It doesn’t happen often, but every now and then you are made aware of an article that you just know will become a new and critical tool in your search best practices toolbox (thank you, now forgotten LinkedIn contact who first made me aware of this gem).
In my mind it is an instant classic. One you can use with every single candidate you recruit, or try to recruit, who says, “I’m not looking right now.”
When I hear that, I always wish I could say (scream); “Did you not just hear what I said? I don’t care if you are looking for a job right now or not. Eventually, you’ll need a recruiter with a recruiting specialty in your profession who places at your level, and I AM THE ONE YOU NEED TO KNOW. So let’s start getting to know one another now so I can help you then, when you need my skill set to advance your career.”
And the truth is, the higher up the food chain these candidates are, the more important it is for them to begin that relationship with a recruiter who has a proven track record in their profession, and at their level, ahead of time.
But they don’t hear what we say, though most of us say things similar to what this article says with every recruit call we make to candidates we are looking to make contact with or put in play.
That’s why, this article, sent as an email or Twitter follow up, might get them to listen, because it comes from another source, a trusted and respected source, one that says what we have been saying for years:
Don’t try to find your recruiter when you urgently need one, take the time to develop a relationship with one BEFORE you need them so they know who you are when you do need them to conduct a confidential career search for you.
I have already sent this article to about two dozen candidates, and not just as a link, which you could do, but in that form it doesn’t extend your brand as much as it could.
We have reformatted it and created a PDF (http://skrentnyspeaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Recruiting-Your-Recruiter-WashPost-2010Q3.pdf) to share this article via email that is very similar to this one for our search peers, but it is for candidates with my Jefferson Group Search branding instead. I do this so my name and my brand remain attached to this good advice, AND so if they share it with anyone else, it is clear who shared the advice originally, and thus increase the likelihood that I get called after it has been shared. This is especially useful if it was shared with a similarly skilled peer in my niche.
It also helps when they forget who you are, but saved the article. All your contact information remains right there with the saved article.
I hope you find this new article as helpful as I think it is going to become for my search practice, and my thanks to Vickie Elmer as well as the search professionals who contributed to the article, for creating this great new tool for my search toolbox.
Jeff Skrentny,CERS, had an inauspicious start in the search/recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued by his client. Despite that start, Jeff has been a thriving executive search entrepreneur for the last 23 years; and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as a business consultant and advisor for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running his search business, Jefferson Group Search, in Chicago. You can email Jeff directly at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.
Sometimes you don’t realize the value of something until you get a little distance from it.
That WASN’T the case for me at this year’s Fordyce Forum 2010 at the M Resort in Las Vegas from June 9-11. It was another great conference, and was just the shot in the arm I needed after a few months away from my desk and my businesses.
In four short years Fordyce Forum 2010 has become the most important training event for search and placement professionals that I attend every year. This year was the best Fordyce Forum to date.
It had been a year since I was able to travel, in fact my last trip anywhere was to Las Vegas for Fordyce Forum 2009, which was also at the M Resort in Las Vegas almost exactly a year before. Lucky for me, and thanks to some good health care and a little groveling to my MD and wife, I was fortunate enough to attend the 4th Fordyce Forum this June, and I couldn’t be happier about it.
Again this year it was the phenomenal gathering of search and placement practitioners, owners, vendors and trainers you would expect from a brand as respected as Fordyce.
Though I have not yet completed my final written review of the event, I thought those who attended, as well as those who didn’t, might enjoy the photo and slide show below that was used in different iterations during the event. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you for Fordyce Forum 2011, which will be held in Las Vegas in early June, 2011, for it’s 5th Annual gathering of the premier search and placement practitioners our profession has to offer.
Jeff Skrentny,CERS, had an inauspicious start in the search/recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued by his client. Despite that start, Jeff has been a thriving executive search entrepreneur for the last 23 years; and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as a business consultant and advisor for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running his search business, Jefferson Group Search, in Chicago. You can email Jeff directly at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.
Did anybody else read this most recently emailed NAPSLegal Update for June?
