Executive Search Firms

Tips for Hiring the Best Executive Search Firms

Not every executive search firm is ideal for tapping and hiring the best senior-level talents that your organization demands. You should make sure you are working with experienced and qualified executive hunters in order to ensure that you will be able to recruit the best candidates possible in the intensifying job market. Here are some guidelines to help you and your organization find and hire a great executive search firm:

1. Determine the industry focus of the executive search firm. It might be a popular choice among companies in another industry, but not in yours. To get a clue about the industry focus of the headhunter in question, try asking for a list of its clients, both past and present.

2. The firm should assure you that it will be able to oversee the majority of the hiring process. The best executive search firms are those with in-house research teams; other headhunters simply outsource their information from third-party providers. Your chosen executive search firm should also have appropriate communication and project management tools to help ensure accurate and timely feedback.

3. Top search executive firms usually handle up to seven accounts simultaneously. If your headhunter handles more than that, find another recruiter who is equally competent and reliable. This will allow you to make sure that your search is given sufficient time and attention, which will in turn instill you with confidence that you have tapped the best senior level talents available.

4. Check if the headhunter offers a replacement guarantee. The best executive search firms are those that offer at least a year of guarantee. That means that the recruiter will work to replace a candidate who turns out to be a poor fit for your company or who suddenly decides to leave the position early on. Ideally, these replacement searches should not incur additional costs.

5. Agree to a specific length of time that the search firm is prohibited from recruiting from your own organization. Understand that executive search firms often recruit from existing clients; this provides them access to a very strong pool of senior-level candidates. A year or two after an executive has been hired by your company through the efforts of the search firm, it may contact that senior talent again to offer him or her other management positions in other companies. You may opt to block the search firm from doing so within your company in the future, but there could be consequences in terms of your relationship with the search firm. The best bet is establish terms that are satisfactory to both parties early on.

6. Quality of candidates should be assured. Choose executive search firms that offer to use the evaluation tools and performance metrics set by your organization. Some firms may offer to integrate their own metrics into those of your organization to yield better results and tap a higher caliber of candidates.

7. The headhunter should not take an excessive amount of time to complete the process. It is standard for any executive search company to complete the hiring process in 90 to 150 days. A search that takes less time than that could lead to quality doubts, while longer searches lead to additional expenses for your organization. The best executive search firms are able to create candidate shortlists within 30 to 45 days of the start of the search.

8. Ideally, the executive search firm should be a member of at least one relevant industry association. Take the time to verify its affiliations in order to build further confidence in the relationship.