Staffing Agency in Portland, OR
KORE1 is a Portland staffing agency built for Silicon Forest tech, the athletic and outdoor brand corridor in Beaverton, and the healthcare IT work running through OHSU and Providence. We place candidates who actually match the role. Not resumes that happen to line up with a keyword filter.
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KORE1 is a Portland staffing agency that places IT, engineering, accounting, finance, and professional talent across Silicon Forest and the greater PDX metro, with a 17-day average time-to-hire and 92% 12-month retention.
Why Portland Companies Choose KORE1 as Their Staffing Agency
Portland hiring is its own animal. The talent base is deep but it is spread across three very different economies sitting on top of each other, and a recruiter who only understands one of them will miss on the other two. Silicon Forest in Hillsboro runs on semiconductor and EDA work. Beaverton runs on athletic and outdoor brand engineering. Downtown and the east side run on healthcare IT, fintech, and agency creative. Different pay bands, different commute tolerances, different candidate profiles.
KORE1 works in all three. We bring the infrastructure and candidate network of a national IT staffing agency, and our recruiters actually know the Portland market. Which Intel teams just reorg’d and dumped senior talent back into the pool. Where Nike’s footwear tech stack sits relative to adidas NA and Columbia. Which OHSU contract conversions are about to roll off. Where Vancouver WA candidates will accept a commute and where they absolutely will not.
We also keep score. Our placement retention runs at 92% across twelve months, which does not happen by accident and does not happen from resume-spray sourcing either. We screen for technical fit, sure. We also screen for the pieces that actually decide whether someone stays past month six. Team cadence, remote tolerance, growth expectations, commute math when Highway 26 backs up at 4:30 on a Wednesday.
Portland-area companies come back to us because we treat every search like our reputation is on the line. It is.
Staffing Services We Offer in Portland
IT Staffing
Silicon Forest is a different hiring environment than Seattle or the Bay, and anyone who has tried to fill a chip-design role in Hillsboro on the same playbook they use for a SaaS role in SOMA has probably learned that the hard way. The engineering is deeper, the clearance considerations real, the tenure expectations longer. Intel’s Hawthorn Farm and Ronler Acres campuses have a gravitational pull on the whole regional labor market, and a senior Snowflake or Azure role downtown competes against that pull every single day.
KORE1 places software engineers, cloud architects, DevOps specialists, data engineers, cybersecurity analysts, QA engineers, and help desk teams across the Portland metro and Vancouver WA. Contract, contract-to-hire, or direct. Our IT staffing services cover the full technology stack, and we know this market because our recruiters spend their weeks in it, working referrals out of the Intel and Nike alumni networks, tracking which contracts at Providence and OHSU are about to roll off, and maintaining active pools for the roles that turn over most often in Silicon Forest.
Engineering and Product Staffing
Portland’s athletic and outdoor industry is unlike anything else in North America. Nike, adidas NA, Columbia Sportswear, Keen, Under Armour’s PDX presence, plus the long tail of smaller brands and contract design shops. They all need product engineers, materials scientists, industrial designers, supply chain analysts, and digital product managers who already understand the cadence of seasonal product development. A great engineer from a consumer electronics background can ramp, but it takes months. We look for the people who can contribute in week two.
Our engineering staffing team also places mechanical, electrical, quality, systems, and project management talent across Portland’s broader industrial base, from Daimler Trucks North America in Swan Island to the clean-energy and aerospace suppliers scattered through the Columbia River corridor. We screen for the certifications and the ITAR posture when roles require it.
Healthcare IT and Revenue Cycle
Portland’s healthcare scene is anchored by OHSU, Providence, Kaiser Permanente NW, Legacy, and the Moda/CareOregon payer ecosystem. Every one of them is in some phase of Epic optimization, population health modernization, or post-merger IT integration, which translates directly into steady demand for analysts, architects, and integration specialists who actually understand the systems.
We place Epic certified analysts across the Bridges, ClinDoc, Grand Central, and Willow modules, and we have filled those exact roles inside OHSU, Providence, Kaiser, and Legacy enough times that we know the certification combinations each system actually wants, the specific populations each hires from, and the compensation bands that will get a signed offer versus a polite no-thank-you. Also revenue cycle analysts, HL7 and FHIR integration engineers, informaticists, security and HIPAA compliance specialists, and project managers who have lived through an ERP-plus-EHR migration and still return calls. Our healthcare IT staffing practice knows the Pacific Northwest payer-provider landscape and the tenure expectations that come with it.
Accounting, Finance, and Professional Staffing
Growth complicates the books faster than most CFOs plan for. One year a single controller covers everything. The next year there are three entities, a new international sub, audit readiness that nobody scoped, and a payroll that doubled while the finance team stayed flat. We place staff accountants, financial analysts, controllers, AP/AR specialists, bookkeepers, and payroll administrators across Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego, and Vancouver WA.
Our accounting and finance consulting team supports companies at every stage, from pre-revenue SaaS to public reporting. We also place HR generalists, recruiters, benefits coordinators, office managers, and executive assistants through our HR staffing practice, and light industrial talent through our warehouse and distribution staffing solutions for the logistics corridor along I-5 and the Columbia.