If you haven’t, you should. Doesn’t matter if you are an owner or a producer on a desk, this could be a game changer, and for much more than just LinkedIn messages and contacts.
In this email which NAPS Legal Counsel Bob Styles typically sends out on a monthly basis, tucked between two updates that didn’t have much application to my desk/business, was the below two paragraph notice about a yet to be adjudicated case titled “LinkedIn Messages As Evidence in Non-Compete Case“:
Did anyone else just feel the ground shake?
It doesn’t take much of an imagination to wonder about who then “owns” LinkedIn contacts? And by extension Facebook, Twitter, and for that matter any social network/media contacts that one compiles in pursuit of success as a search/sourcing/recruiting professional while in someone’s employ.
And please don’t misinterpret my intentions for bringing this up. I do not believe that anyone who signs a non-compete should EVER violate that agreement. If you leave one employer to work for another employer or to start your own business, do it the right way, take the high road, and honor your non compete. If you are that good, you don’t need to do anything illegal to get started on your new job or your new business. EVER. Period. There is always enough OTHER business out there for you.
Still, this case will bring up a whole new set of questions our profession, its owners, producers and lawyers will need to address. Not only can messages on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter now likely be used as evidence that you violated your non-compete, it can’t be long before “ownership” of those contacts comes into question as one leaves a job as a search or sourcing professional to begin a similar one somewhere else or on their own.
That’s why, in my mind, is case could become a game changer for how search professionals will use and manage the online social networks and social media tools that are now considered essential to success as a modern day sourcing and search professional.
What do you think?
I sure hope Mr Styles, Esq, will keep us up to date on how the case is finally adjudicated.
I would love to read your thoughts on this, you can share them below.
Jeff Skrentny,CERS, had an inauspicious start in the search/recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued by his client. Despite that start, Jeff has been a thriving executive search entrepreneur for the last 23 years; and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as a business consultant and advisor for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running his search business, Jefferson Group Search, in Chicago.
Last week I had the unfortunate need to rather urgently select some specialty health care providers. Needless to say, I was already feeling less than 100%, and now I was being pressured to somewhat swiftly select specialists to help further my healing. How was I suppose to be able to do this? The medical infrastructure around me insisted that anyone who was licensed to practice in Illinois was more than capable of providing adequate health care solutions. But did I want just “adequate” during my recovery?
A simple understanding of a typical bell curve distribution told me intuitively that not every specialist I would have the opportunity to choose from would be as good as the others. Naturally, I wanted someone who was at least at the top side of the bell curve for my own health care. Don’t we all? How would my wife and I make these decisions in the time sensitive manner required? How does anyone?
Thankfully, we had someone in our professional network who was plugged in, and very aware of the abilities and reputations of some of our choices. Based on some of my objectives, this person confidentially helped us make the necessary specialist decisions, steering us away from one specialist and toward three others. I am still not sure how I could have intelligently made these choices without the help of this individual. Frankly, this was a sobering and uncomfortable reality.
It got me thinking. How different is this, at least metaphorically, from a company that needs to urgently complete a search for a key hire to fill a critical organizational open position? How do they quickly and confidently get a referral to the specialist recruiter to help them?
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I now have some safe distance from the initial chaos of my medical situation, and it really does strike me how blindingly similar these situations are. How does anyone find themselves a qualified specialist during an urgent or demanding need? How do you find the best specialists?
Then specifically, because it is my professional ability, I began to consider as I often do, how does Ownership; C level / director level leadership; Corporate HR / In House Recruiters find themselves qualified specialist third party search professionals when they need one? There are thousands of third party search professionals in Canada and the United States, increasingly a single market, who do search in literally hundreds of different market segments. Just finding someone who can help you do the search you have to fill can be daunting, and how does one carefully vet them once found?
For most of the nearly 25 years I have been doing search and placement, I have been asking my clients how they select and vet their search providers? Should they even be able to answer this question, they seldom have a thoughtful response. So I share with them the following list of pointed questions for vetting any new search professional they are considering working with. It is a modest list of 8 questions, but it is an insiders list that should get them the answers to all the questions they need answered to select and vet a capable and experienced search specialist.
