Search and selection
- Direct search:Executive Search by consultants highly specialized in the assessment of top-level executives.
- Selection with advertisement:Personnel selection with a wide experience in selection processes of the functional and operative middle levels within the company.
- Combined method:Mixed method that ensures the process in the most difficult and special cases.
A pedagogical approach to the executive search methods
Which methods are the most adequate ones for the search and selection of directors, middle management and professionals?
A certain confusion often appears when talking about the most suitable methods for the executive search and selection.
Recruiters use different methods depending on the market of potential candidates.
Being certain that both candidates and companies may find it useful, we are pleased to explain hereunder what each method represents, with their advantages and disadvantages:
1. Executive search (headhunting)
It is the most adequate approach method to find the ideal candidate, when the target ones should be experienced in a particular activity sector or a defined group of companies.
After an exhaustive information meeting or briefing with the client, our researchers team will study the market of potential candidates in order to prepare a list of target firms in which the potential professionals will be identified, and afterwards contacted to check their aptitude as well as their interest for the project.
Once the list is made, the candidates will be called for an interview with experienced consultants, who afterwards will present to the client a selection of the ones meeting the requirements.
This method guarantees that, when interviewing the resultant candidates, our client can be sure that those will be both the most interesting and the most interested ones.
Advantages
- It is the most direct approach with optimal results when the market can be easily identified and defined.
- It gets the most successful results in a particular market or activity sector.
- It is the most efficient way to find candidates who are not actively looking for a professional change in that moment.
- Candidates are interviewed and selected according with the specifications of the client.
- A final list is generated with the best candidates of the defined sector willing to consider a change.
- The highest confidentiality, as only the candidates interviewed by the consultant will know of the vacancy.
Disadvantages:
- Potential candidates working out of that activity sector cannot be identified, unless the client has instructed us.
- It may contribute to a certain salary inflation.
2. Executives selection (advertisement)
By publishing an offer in the appropriate media, a selection advertisement can catch the eye of passive job seekers who browse the job vacancies just in case. This method also attracts those candidates actively searching for a new job.
On the other hand, this approach turns out an excellent solution if it is unclear where to find good CVs because the target market is too wide in geographical and numerical terms, depending on the amount of companies operating in that sector.
The executive recruitment consultants, due to their vast experience and wide knowledge of most of the companies from almost every activity sector, add value by handling all responses and screening the received CVs through a series of interviews and other candidate selection methods.
As for how the features of the advertisement have an influence on potential candidates, throughout our long experience we have ascertained that:
- A good candidate replies to a good advertisement, so the skill of our consultants for the wording, while following the client requirements, is essential.
- A good logo attracts a good candidate.
- Using the name and logo of the company, the response level can be increased or reduced.
- Blind ads (namely without showing the client’s name) are kept for extremely confidential vacancies.
Advantages:
- Can identify individuals not working within the target market.
- Attracts active and passive candidates: the best active jobseekers as well as those appealed by the offer.
- Works well when it is clear that the market has a sufficient amount of qualified candidates to choose from.
- It may help with profile rising if the company’s branding is displayed in the advertisement.
- As a consequence, it enables a final list with the best seekers of a new job plus those passive candidates who were attracted just by reading the advertisement.
Disadvantages:
- It won’t let recruit candidates who are not seeking a new position or role.
- Results will vary depending on who is browsing the media during the period the advertisement is active.
3. Combined method (search + selection)
For the executive and professionals recruitment, this is a hybrid approach method, which combining both ones, ensures that every single option has been explored to find the most suitable candidate.
Advantages:
- Covers both active and passive candidates, as well as those not looking for a job in the market operated by the client.
- Ensures a list of finalists selected out from the best candidates within the activity sector of the client, plus those active jobseekers who responded to the advertisement.
- It is the most complete methodology for finding the most suitable candidate, who is the one that, being very interesting, is also very interested in the position.
Disadvantages:
- It is more expensive than just headhunting or advertising selection alone.