How We Work
Consultation
Every engagement starts with a real conversation. Not a form submission. We learn your business, your team dynamics, your technical requirements, and the soft-skill pieces that actually decide whether someone thrives in your environment or quietly goes back on the market at month four. Most agencies rush this. We spend the most time here because getting it wrong at the start wastes everyone’s quarter.
Targeted Sourcing
Our recruiters work Portland-area candidate pools built over years of local placements, referrals, and real relationships that cannot be bought through a job-board campaign. We combine our proprietary database with targeted outreach across professional networks. Passive candidates, the ones not actively applying but open to the right role, are almost always the strongest hires and they take the most effort to reach.
Rigorous Screening
Technical assessments, reference checks, background verification, and a behavioral interview designed to surface what resumes hide. We present candidates who are qualified and who actually want your specific role. Not someone using your offer as leverage for a counteroffer back at Intel or Nike. We have done this long enough to spot that pattern early.
Placement and Follow-Through
We do not vanish after start day. Our team checks in at 30, 60, and 90 days. If something is off, we address it. Guaranteed. Retention numbers say replacements are rare, but the guarantee exists because we stand behind every placement. Period.
Industries We Serve in Portland
Semiconductor and Silicon Forest Tech
Hillsboro is the economic engine of Oregon tech. Intel’s campuses anchor it, and the EDA, test-equipment, and chip-design supply chain around them runs deeper than outsiders usually realize. We place verification engineers, firmware developers, process engineers, DevOps, and data talent across the corridor from Hillsboro through Beaverton to Tualatin.
Athletic, Outdoor, and Consumer Brands
Nike, adidas North America, Columbia Sportswear, Keen, Under Armour PDX, Dr. Martens AirWair, and the contract design shops that ring them. Product engineering, digital product, supply chain, retail tech, and DTC platform roles. We know the seasonal cadence and the tenure expectations these teams run on.
Healthcare and Life Sciences
OHSU, Providence, Kaiser Permanente NW, Legacy Health, and the Moda and CareOregon payer networks. Also the growing life sciences cluster around OHSU’s research footprint. We staff clinical IT, revenue cycle, informatics, and infrastructure roles, plus the accounting and compliance talent that keeps it all funded.
Financial Services and Fintech
Umpqua Bank, Columbia Bank, the regional credit union network, and the growing Portland fintech scene. Compliance, operations, technology, and accounting talent. The financial sector here is more sophisticated than the headcount suggests and the searches often run deeper than expected.
Manufacturing, Logistics, and Clean Energy
Daimler Trucks North America in Swan Island, Vigor Industrial, Precision Castparts, Boeing’s Portland composites facility, plus the solar, wind, and battery-storage manufacturers across the Columbia River corridor. Quality, production, supply chain, and warehouse teams staffed on both sides of the river.
Creative, Agency, and Digital
Wieden+Kennedy, R/GA, AKQA, Instrument, Sockeye, plus the dozens of smaller studios and in-house brand teams. We place creative technologists, digital producers, UX researchers, and content operations talent. Contract coverage during campaign ramps, direct hire for permanent builds.
Temporary, Contract-to-Hire, and Direct Hire Staffing
Different roles call for different models, and most of our Portland clients end up using more than one depending on the situation. For specialized engagements with defined deliverables and timelines, we also run project-based staffing.
Temporary Staffing
Temp works when you have a defined project, a seasonal peak, or a coverage gap that needs to be filled this week and you cannot wait six weeks for a full recruiting cycle to close. We handle payroll, benefits admin, workers comp, and compliance so your team stays focused on the actual work instead of HR paperwork.
Contract-to-Hire
Contract-to-hire is our most popular model for mid-level technical roles across the Portland metro, and the logic is clean. You evaluate a candidate on real deliverables with real deadlines before committing to a full-time offer. It lowers risk on both sides. Most conversions land inside the first 90 days.
Direct Hire
Direct hire fits when you already know what you need and want us to find the person, vet them, check every reference, and deliver a shortlist of candidates who will actually accept and stay. We handle the whole search from sourcing through offer negotiation. Our direct hire staffing practice places professionals who stick because the match was right from day one.
Portland Metro Submarkets We Cover
Portland hiring is really a set of adjacent labor markets stitched together. Commute tolerance, tax jurisdiction, and the bridge crossings all factor into placement decisions, and we track them. Our active Portland-area coverage includes:
Portland Central
Downtown, Pearl, Lloyd District, the east side from Lloyd to Division, and the Willamette industrial belt. Agency, fintech, healthcare IT, and the creative studios.
Beaverton and Tigard
Nike world HQ, the athletic-brand corridor, Jama Software, and the long tail of B2B SaaS and product-design shops along Highway 217.
Hillsboro and the Silicon Forest
Intel’s Hawthorn Farm, Ronler Acres, and Jones Farm campuses, plus the semiconductor supply chain, EDA vendors, and the MAX Blue Line tech corridor out to Orenco.
Lake Oswego and Wilsonville
Financial services, professional services, and the enterprise SaaS and medical device companies along I-5 south of downtown.
