.
Full Transparency: Pricing and compensation are fully transparent, with 80% of the customer fee going directly to the consultant.
Personalized Service: Each expert is headhunted based on the customer’s specific needs, and all contracts are personalized with named individuals.
Super Seniority: Focuses exclusively on senior consultants with at least 15 years of experience in the IT field.
Flexibility: Consultants have the freedom to choose their working model, either as freelancers or employees, and customers can terminate assignments with 30 days’ notice.

Traditional Consultancy Approach

Bench Costs: Maintains a bench of consultants, leading to higher overhead costs that are passed on to customers.
Opaque Pricing: Pricing structures are often not transparent, with hidden costs and unclear compensation for consultants.
Generic Assignments: Consultants are often assigned based on availability rather than a perfect match for the customer’s needs.
Variable Experience Levels: Consultants may have varying levels of experience, not necessarily meeting a high seniority threshold.
Rigid Contracts: Contracts are typically less flexible, with restrictions on hiring consultants directly and less freedom for consultants in choosing their work model

How Does It Work?

1. Define

We identify the precise skills, experience, and attributes required for the role, ensuring clarity for the search process. Just provide us the information below:

Technical skill set
Case / industry experience
Language (Finnish and/or English)
Location (onsite/ hybrid/ remote)
Start date + duration

On average, we provide you 1-3 candidates in 1-2 weeks.

We offer the best talent, perfectly matched to your needs, from the entire market.
All within just two weeks.

2. Search and validation

Our team taps into the entire market to find the most fitting candidates, connecting them with you for consideration. We are specialized in finding and delivering pure tech unicorns. Candidates undergo thorough validation and interview by our in-house experts to ensure the high standards of quality and seniority.

3. CV review and interviews

We present you a curated shortlist of candidates with pre-validated CVs to meet the requirements. You interview the candidates and select the one who best
aligns with your needs, ensuring a perfect match.

More than 85% of senior experts contacted by our headhunters want to continue the conversation.

4. Contract and delivery

Once you and the consultant have validated each other, we handle the necessary paperwork with both parties, get the consultant onboarded, and ensure a smooth start for the delivery.

Examples of Black Belts Profiles

As we always work based on the optimal profile defined by each customer case, we are not focused to any specific area.
But to help you understand where we could help, here’s some of the areas and roles we have helped our customers with.

Data

Analysts, engineers, scientists, governance experts, and data strategy advisors.

AI and ML

Developers, engineers, and specialists.

Cloud

Cloud architects and developers for cloud migration and modernisation projects

Software Development

Fullstack developers, Front-end and Back-end developers across the technical spectrum

Project Management

Scrum masters, Agile coaches, Project managers, Project owners

Design

UX/UI designers, Business designers.

Security

CISO as a service, security architects & developers, white hat hackers, and infrastructure security specialists.

Salesforce

Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Experience Cloud // Security, Architecture, Development

Advisory

Director, VP, and CXO level roles for high-level executive & strategical advisory.

Sounds Too Good To Be True?

Let us help you to find the perfect Black Belt for your needs

Frequently Asked Questions

Read answers to our most asked questions.

You say that you don’t “suffer” from bench costs. What happens to the experts when an assignment ends?Tobias2025-01-29T15:21:08+00:00

You say that you don’t “suffer” from bench costs. What happens to the experts when an assignment ends?

Given the elite status of the Black Belts experts, our experts often have a strong personal reputation, and stakeholders from previous assignments are typically willing to provide references or suggest new opportunities either internally or externally.
As we provide the experts the freedom to choose their work model, one of the following models happen if the expert is not immediately sold to the next project:
- For those who are Black Belts employees, the situation is akin to a standard employment agreement. When an assignment ends, the employee transitions to the bench but continues to receive a base salary of €6,000 per month. Black Belts actively seeks new assignments for these employees.
- For experts working through their own freelancing company, Black Belts has no further obligations once the assignment concludes. However, Black Belts leverages the positive experience and delivery capabilities of the expert to find them subsequent opportunities. The expert enjoys full freedom to pursue other gigs through any vendor or consultancy agency.

What is the minimum duration for a project?Tobias2025-01-29T15:15:25+00:00

What is the minimum duration for a project?

There is no minimum duration from the customer’s perspective, and we work always based on the customer’s request, but assignments lasting less than four months may not attract top talent. Therefore, we prefer to work with request with a minimum estimated duration of 4 months with fulltime allocation.

Do you have any contractual clauses preventing customers from hiring consultants directly?Tobias2025-01-29T15:14:53+00:00

Do you have any contractual clauses preventing customers from hiring consultants directly?

No, Black Belts do not have such clauses, and if the experts wants to move to the customer, we want to ensure a seamless transition. Our model is designed to provide maximum benefits to all parties, making it honestly challenging for customers or other consultancy companies to match with the Black Belts model.

How fast can you find the candidates and when can the chosen one(s) start in the gigs?Tobias2025-01-29T15:14:17+00:00

How fast can you find the candidates and when can the chosen one(s) start in the gigs?

Typically, it takes us 1-2 weeks to find, internally validate and present the matching candidates. The first interviews are normally agreed to the following week, and the start in the assignment is always agreed jointly between the chosen expert and the customer. The actual start in the project depends both of the customer’s timeline and the chosen expert’s availability/ notice period. On average, the experts are able to start in the customer gigs two to six weeks from defining the optimal profile.