Roughly speaking, I have the questions listed in order the order of importance I place on each question, the most important being first; and I share this list with the understanding that my client or prospect has a particular need that requires a third party search specialist, and that they are not looking for a generalist third party search professional, something I always recommend against.
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First, how long have they been doing search and, more critically how long have they been doing search / recruiting for your specific recruiting need? Ask them pointedly, how many professionals like this have they put to work? For accurate vetting, I suggest they ask for testimonials from past buyers, or candidates, who they have placed who do this or similar work, and ask to talk to a buyer and/or candidate to verify the recruiter’s skill in finding the specific type of candidate you want them to find for you.
Second, ask them what is their track record for ALL those they have placed with their client companies. For example, in my niche here in Chicago I know that since 2002:
we completed just over 94% of the searches on which we were contractually engaged
that 78% of our hires are still employed with our clients 3 years later
that 63% of our placements are still employed with our clients 4 years later
and that 66% of our hires earned at LEAST one promotion
I would especially like to emphasize that last bullet point. Isn’t this what makes any hire great? They get promoted beyond what they were initially hired to do? They grow with and become more valuable to your organization over time. If your search professional knows their track record here, you are working with a search professional who DOES understand how their work impacts your organizational success. Hire this search professional. Seriously, is there any better measure of how good a search professional is than do their searches have organizational longevity and get promoted?
Third, what is their process and can they talk about it fluently and share it with you in writing. If they don’t have a search process that they can share with you in writing, one that has harmony with how you will be conducting your internal recruiting and interviewing, are they really right for you? And if they don’t have a process in writing, truth is, they are probably just going to go to the same job boards you are going to go to, and aren’t worth the fee they are planning to charge you. See what their process is, and partner with them to make their process successful with you.
Forth, ask them where they get the candidates that they place. Specifically, where did they find those that they have placed? By recruiting them, from job boards, referrals, from networks (social or otherwise) that they have worked hard to build and maintain? You want access to candidates you can’t find on through your own efforts, will they give you that? Does their answer convince you that they do indeed have “expertise” and “specialized” knowledge to find the candidate(s) you need? Or are they just a job board recruiter?
Fifth, I would inquire if they have earned their CPC credential if you are using them for a direct search, or their CTS or CSP credential if they are doing contract staffing or finding temporary staff for you. If they don’t, you are not working with the elite of the profession, nor are you working with someone who has learned the laws that frame our profession and the work we do for our clients, nor are they committed to earning the continuing education that keeps them on top of those laws and the best practices of our profession. I am thrilled to learn that more and more, clients are asking their service providers if they have these designations BEFORE working with them, I hope it is a trend that will continue. Would you let your corporate taxes be done by someone who isn’t a CPA?
Sixth, beyond the above credentialing, in Canada and the United States just over 50 of the nation’s most elite search professionals have earned their CERS(Certified Employee Retention Specialist), and I think it should be self evident why working with a search professional who is also a CERS would be beneficial for an organization who is hiring a third party search professional. Are they CERS credentialed?
Seventh, how quickly can they do what needs to get done? Though I think this is often over emphasized by buyers who play the hurry up and wait game with those in my profession, I think it is important for planning purposes to have an expectation of the time frame they think will be necessary to complete the search. For example, on average the last three years, it takes me 11.5 weeks to complete a search. But I also know I usually have my work done in 5.5-6 weeks. It is my clients who usually need the extra 5.5-6 weeks to complete their part of the process. With better planning, which I always carefully outline (and which is usually ignored), most of my clients could cut out 2-4 weeks from the overall process if they worked with a more coordinated approach.
Eighth, do they have the bandwidth to do your search right now? Sometimes you can have the right search professional, but are they just too busy with other projects? Accomplished search professionals are often in high demand. Can they do the work for you now? If not now, when? Can you wait? Or, what would you have to do to entice them to make this a more urgent priority on their desks?