Vancouver, WA
Clark County tax advantages pull plenty of cross-river hiring. We place on both sides of the Columbia and factor the bridge commute into every search.
Gresham, Tualatin, and the I-5 Corridor
Manufacturing, distribution, logistics, and the light-industrial workforce that keeps Pacific Northwest e-commerce moving from the Columbia down into the Willamette Valley.
Part of KORE1’s National Staffing Network
Portland is a key market in our national network. Companies that operate across multiple regions work with us because we hold the same recruiting standard everywhere, without the coordination overhead of managing different agencies in different cities.
Portland
IT, engineering, finance, and professional staffing across the Portland metro, Silicon Forest, Vancouver WA, and the greater PDX region. You are here.
Seattle
Tech, aerospace, biotech, and professional staffing across the Puget Sound, from SLU and Bellevue out to Tacoma.
San Francisco
IT, engineering, biotech, finance, and professional staffing across the San Francisco Bay Area.
San Jose
Semiconductors, enterprise software, networking, fintech, and professional services staffing across Silicon Valley and Santa Clara County.
Orange County
Our HQ in Irvine. The deepest candidate pool in our network, covering tech, engineering, finance, and light industrial across all of OC.
Los Angeles
Enterprise IT, entertainment tech, manufacturing, and professional services talent across LA County. From DTLA to the Westside to the South Bay.
San Diego
Defense tech, biotech, wireless, and professional services staffing across San Diego County.
Denver
Aerospace, tech, energy, and professional services staffing across the Denver metro and Front Range.
Phoenix
Semiconductor, healthcare, aerospace, and professional staffing across the Greater Phoenix metro area.
Common Questions About Staffing in Portland
How much does a staffing agency in Portland cost?
Direct hire fees typically run 15% to 25% of the candidate’s first-year salary. For temporary and contract work, you pay a bill rate covering the candidate’s pay plus a markup for payroll taxes, workers comp, insurance, and our fee. The direct-hire percentage depends on role seniority, how specialized the skill set is, and honestly how tight that particular labor pocket is in the Portland market at that moment, because the bill for a senior verification engineer in Hillsboro does not look like the bill for a staff accountant in Lake Oswego and we are straightforward about the difference instead of averaging it into a generic rate card. We lay out pricing upfront. No hidden fees. No surprise line items turning up three weeks after the start date.
How fast can you fill a role in Silicon Forest?
Our Portland average time-to-hire is 17 days across IT placements. Common roles like help desk technicians, staff accountants, and warehouse associates often close in 3 to 5 business days because we run active candidate pools in those categories, and we can usually move a short-list to your team the same week you give us the brief. Specialized searches, think senior verification engineers or Epic certified analysts with specific modules, typically run 2 to 4 weeks. Our local candidate relationships and pre-screen consistently beat national firms that are working the same job boards everyone else has access to.
Does KORE1 have a Portland office?
KORE1 is headquartered in Irvine, California, and we serve the Portland metro through a regional recruiting team that works Oregon and southwest Washington every day. The model is deliberate. It lets us pull from both a local candidate network and a national bench when the Portland market is thin on a specific skill set. We cover Portland, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Tigard, Lake Oswego, Wilsonville, Gresham, Tualatin, and Vancouver WA.
Which industries does KORE1 staff in the Portland area?
Technology takes the headlines but Portland’s economy runs wider than that. We staff across Silicon Forest semiconductor and EDA, athletic and outdoor brand engineering, healthcare IT across OHSU, Providence, Kaiser NW, and Legacy, accounting and finance, HR, creative and agency, light industrial and logistics, plus clean energy and advanced manufacturing along the Columbia corridor. Our IT staffing practice handles the majority of placements, but engineering and finance searches have been growing steadily in this market.
Can you staff both contract workers and permanent hires in Oregon and Washington?
Yes, all three models. Temporary staffing for short-term coverage, contract-to-hire for trial-period arrangements where you evaluate someone on real work before extending a full-time offer, and direct hire for permanent placements. Plenty of Portland clients run all three in parallel depending on role, urgency, and how well-defined the requirements are at the time we get the brief.
Which submarkets around Portland do you cover?
The whole metro. Portland central, Beaverton, Hillsboro, Tigard, Lake Oswego, Wilsonville, Tualatin, Gresham, plus Vancouver WA across the river. Many of our candidates already commute between these cities or would consider a move inside the region for the right role. We factor commute patterns into every placement because a perfect candidate who burns out on Highway 26 after four months is not a successful placement, no matter how clean the resume looked at offer time.
What happens if a placement does not work out?
Every placement ships with a guarantee period. If something is genuinely not working, we replace the candidate at no additional cost. Our 92% 12-month retention rate means replacements are rare, but the guarantee exists because we stand behind every placement. We also run 30, 60, and 90 day check-ins to catch small issues before they turn into a departure.
Ready to Build Your Portland Team?
Whether you need one specialist or a whole department, KORE1 has the Pacific Northwest talent network and the recruiting depth to get it done. Our team is ready to start your Portland search today.
Contact KORE1