This morning your company’s Vice President of Sales tenured his resignation – and you never saw it coming.
If you’re like many business owners and hiring professionals suddenly faced with this situation, a countdown clock started ticking in your head the moment you realized this critical position would soon be empty. “How long do I have to fill this position before it starts to impact our business?” you ask yourself.
You’ll soon find out.
Since time is of the essence, it’s imperative that your recruiting efforts yield the best employee possible in the shortest period of time possible.
The Ideal Scenario
Fast forward thirty days: sitting in front of you are four impeccably dressed, highly qualified industry professionals eager to demonstrate why they're the best candidate for your job.
One by one, you listen intently as each candidate outlines their previous positions and responsibilities, all the while drawing relevant parallels between their firsthand experiences and accomplishments to your expectations. You find each professional to be uniquely engaging and insightful, and the interviews feel more like free consulting sessions with industry consultants rather than the traditional employer/candidate Q & A interrogations.
Throughout this process, one individual stand outs from the rest. While all four candidates have strong track records of success in roles similar to the one you're hiring for, there is a feeling that this particular individual could potentially ramp up quickly with minimal hand-holding and ultimately exceed your performance expectations. We'll call him "Scott". Scott appears to be a natural fit for the position, and not only is there strong chemistry between the two of you, his personality compliments the rest of your management staff.
Having narrowed the talent pool down to Scott and one other candidate, you arrange for them to meet individually with the other members of your management team. Both candidates receive overwhelmingly positive feedback; however, everyone is in agreement that Scott's experience, personality and motivation make him the clear favorite for the job. You verify his employment dates and education and receive glowing feedback from his references. An offer letter of employment is extended and he verbally accepts. Scott works with you construct a package that ties his compensation directly to his performance objectives. He signs the employment agreement and the two of you agree on a start date two weeks in the future.
We would all agree that the end result of any candidate search is to hire incredibly talented and capable individuals like Scott, but the question that’s on most people’s mind is: How do you make that happen?
A better question might be: What are you willing to invest (time and money-wise) to create a scenario like the one just described?
Evaluating Your Internal Resources
As you’re probably aware, the logistics involved in coordinating an interview schedule for a group of high-level candidates is incredibly time consuming and laborious. There are literally hundreds phone calls, emails, IM's, text messages, and meetings over the course of several weeks, if not months, that must occur in order to compile a slate of talented individuals.
As a hiring manager, you have to determine first and foremost, whether or not you have the internal resources capable of identifying and reaching out to these highly sought-after candidates and secondly, can you dedicate those resources full-time to this project until it's complete? If the answer to either of those questions is "no", then maybe it's time to look to an outside resource.
We recognize that many employers are reluctant to work with headhunters and executive recruiters because they can't justify the fees, particularly when they feel it's for a service they believe they can do themselves. To quote the indomitable Dwight Schrute, Assistant Regional Manager at Dunder Mifflin paper company on NBC's The Office: "Why would I tip someone for a job I'm capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones." Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. Either way, the clock is still ticking.
If you’ve decided to investigate the idea of utilizing an outside recruiter or search firm, there are several key points you need to keep in mind and consider if the partnership is going to be a successful one.
Retained Search vs. Contingent Search
“Why would I commit hundreds, if not thousands of dollars up-front, when there are recruiters out there willing to work for free and only get paid if I hire one of their candidates?”
There are plenty of reasons.
Having worked extensively on both side of the fence, we can assure you the differences between a retained recruiter/search and contingent recruiter/search are substantial. But rather than do a point-by-point comparison of the two types, here is a checklist you can use to qualify how your prospective recruiter works. The goal is not to recommend one type of recruiter over another; it’s to ensure that the recruiting firm you choose follows a process that’s going to yield the best candidate possible for your business.
Do You Need a Local Recruiter?
Once upon a time recruiters were like real estate agents: If you wanted to buy a house in Chicago, you hired a recruiter in Chicago. You wouldn’t dream of hiring a recruiter that didn’t live in or was familiar with the area in which you were looking to buy. This is not the case anymore with the recruiting industry thanks to one key development: the Internet.
The best recruiters today are part salesperson, part web researcher. They are experts at finding candidates online and then initiating relationships using good old fashioned salesmanship. The researcher that lacks the personality of a salesperson is unable to gain the interest or trust of a potential candidate. The salesperson that’s ignorant of how to conduct the proper research is severely limited by the range of candidates they can produce. Whether or not you contract the services of a local recruiter is contingent upon a couple factors.
First, do you feel it necessary for the recruiter to meet with candidates face-to-face before recommending them to your company? If so, a local recruiter would be advisable, although I would point out that SOP for most recruiters does not involve meeting with candidates face-to-face.
Second, how involved do you want the recruiter to be in the hiring process once they recommend a candidate? We have numerous South Florida clients that allow our recruiters to participate in the interviews with their managers at their offices, which in turn, provides us with unparalleled insight into their companies: the reporting structure of the organization, the personalities of their leadership team and the overall business culture. The recruiting process becomes substantially more efficient because we are able to recognize very quickly those candidates who would and would not fit with the organization. Keep in mind the recruiter does not have to be local in order to accomplish this, it just makes the process easier.
Regardless of your comfort level with the recruiter's involvement in hiring process from your end or whether or not you feel it’s important for them to meet your candidates face-to-face, we believe it’s imperative that your recruiter pay a site visit your office and meet with your team. If the recruiter is going to represent your organization, shouldn’t they have at least met your organization?
Placement Fees
Unlike the majority of search firms, our pricing is not based on a percentage of the candidate’s salary or overall compensation (most firms charge 25-30%, on average). We charge a flat-rate based on the role this position will play with your company. Factors such as industry, location (or relocation), experience, education and most importantly, personality are all weighed. By utilizing a flat-rate pricing model, you are able to budget accordingly before initiating the search and take comfort in knowing your pricing is not going to fluctuate based on the candidate’s compensation.
Our placement fees for a retained search are on average, 20-25% less than most of our competitor's placement fees for a contingent search. This lower pricing is a result of our confidence that we have the full commitment of the client and that we more than likely will not lose money by taking on the search.
Success in the recruiting industry comes down to one critical factor: commitment -- both from the employer and the recruiter. The successful recruiter knows that hiring professionals who are not serious about filling their positions do not engage retained recruiters and that their contingent counterparts are wasting a big chunk of their time chasing tire-kickers: Employers with completely unrealistic expectations as to what they want to see in a candidate.
More often than not, the contingent recruiter does not learn this until they’ve already invested a substantial amount of time, money and effort in the search. Once this happens, the money-conscious recruiter abandons the search and moves on to another client and another search: one they feel will actually materialize into a placement. As a hiring manager, the last thing you want to happen is to turn over a high-level candidate search over to a recruiter or firm, only to find yourself a month later without a single viable candidate and a recruiter that’s moved on to greener pastures.
Performance Guarantees
If a plumber is going to charge $300 to install a shower fixture, then the work should be guaranteed. Not forever, but for at least some reasonable, predetermined time frame. You should expect the same from a recruiter. Insist on a guarantee period of at least 90 days.
At South Florida Management Search, our goal is to be a vital resource in your efforts to build long-term organizational success; therefore it’s critical that we provide employee solutions designed to last. That’s why our standard guarantee on every placement is 6 months—so regardless of whether the employee quits or is terminated, we will replace them with a more suitable candidate at no additional charge.
More than any other factor, the guarantee period is a testament to the recruiter’s confidence level that their candidate is truly qualified for your position and a potential long-term fit.
In Conclusion
Great recruiters are highly perceptive problem solvers. They revel in the challenge of identifying the missing pieces of their client’s organizations. An outsourced recruiter should not be viewed as competition to your internal recruiting efforts, but a close ally with your organization’s best interests at heart.
When evaluating potential recruiters or firms, ask to speak not only with two or three of their clients, but also candidates they have successfully placed. High-level corporate professionals have dealt with both good recruiters, bad recruiters and everything else in-between. They can provide you with firsthand insight as to how well the recruiter in question qualified them for their role.
