The executive recruitment maze

Source: Technology Digital

Date :01/06/2007 12:04:44

John O'Hanlon looks at selection routes and asks if headhunting is the only way to recruit for senior roles.

For any organisation the selection of a recruitment partner for senior roles is a very time consuming and mistakes can be costly or even terminal but with the right partner the process can be made less risky

By John O’Hanlon

These days there is increasing emphasis on results. In a perfect world, a company will have good succession planning in place ensuring that executive gaps will be filled by individuals within the company who have already been groomed for the role. However, most firms experience occasions where this option is not available to them or they simply do not know whether their internal candidate is the best available, so they may choose to benchmark the vacancy. In either of these circumstances it may be appropriate to instruct an executive recruitment specialist.

It is essential to know what you want. You need to ask yourself: Is this a senior or specialist appointment? Do I need to secure the best available candidate? If both can be answered in the affirmative then you probably need to speak to an Executive Recruitment specialist.

When notices appear in the media announcing the appointment of a senior business figure, the chances are the move involved a headhunter. Most major organisations use the services of an executive recruiter or headhunter but very few people really understand what this involves. Executive recruitment is the recruitment of senior and specialist personnel for any business. There is considerable mystique surrounding executive recruitment. Many people offering these services use names such as Executive Search or Executive Selection or both. Generically, they tend to be called headhunters although is a much-misunderstood term, and one that cause employers the fear that they are about to be led into murky waters in the hands of the pirates of the corporate Caribbean!

The real headhunter

I spoke to the Chairman of the Association of Executive Recruiters, Paul Harper, who is anxious to dispel any misconceptions. Paul is a guardian of the ethics of his profession. You don’t get into the AER without signing up to a code of practice, he says. “Our members operate professionally: for a start their clients are off-limits.” That is clearly the first assurance that a company would need before opening up sensitive recruitment strategy to a third party.

Paul agrees that the market is changing fast as business goes global, but change has always been something the recruitment market has to live with: “Markets and sectors move up and down. When a sector is expanding fast it needs talent and that is when it starts to look out for transferable skills. People start to think more laterally, and that is where headhunters come in to help the client define and conceptualise the role. They may not necessarily have to hook in someone from a key competitor if they can be sure they are getting all the skills they need.”

Paul is a keynote speaker at EREC 2007, the executive recruitment exhibition and conference to be held at ExCeL on May 2 and 3. His theme is Real Head Hunters - Secrets, Myths, Rumours and Lies, so clearly he wants to raise the profile of his profession!

Get on the board

Headhunting can be a slow process. At the very top, it is sometimes the only way, but at the functional levels, which may nevertheless be key to the organisation’s success or failure, the more traditional routes are emerging in new guises. For example, change agent is a word you here more often, and it’s not just a buzzword. People who understand change management and quality systems are like gold dust in any industry, and a new ‘job board’ type organization catchily named Six Sigma City. Basically, says its Operations Director Andy Thompson, lean and six sigma thinking has been moving off the production floor and into the financial sector, the service industries and even government for some time. “As always it is about eliminating defects and waste. Anyone involved in redesigning or reengineering processes and working toward continuous sustainable improvement and increased quality through change methodologies and tools needs to realise that the world is their oyster.” With a global vision and an entrepreneurial approach he is keen to build this comparatively new business on the internet.

EREC 2007 is free to attend, and offers HR professional a unique platform to address these issues. Don’t be surprised to bump into some people you know there, hat pulled low and coat collar up! Seriously, it can be the answer to the key questions: Which Recruiters truly offer the services I require? How do I differentiate their service propositions? Where can I meet them all face to face to individually to discuss my requirements?