Eight Questions For Identifying Accomplished Third Party Search Practitioners

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.