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Any third party search professional of proven ability will be more than able to candidly and capably respond to these questions with answers that are impressive and highlight their professional accomplishments. Those answers should build for you the confidence to partner with them for the search you need to complete. At least it is my hope this is what will occur should you will use these 8 questions as you vet future search practitioners you consider hiring.
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What do you think of my list of 8 questions? As someone who has hired search professionals do you have any additional questions you ask that I have missed? If you are a search professional, do you have other questions you suggest your clients ask because you know you will get a competitive advantage if they do? Please share them with a reply here or an email to me at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.
Finally, for my future post, I would like to write a game plan for partnering with a third party search professional to compete a search successfully. I would love input from both sides of these partnerships. Please share your perspectives and ideas.
Jeff Skrentny,CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued by his client. Despite that start, Jeff has been a thriving executive search entrepreneur for the last 23 years; and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as a business consultant and advisor for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running his search business, Jefferson Group Search, in Chicago.
This Saturday I met with my Board of Directors in Chicago for the first of three meetings we will have this year. I was exhausted after our day of hard work together, which of course was followed by margaritas and Mexican cuisine. I have already begun thinking about and working to get ready for my next meeting with them which will take place May 7th, in Baltimore. This group makes me think, and think hard. They don’t let me off the hook for much.
Now some of you are asking yourselves, “Jeff, I thought you were a search entrepreneur? How and why do you have a Board of Directors?”
Fair question, let me explain.
Even back when I worked a placement desk before I struck out on my own with Jefferson Group Search, I always met a few times a year with a group of trusted advisors to help me manage my desk. See, I never really found the management at the company where I learned my craft to be particularly helpful in pushing me to new levels of success. I was their top producer, and that was good enough for them, despite the mediocrity I would later learn was my “top performing” success. Apparently, enough mediocrity in one place makes for a good living if you own the place.
If I was going to get the important critical feedback to help me grow and build the skills that would make me into the recruiting professional I wanted to become, I was going to have to get that advice from someplace other than my management team. But from who?
I don’t recall which trainer it was, but somewhere along the way it was suggested to me that I create my own board of directors from my clients, candidates, professional peers and training mentors. That is exactly what I did. Boy did it ever make a difference to get their input.
When I began working with my first board of directors I was in my mid/late 20’s, and though I understood recruiting and clerical placement well, I really knew nothing about being a successful business professional. Though it took awhile for a candid relationship to develop with those I initially picked for this personal board of directors, once the trusting relationship was cultivated, and they realized I really DID want the critical feedback to become a better sales and business professional, they poured it on.
And then they poured it on even more, as I had a lot to learn.
I was a sponge. It served me well.
Before I was promoted into management, this arrangement educated me, resulted in my first ever letters of testimonial, introduced me to new prospects that would become incredible clients, referred to me some amazing candidates I would place, offered incredible suggestions for process improvement (one of my BOD members worked for one of the most exclusive retained executive search firms in the nation where I placed executive assistants for their executive search practitioners), helped me get accepted to an MBA program, and they helped me grow up quite a bit.
What did they get out of it? A recruiting partner that worked hard for them year after year to continuously improve so I could do better recruiting and placement for them and their companies. And I did just that for them, which made them very happy clients!
Then, because they began to take a rather vested interest in my success, I cultured some exclusive and very loyal clients that worked for me to succeed, and let me know if they felt or heard I wasn’t.
Sure, there was a bit of pressure with this arrangement, but the kind that makes you better. The kind that top performers thrive on.
Doing this was one of the best bits of training advice I ever took back to my desk. Yet, as I was promoted into management, stopped working a desk, opened a new business segment, and then began my own search practice in 1996, I let this group disband: One of the most unwise moves of my career.
As well as that worked for me, I was never wise enough to put a group like this back in place as I struggled to get my business started, worked hard to close each and every search. I was simply so busy working in my business that I failed to see how working on my business would continue to be important for my business. Things were going well enough. Add to that my training business for other search and recruiting professionals which got wings of it’s own, and suddenly balancing my two businesses, a new wife and young family, and my multiple other interests (marathon running, MLB ballparks, Cubs baseball, Shakespeare Theater, birding), meant I was always too busy to get back to this great feedback formula.
