Executive Recruiting Blog

Sourcing The Right Talent: The Coming Battle In Executive Recruiting

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Surveys indicate that when things in the job market improve, professionals and execs will be jumping at the prospect of improving their situations. It may well be in your best interests to appoint a recruiting agency that has the ability to ensure that you're sourcing the right talent now, as the economy eventually recovers. Do you have the resources to do a comprehensive background check on the candidates you are considering? Can you be 100% sure that their claims in terms of qualifications and experience are authentic? Can you risk taking on someone who could turn out to be a liability for your organization?

Comprehensive Background Checks

In view of the current recession, job losses and high unemployment levels a lot of people are desperate for jobs. In their attempts to get a well paying job, many are willing to compromise on ethics in order to get a job on false pretenses even if it entails falsifying records and forging documents pertaining to educational qualifications and job experience. Very few organizations have the necessary infrastructure to carry out thorough background checks on candidates and verify their information. However, appointing a recruiting agency could well solve this problem for you. A top executive recruiter will have the network and infrastructure to follow up on every application and verify the authenticity of the claims. They have access to recruitment software that enables them to do background checks on individuals. This will ensure that you are not burdened with an undesirable employee.

What is at Stake?

Appointing the wrong candidate can lead to serious repercussions for the organization. The choice of an employee will always reflect on a company within the industry. On one hand the risk of appointing someone with a criminal record could damage a company’s reputation irreparably. On the other hand, an organization could be at risk of being subjected to industrial espionage. How safe would confidential company information be in the wrong hands? How safe would information that is relevant to crucial industries such as the pharmaceutical industry, be in the hands of an unethical person? It may be wise to leave these decisions in the hands of a reliable recruiting agency.

Vetting and Executive Recruiting

Assuming that the records submitted by an applicant are genuine, you would still need to confirm whether they do possess the skills they claim to have. Interviewing hundreds of applicants for a single post (in today’s job market there would be hundreds) is time consuming and a waste of company resources. And yet, personal interviews may be the only way to assess the suitability of the candidate and ensure that you do not appoint an incompetent employee. When you initiate recruitment process outsourcing, your recruiting agency should step in and take the load off the organization by using its own resources to screen, interview and shortlist only the most qualified and capable professionals or executives for the position.

What's the value proposition then, of checking references, when most are afraid to be candid for fear of repercussions?

Search firms will assure you that referencing is critical - but don't simply take that at face value. Referencing is so vital that no candidate should get a dialogue with your team unless and until the executive recruiter has spoken live with at least one former boss of the proposed candidate (an executive recruiter has a charge to protect his/her client from hiring a veiled prospect).

Dig deep to talk live with former bosses to avoid common executive search mistakes.  Real referencing, if done correctly, can be worth its weight in gold.  Here are some tips:

• Asking about "why" and "how" yield insights that go beyond declarations and non-specific praise - as is so common on LinkedIn.
• Hidden references are the most useful and are ones the search professional takes the initiative to contact, though they may not listed by the candidate as a reference. This can be tricky, and requires treading carefully (best handled by a pro).
• Try for questions that are designed to elicit new information that is less well known about the prospective candidates' profile. Open-ended questions elicit the most useful information during referencing with regard to yielding new or missed information.

Tactfully see if you can probe - even taking the reference giver a bit outside their comfort zone. The reason is that there is a lot at stake for everyone in executive onboarding. So pose a fill-in-the-blank question, for example, where the answer is not obvious and the answerer needs to give frank, unvarnished input. If possible, observe body language by (personally face-to-face) meeting the contact for coffee, etc. (Pick a Competent Search Firm - Avoid 7 Common Practices that Can Lower Your ROI >>)