At SMCI® our commitment is to provide the highest level of consistent quality possible in a service industry in which our primary product is the technical competency and committed professional behavior of our candidates. We pride ourselves on the ability to accurately evaluate a client’s needs and provide only those resources that are professionally appropriate in skills and background, are able to provide quality service, and have the interpersonal skills necessary to succeed at the client’s site.
While the focus on providing a quality product is important, our commitment also contemplates the need to be a good corporate citizen. To achieve both of these goals we have adopted and continually strive to follow a corporate philosophy based on the following tenets:
- Continually strive to guide our actions with the principles that are expressed in our Code of Ethics.
- Follow a policy of full disclosure to clients and candidates alike.
- View the client and the candidate relationships as being of equal importance. Ultimately, both are our customers.
- Strive to find solutions based on fairness to all parties in a transaction, candidates as well as clients.
- Focus on long-term results and the building of relationships, rather than short-term gains.
- Adhere to all legal requirements in general and Equal Employment Opportunity requirements in particular
- Always view ourselves as professionals rather than as salespeople or recruiters, and conduct business accordingly.
- Maintain an awareness that SMCI® functions as a team, that the success of each individual is dependent on the success of the team, and that all members of the team are entitled to the same respectful treatment.
- Provide a consistently high-quality product.
- Maintain a strong regional presence.
- Maintain a high level of community and political involvement.
We believe the expression of these philosophical principles in the following concrete ways enhances SMCI’s value proposition to both our clients and the candidates who utilize our services. SMCI® is a service organization, and our product is the provision of services which seek to match appropriate professional personnel to the needs of our clients – a person who fits the specifications of our client in three major areas: professional competency; professional demeanor; and experiential appropriateness. . Awareness of and compliance with applicable legal requirements is a significant aspect of SMCI’s philosophy, and our commitment to this principle is well articulated in our Code of Ethics. All hiring decisions are made without regard to age, mental or physical disability, marital status, national origin, prior military service, race, religion or sex. This EOE commitment extends both to providing candidates to our clients and to staffing for our own organization as well as to the presentation of candidates to our clients for direct-hire requirements. We are strongly committed to EOE principles and workplace diversity and will refuse to do business with clients who do not share are commitment to EOE. We believe in maintaining a strong regional presence in the marketplaces we serve. While there are advantages to a client in national coverage, we believe there are contrasting, significant advantages to be gained from utilizing regionally based vendor organizations. We believe that the manner in which we participate as a member of the business communities we serve is as important as the services we provide. We are committed to involvement in our local and national business communities.
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Providing A Quality Product
To this end we have built sourcing, screening, and placement maintenance procedures that ensure that the professionals providing the services meet the clients’ specifications initially, and continue to meet its professional service requirements during the entire course of an assignment. Our Process puts most of our energy into getting it right to begin with.
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Because we believe that our process ensures that our clients always receive the professional service that they hire us to produce, we offer our clients the unconditional guarantee of The 80-Hour Interview™ on all SMCI® consultants. We have been offering this guarantee since our incorporation in 1983 and believe that we were the first consulting firm in Southern California to offer this guarantee.
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We believe that conducting business with a commitment to ethical business practices and in a way that emphasizes the formation of long-term business relationships – both with clients and with consultants – is the foundation of our service and quality-control programs.
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All new SMCI® employees receive significant training in our business principles and the importance of conducting business in accordance with them. This training is periodically reinforced both with regular training sessions and in ad hoc sessions that arise out of specific issues on a day-to-day basis.Compliance with Applicable Laws and Regulations
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We believe our commitment to understanding and staying current on applicable legal requirements saves us time and energy, and ultimately expenses. We are fortunate in this regard that our President and CEO is a licensed member of the State Bar of California who is well versed in California labor law and is active in shaping legislation which affects our industry at the state level via his participation in both the national and local TechServe Alliance (formerly NACCB). The TechServe Alliance is the leading trade organization representing the IT staffing industry.
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Mr. Karpf spent five years on the national board of the TechServe Alliance and currently sits on the Southern California chapter board where he serves as both the Ethics Committee chair and Legislative Committee chair.
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SMCI® Is An Equal Opportunity Employer
Maintenance Of A Strong Regional Presence
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Our regional base provides us with greater opportunities for involvement in our local business and cultural communities. Our dedicated involvement and commitment produce a deep knowledge of the local environment, a more significant recognition of our presence by the technical/professional community, and greater continuity in the development of relationships with both our clients and our consulting resources.
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The founders and current owners of SMCI®, as well as the majority of our senior management, come from an information technology or a technically related background. This enables us to gain an understanding of our client’s needs and allows the organization to form policies and procedures that help facilitate our role as a professional information technology provider.
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Because SMCI® is regionally based with hands-on ownership, our business decisions are driven by a commitment to serving the needs of our consultants and clients rather than being driven by market analysts and the numbers demands of absentee management. We believe all of these positive aspects of local involvement that come with regionally based operations produce a better product for the client.
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SMCI® Maintains A High Level Of Community And Political Involvement
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As previously detailed, SMCI® is a member of TechServe Alliance (formerly NACCB). Our president, Spencer L. Karpf, served for many years on the national Board and currently serves on the Board of the Southern California chapter where he is also the chair of the Ethics Committee and the Legislative Committee.
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SMCI® is a member of SIM (Society for Information Management) and was a founding member of The Open Door Education Foundation. SMCI® founded and sponsored the Charlotte chapter of the Visual Basic Users’ Group, and continue to sponsor this group in its current form as the Enterprise Developers’ Guild. In California SMCI® founded the Los Angeles chapter of WITI (Women in Technology International).
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SMCI® was invited to be a sponsor of the LA Dot Net Users Group for the last two years.
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We also actively participate in the following user groups: