January,
1999
Are
You Working Wisely with Your Search Firm?
ONE HALLMARK
OF GREAT COMPANIES is their willingness to challenge existing
practices and seek a better way of doing things.
Over
the past decade, for example, Ford Motor Company has quietly
forged a new, constructive relationship with the United Auto
Workers union that has led to manufacturing improvements that
Ford’s largest competitor can only dream about.
Last
year, after several marketing initiatives fizzled, McDonald’s
Corp. replaced its highly centralized decision-making apparatus
with a regional structure – designed to get the company
closer to store owners and their customers.
And last
fall, concerned about a lack of creativity in its advertising,
consumer goods colossus Procter & Gamble blamed not its
advertising agencies but itself – resulting in a streamlined
review and approval process that helped keep good ideas from
being killed by committee.
No organization,
of course, sets out to create mediocre advertising, annoy
its constituents or do battle with its workers. But sometimes
bad practices seem to creep through the back door and become
institutionalized before anyone knows they’re there.
The search
for top executive, managerial and professional talent is no
exception. Bad practices sometimes multiply in even the best
of companies, leading to less than satisfactory end results
from the search firms they engage. And few results are more
evident than the quality of new employees – and how
long it took to find them.
The
Search Firm Relationship
Executive
search consultants have two principal things to offer clients:
their time and their expertise.
Time
is of the essence to the recruiter because he or she is paid
for performance, not for hours worked. (Try offering this
billing method to your company’s law firm sometime.)
Time should be equally important to the employer, who presumably
wants to fill a critical position with all due speed.
Likewise,
expertise is important to both parties because the search
consultant knows how to identify and attract top people that
the client can’t – given an equivalent expenditure
of effort and time.
This
sounds good in theory, but in practice employers sometimes
impose restrictions that limit the ability of their search
firms to produce superior results in a timely fashion.
Typical
Mistakes That Companies Make
Companies
can thwart the effectiveness of their search consultants in
several different ways.
Recruiting
by the Numbers. Some employers subscribe to
the "more-the-merrier" school of thought, believing
that the more hounds are in the pack, the faster the fox will
be found. In actuality, the indiscriminate use of multiple
search firms produces the opposite end result: slipshod performance.
Reputable
firms either refuse these kind of searches or assign them
low priority – for example, limiting them to a database
search or working on them as other, more important searches
permit. Even though the employer may end up viewing a substantial
number of resumes, there is little or no attempt on the part
of its recruiters to find the best candidate.
Another
danger to the employer from this approach is loss of control.
Firms of varying capabilities, and with various degrees of
understanding about the employer and its opening, are representing
the company in numerous, unknown ways. More than once have
candidates told search consultants, "Oh, I was called
about that position yesterday by another recruiter. It doesn’t
sound like a good place to work."
And that
leads to yet another problem: loss of confidentiality. The
search becomes a public project as opposed to confidential
company business.
Loose
Lips Sink Ships. Other companies may
strive to establish more exclusive relationships with one
or several firms – but operate under that military doctrine
called "need to know." In wartime, this meant that
a soldier knew only his particular assignment and, if captured,
could not reveal the overall plan of battle to the enemy.
In a search for the best possible candidate, however, "need
to know" can be disastrous.
It is
important for the search consultant to have a full understanding
not just of the job description – but also of other
important elements such as corporate culture, the personalities
or "operating style" of those key individuals with
whom the new employee will interact, the immediate supervisor’s
analysis of critical factors for success on the job, etc.
As an
example, the job description for an important line manager
might emphasize the need for a hard-charger to take the organization
to new heights, when in actuality the most important –
but unspecified – need is for a compassionate leader
who can restore morale to a department badly damaged by the
former manager’s abrasive style. This kind of knowledge
can best be obtained through an open-door policy that provides
the search consultant access to almost anyone in the organization.
But
What Does It Cost per Pound? Still other companies
attempt to select a search firm on the basis of price, apparently
in the belief that all firms are alike – and, hey, it’s
a commodity business, isn’t it? In search, as in other
professional services businesses, buyers generally get what
they pay for. The firm that discounts its fees is either desperate
for work or plans to provide limited services, as opposed
to conducting a custom search. It’s a fact of life that
the job-seeker who faxes or E-mails a resume to every recruiter
in the universe is generally a less desirable candidate than
the successfully employed individual who doesn’t want
his or her name in play. Discount recruiters cannot afford
to devote the resources or spend the time to find that needle
in a haystack.
There’s
no harm, of course, in testing a firm’s commitment to
obtaining its quoted fee. If the firm quickly begins to bid
against itself, the smart employer will have an early warning
that the firm lacks a stable client base that regularly pays
its fees.
What
Search Firms Expect of You
Sanford
Rose Associates call it the "Three C’s" –
candor, cooperation and commitment.
Simply
stated, candor means the willingness of the client company
to tell the recruiter everything about the search as it currently
exists or may exist in the future. Strategic requirements
change, budgets are revised, marketplace conditions improve
(or worsen): all of these can affect a search. Recruiters
need to know such things, just as they need to know if the
organization is exploring other means of filling the search.
Honesty pays.
Cooperation
means everything from returning telephone calls (professional
search consultants will not call you needlessly) to allowing
the search firm to use its time and expertise to best effect.
In order to identify better candidates faster, Sanford Rose
Associates uses a proprietary process called Dimensional Search
that requires significant, up-front information gathering.
The employer who cannot afford to spend the time may want
a less than professional effort.
Last
but not least, commitment means a client’s demonstrated
desire to help the search consultant fill the position in
the fastest practical manner with the best possible candidate.
The committed client schedules prompt interviews, provides
equally prompt and complete feedback, works with the recruiter
to overcome obstacles and – once the finalist is selected
– extends a timely, competitive offer of employment.
Aware of the many conflicting demands on today’s managers,
an effective search consultant will work diligently to make
sure the search is getting the employer’s urgent attention.
*
* *
Some
clients are a search consultant’s dream, while others
are closer to a nightmare. The wise organization will take
a clue from such companies as Ford, McDonald’s and Procter
& Gamble – searching for that better way of doing
things. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. On the
other hand, if you are getting less than superior hiring results,
take corrective action now.
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