SkrentnySPEAKS » Client Articles

Eight Questions For Identifying Accomplished Third Party Search Practitioners

SkrentnySPEAKS — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 21:24:55 +0000

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

Eight Questions For Identifying Accomplished Third Party Search Practitioners

Employee Satisfaction Lowest it has ever been – Conference Board Report

SkrentnySPEAKS — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:29:28 +0000

In a Conference Board Report released today:

http://www.conference-board.org/utilities/pressPrinterFriendly.cfm?press_ID=3820, (also see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34691428/ns/business-careers/)

researchers have found that employee satisfaction is at the lowest point since they began measuring this in 1987.

Employee satisfaction in 1987 was 61%. In the most recent survey it was only 45%.

Surprisingly, the authors do NOT believe that this lowest ever employee satisfaction measure is just a function of the current American economic downturn. In fact, they think it is a sign of something far more insidious, especially as it will impact enterprise success and knowledge transfer from one generation to the next.

As a third-party recruiter, this is interesting for two reasons.

First, as in each of the last two recessions I worked through, this employee satisfaction was important for recruiting success once hiring began again in earnest as the economy recovered. Frankly, it made recruiting easier because so many currently employed professionals were fed up with their existing situation and were glad to at least hear about other opportunities they could investigate to find that elusive job satisfaction. Being there to help, made recruiting very easy if you had client searches that were indeed great opportunities.

Second, maybe more importantly for those of us who have long term client relationships, and a long term view toward our profession as third party search professionals, is our need to not just to provide the recruiting solutions that we do, but to begin looking for ways to offer retention services for those we place as well as those our placements will be working with.

Employee satisfaction and retention will be key in enterprise success, and as we hear about the dissatisfaction at least as much as any other group of service providers in the market right now, we are uniquely poised to offer retention services that could significantly impact enterprise success for our clients, making them considerably more competitive. Our clients will pay for that if we offer the professional service.

I will say it again, do you have your CERS credential (learn more at http://www.recruitinglife.com/EduCert/cers.cfm)?

But in the short term, as soon as hiring begins again in earnest, I predict we will have plenty of candidates to recruit, if recruiting is part of what you do (and I am surprise to learn almost weekly how many third party recruiters don’t actually ever recruit). Because, as a final quote in the summary of the Conference Board Report suggests employee turnover will be very high in the next year:

In fact, 22 percent of respondents said they don’t expect to be in their current job in a year. “This data throws up a big, red flag because the increasing dissatisfaction is not just a ‘survivor syndrome’ artifact of having co-workers and neighbors laid off in the recession.”

Cultivate those client relationships, seems to me that headhunting will be very good in 2010 for third party recruiters who are taking the time to cultivate the right relationships with clients and (all the above, apparently dissatisfied and soon to be job changing) candidates alike.

Let’s go Radical Recruit!!!

As always your insightful comments, observations or criticisms welcomed and encouraged.

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.

Coaching Candidates on Reference Selection

SkrentnySPEAKS — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:35:18 +0000

In my mind one of the most overlooked parts of the search process for most executive recruiters and third party search professionals, along with the candidates they represent, is how to select references that will speak candidly and intelligently about the candidate’s skills and abilities, and do so in the most positive, enthusiastic and realistic manner possible.

Many search professionals just assume that their candidates know how to manage this critical aspect of their career, but truth is most don’t pay nearly enough attention to this make or brake career transition detail. That mistake can often cost them the job they want next.

Thankfully, the folks at the Korn / Ferry Institute have put together a great white paper on the subject that can be downloaded at:

http://www.kornferryinstitute.com/files/pdf1/Protecting_Your_Reputation_Importance_of_Reference_Selection.pdf

Its a great tutorial on why executive search professionals need to do this type of back ground reference checking, it also examines how they do this part of the search process, it explores how candidates can facilitate this process to get the best possible results, and it discusses candidly what occurs if they find something that is less than flattering as they do these reference checks.

It would be my advice that every every search professional read this white paper. After you read it yourself, I would then share this with every candidate you consider representing. I would do this very early in the search process. If you wait until later in the process, you might find that you have waited too long to keep the candidate competitive in the process with your client or prospect as they scramble to get this information gathered, when in fact they should have prepared this information at the same time that they put their resume together.

Do you have any additional advice you share with your candidates about protecting their career reputation through their references? If you do, please share it here, or email me at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.

Value Add content to share with Clients/Prospects on RETENTION

SkrentnySPEAKS — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:38:53 +0000

I am the kind of executive search consultant who is always looking to share value add content with my clients and prospects. Sharing that content shows that I am not just a resume jockey, but that I am indeed a professional executive search consultant working hard to keep their best interests in mind when it comes to hiring, team building and retention.

Plus, it is a way for me to begin or continue conversations or contacts with buyers or prospective buyers without always having a resume for them to look at or by making a query to see if they have an open search for me to work on.

A hot topic that many of my clients are ignoring right now, to their peril, is key talent retention.

Today, while doing my regular check of articles at the WSJ Careers site, I found an article I think many of you should consider sharing with your buyers, especially those buyers or prospective buyers in the C suite, or who are high end strategic thinking executives in HR. The article is titled How to Keep Your Best Executives. You can find this fantastic article to share with your clients and prospects at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574302011865406286.html

It is my plan to regularly use this blog to make you aware of great content such as this for your clients, prospects and candidates. If you see any content that you think we should share with others who are in our great profession, please let us know with a comment here, or by reaching me at AskJeff@JeffersonInc.com.