Years passed.
Business had its many ups, and, yes, a down or two (can you say DotCom bust). Still, I remained busy, happy and prosperous.
Then in 2006, almost as if the past was reaching out to remind me how I once found the input of others to be one of the most important means for me to push myself to new levels of achievement and success, I got a call from a peer and trusted advisor. He was part of a group of search entrepreneurs that met a couple of times a year to serve as a board of directors for one another. Would I be interested in learning more about the group?
Let me think? How soon?
I passed my “audition/induction vote” and my first meeting was in the fall of 2006 in Chicago. I have now met with this group of peers 2-3 times a year ever since. They challenge me, prod me, hold me accountable, and open my eyes to new ways of thinking about both my businesses; and me theirs. I have come to think of them as one of the most influential groups of peers I can count on for candor, creativity and brass knuckle ass kicking’s when necessary.
How did I manage to go for more than a decade without a personal board of directors?
And so, Search Entrepreneurs; “How do you go without a board of directors?”
It doesn’t matter if you work a desk in a large recruiting organization with multiple offices worldwide, or if you work for a search entrepreneur like me, you can build your own personal BOD with clients, candidates and/or peers. If you are a search entrepreneur who owns your own business and you are ready to hold yourself accountable to what you never quiet seem able to achieve, when you KNOW you have the potential, such an arrangement might just what the doctor ordered for you, and building a peer BOD might be something you may seriously want to consider for yourself.
It won’t be easy, as finding others who are like minded non-competitive peers isn’t a snap. Getting a peer BOD set up might not be the easiest thing to do, but it is so worth the effort.
I was lucky; I didn’t have anything to do with beginning the group I am in now. They had been meeting for three years before I joined them. They came together as an offshoot of a Top EchelonBig Biller advisory panel; it was a natural progression for them to move into peer review with one another to grow their own businesses as peer advisors for each other. I had the good fortune that they invited me to join their group in their year three.
But despite the initial challenges that one might face organizing a group such as ours; which we call the RoundTable Leadership Forum, those difficulties are worth every bit of payback that one gets as a result of the candid input from a trusted peer BOD. It has just been over three years since I first joined their group, and over the years we have had some owners leave us, and some new ones revitalize the group as replacements. Now, I can’t imagine running my business now without their input three times a year.
It is an arrangement every serious and growing search entrepreneur should be part of with 6-8 trusted peers.
It is not always easy, and I may not always like everything they have to say as I present my business plan, or as they hold me accountable for progress I have failed to make on an initiative I shared with them. Still, they are always the first to congratulate me when I push myself to new levels of success, and often have a great bottle of single malt scotch there to celebrate those achievements with me and the rest of my peer BOD team because more often than not, we deserve it.
You do too.
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Interested in learning more about how to build your own peer BOD? Feel free to shoot me an email at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com. I would be glad to share what perspective I have. Or if you would like to take the interim step of hiring me as your mentor, I can do that too…I currently have two openings for my Search Entrepreneur Mentor Program.
Jeff Skrentny,CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued by his client. Despite that start, Jeff has been a thriving executive search entrepreneur for the last 23 years; and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as a business consultant and advisor for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running his search business, Jefferson Group Search, in Chicago.
Why is it that candidates ALWAYS seem to get a review, raise, additional responsibilities right before your client is about to make them an offer?
Alright, it doesn’t ALWAYS happen. As recruiters we tend to exaggerate just a bit, but it happened again this week to not one, but to two recruiters I know and have great respect for, and it drives me mad when I hear this.
This should never happen.
We, as third party search professionals, shouldn’t let it happen.
I have a rather simple strategy for keeping the incidence of this occurring with my candidates to a minimum, and it is something every recruiter knows they should do, but sometimes just forget or get lazy about doing.
Right after I cover a candidate’s work history, just before I am about to get to the meat of my interview with them, where I want to know how they have made a bottom line difference for their organization by how they made money, saved money or changed a process that did one or both of these things, I go through a quick salary history review.
