News...
3. October 2003. The Chief: Opinion
Executive search - the human solution
If you want to find the best candidate for the job then forget online recruitment and stick to specialist executive search teams, explains Beth Jackson and Phil Kerrigan of McLean Kerrigan Jackson.
Executive recruitment is actively fraught with misconceptions. In this new era of e-business and the Internet, many commentators have predicted the death of specialist executive search firms. Instead they see the future in online recruitment.
That's their fatal mistake. Those who equate the roles of executive search and e-recruitment have a basically flawed understanding of the two different processes involved.
If you use the analogy of candidates being like fish in a (talent) pool, it's the difference between identifying and spearing the prize specimens or casting out bait in the hope that the right candidate will come along to take it.
The rise of e-recruitment services reflects the need to find cost effective, accessible vehicles to reach a broad market of job seekers. But if the target candidates are not looking for a job or don't believe the type of position they are seeking would be advertised, those strategies are ineffective.
People in senior and strategic positions are very sensitive about confidentiality. This usually stops them from responding to advertisements or sending their CV to a website. On the contrary, they will respond to a personal approach, particularly by people with a good reputation for ethics and integrity. It's all about trust and it's difficult to engender trust remotely.
Continuing the fishing analogy, the candidate pool is like a rock pool - it's a living environment. It changes daily. People change jobs, personal circumstances change, people arrive from interstate or overseas, people retire (sometimes permanently, sometimes not). Executive search professionals are part of that living entity. They track the changes, continually research the pool and associated pools.
Scanning a database of previous applicants or running a few advertisements seldom identifies the best candidates. More often than not, they are happily and successfully ensconced and they need to be tempted out.
In any recruitment or search process, careful consideration is required from the outset as to the type of candidates sought, the specific duties of the roles as well as organisational/ cultural issues and future strategic fit. With the help of experienced executive search professionals, the prospective employer can develop a clear and concise positions specification that encapsulates these issues to maximize the chances of a successful appointment.
Management of the candidates is also an important aspect, especially in relation to their attitude towards the employing organisations. Reputations can be made or broken by the way in which the recruitment process is managed. This is particularly tricky for candidates who are unsuccessful and the companies involved.
While there are many good candidates available in the market, many have suffered through an insensitive selection process. Consequently they are cynical about some aspects of advertised recruitment.
Many of the employing organisations have also been badly burned in the past. They are willing to take a risk on some recruitment tasks, but they will be continue to entrust high level and strategic executive recruitment to the specialist search firms.
At the top organisations, the opportunity cost of inducting the wrong executive can be great indeed. Not only is it destabilising to the team, but there is the wasted investment in time, resources and managerial effort in training the wrong person. Not many businesses can afford to delay launching new strategies because if the history caused by hiring the wrong executive for the role. On top of that is the subsequent pain in the process of managing that person out of the organisation.
Specific business knowledge is another intrinsic advantage that search firms have over the alternative recruitment methods such as online advertising. Customers today want to deal with people and firms who understand their business. How can you find the best person for a key role if you don't have a business background or operational or functional experience?
If any warm body will do, then just cast your net into the talent pool and, who knows, you might get lucky. Otherwise, it pays to employ a specialist executive search firm.
