Craig Macdonald

Job Description

Retired

Company Description

Retired

Employment History

Craig began his working career as a Human Resources Manager at Weyerhaeuser Company in the rural South and at Corporate Headquarters in Federal Way. He worked in both the wood products and paper side of the company’s business; and his positions included HR Manager for the Bleached Paper/Consumer packaging division, the Secondary Fiber/Recycling Division, and a large wood products manufacturing complex in Dierks, Arkansas. After leaving Weyerhaeuser in 1982, he began his consulting career as co-owner of an HR consulting/executive recruiting firm in Federal Way. The firm’s emphasis was on assisting small Pacific Northwest businesses with HR policy development, interview and selection processes, communications, succession planning, conflict resolution, and career transition coaching. In the 1989, Craig helped found and develop the retained executive search practice at the recruiting firm of Houser, Martin, Morris in Bellevue. He was a partner in the firm for 12 years, and conducted successful searches in forest products, manufacturing, construction and real estate, environmental engineering, healthcare, non-profits and Native American, minority and Alaska Native organizations.

Education

He is a 5th-generation native of Tacoma, Washington, holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Puget Sound and a Master of Arts degree in Communication/Journalism from the University of Iowa

Mentoring Objectives & Scope

I have historically engaged students in discussions and examinations of how labor markets work, how hiring managers make decisions, interviewing techniques and pitfalls, career analysis and change strategies, resume prep, and a variety of other topics related to how people make career decisions.

When and where do you hold meetings with your students?

A mixture of in-person and virtual. Any day

Additional Information

Craig Macdonald has devoted nearly 40 years to partnering with executives and boards of directors to identify, source, recruit and properly develop high-performance talent in both for-profit and non-profit organizations. While focusing primarily on senior positions from Director to C-Level, his recruiting practice has spanned many levels and functions, including the technical, scientific and administrative, and has ranged from social service agencies to large public companies; small, family owned private businesses; minority owned organizations and economic development associations around the Pacific Northwest. He is skilled in “performance-based hiring” strategies, structuring interview process development and the uses of psychometrics in selection and management. Craig has been married to his wife Leslie for 49 years and has helped raise two daughters who are now both married and living in Bellevue and Kirkland. He has been a resident of Eastside communities for the last 35 years. Craig is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors at LifeWire, a Bellevue-based non-profit dedicated to ending domestic violence, and has been a mentor in Seattle University’s Alber’s School of Business Mentorship program for the last 20 years.