And it is quick. By doing it fast, they don’t have time to “create,” and I am more likely to get the just the facts.
Usually I start three jobs back, and I ask what they started at, what they ended at while in that job.
Next job back, their starting salary, when they got their last raise, how much it was, and what it took them too. Plus whatever bonus opportunities, or anything else they had that would show up on their W-2.
With the job they are in now, I ask them what they what hired at, have them break it down to each W-2 component. Then I ask them to very methodically tell me about every raise or salary and/or bonus adjustment that brings them to what their current comp package is as we speak. I also ask if there is any bonus money that has been earned but not yet paid out, IF, IF, that seems to be the case, as it sometimes is with delayed bonus payouts commonly used today by employers.
I am not done yet.
To end this thread, I then ask them when their next scheduled review would be. They always know when it is.
I push even further by saying, “So, you know the quality of work you have done and the place your employer is at, what raise do you think you will be getting?” I follow that question up with what will your W-2 be this current year (unless it is late November or December, when I would ask about next year).
Very few candidates have failed to have at least some awareness of the likely range their next raise/bonus increase will fall into, or what this next year’s W-2 will be. Often they know it very, very, exactly, and in great detail. Occasionally, it is one of of the several reasons they were motivated to work with me in the first place (though I seldom have success working with candidates that are just money motivated).
Doing this has given me several items of use::
a useful salary history
the % increase in salary and W-2 earnings that occurred with each of their last two career/job changes
because they were talking from their actual salary/W-2 history, these are probably not inflated numbers
a sense of what their historical raise pattern has been
an accurate idea of when their next raise will be and how much it will likely range
and a clear notion of any money really being left on the table with as of yet unpaid bonuses
Simple enough, but I can’t tell you how many times I have done a split with another recruiter where they don’t know this information. Didn’t even think to ask it because they were in such a rush to get the sendout.
How can one negotiate intelligently for your candidate or client if you don’t know this information?
It takes all of 2-4 minutes to accomplish. When you remind the candidate that you remember this information as you begin down the path to close a deal and negotiate a salary for them with your client, my experience is it is unlikely that a sudden and unexpected salary review is likely to suddenly occur, unless the candidate really is playing you, and well, that is nice to know too.
Note also, this has NOTHING to do with the conversation that needs to take place about what their NEXT salary expectations are. This is just the necessary background information that YOU, the search professional, the middle person of this search dance between the candidate and the client, must know for when and if that conversation is required. Getting the information NOW, ensures that you have accurate information that isn’t “clouded” or “manipulated” because the offer dance has commenced.
In my process, those conversations do not happen in the first interview I have with the candidate. Then it is a conversation in abstract. How could they really know an answer to this without knowing the myriad of additional details, unique to each job or career opportunity, that accompany the money? They can’t. It is different with each job. It should be, as each job has intangibles and non W-2 values that must be weighed into the final yes or no calculus.
More on that final negotiation dance in a future post.
Today, let’s learn, or for most of my readers, re-learn, this simple interview best practice for taking a salary history, and projecting if forward just a bit, so we can best represent our candidates to our clients, and through this information create the intelligence necessary to negotiate a fair and competitive offer that will make everyone thrilled with the work we have done to bring the search to a successful conclusion.
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Got a technique or two on taking a salary history that I missed, please share with a comment here or with an email to me at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com. I look forward to hearing, and learning from you and your suggestions.
Jeff Skrentny,CERS, had an inauspicious start in the recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued. Despite that start, Jeff has been an executive recruiter for 23 years, and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as being a business consultant and adviser for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running a busy IT search business in Chicago at his firm Jefferson Group Search.
Jeff Skrentny, CERS, had an inauspicious start in the search/recruiting profession as his first placement quit after 93 days. Then he was sued by his client. Despite that start, Jeff has been a thriving executive search entrepreneur for the last 23 years; and has also been a trainer, author and motivator for his profession for the last 15 years, as well as a business consultant and advisor for its producers, managers & owners for the last 10 years; all while still running his search business, Jefferson Group Search, in Chicago. You can email Jeff directly at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.
