What Is Executive Search?
Do you have a vacant high-level position but don’t know how to find the right person to fill the job? Positions like these are usually senior-level jobs. It’s essential to find the right person since a regular employee can’t just take that duty. It needs someone highly skilled and talented for the job.
And recruiting is challenging, depending on the exact position you’re trying to fill in. One way to make it easier is through executive search. In this guide, we will discuss all the details about executive search: its definition, elements, benefits, and more.
What Is an Executive Search Agency?
Some particular institutions or agencies specialize in recruitment, such as exec recruitment. Finding the right person for an important position is crucial in any company - which is why executive search agencies exist. They act as middlemen and offer extensive services beyond just searching. Such agencies try their best to develop a more hands-on relationship with the company and utilize various processes to find the right candidate.
There’s always tight competition in terms of exec recruitment between organizations. Unfortunately, when these companies recruit by themselves, finding the perfect person for the position is difficult and is usually an unreliable source of candidates. That’s why most companies seek help from executive search agencies.
Additionally, there are some other reasons why companies go to agencies to do the recruitment for them. These reasons include:
- The company doesn’t have the resources and skills to perform exec recruitment.
- The company is in a hurry to hire someone.
- The company wants to get highly skilled people from their competitors.
- The company can’t find the right person on its own.
Since executive search agencies carry out are a special type of recruitment, the roles and titles they try to fill in are at a higher level. Although it’s said that they focus on senior-level positions, agencies can also find candidates for:
- Manager
- Senior executive
- Vice president
How Does Executive Search Work?
As mentioned in the previous section, executive search involves working with specialized recruitment institutions such as executive search agencies. They’re like the middlemen when looking for the most appropriate candidate for the position. But how does this search work exactly?
When working with firms like these, as the HR department or the employer, you need to provide them with all the essential details for the recruitment. The whole general process of an executive search process with an agency is you, as a company, communicating with them.
Executive search is done in a research-like approach. You will have to pay a fee so that the executive search agency will carry out their extensive search in the market and analyze the marketplace, and benchmark for skills and salaries. These agencies have excellent knowledge and access to board directors and senior executives in different industries and companies.
The agency will perform the search and provide you a qualified candidate based on the qualifications you specified. The agency will also facilitate the interview and negotiate all expectations, like salary, from you and the candidate. And when everything is done, the agency will be paid their service fee. No fees will be charged from any candidate, whether they were hired or not.
Elements of Exec Recruitment
Executive search agencies go through five significant steps when doing their job. Here are the main elements of performing an executive search:
Establishing all priorities for the exec recruitment
To initiate a search, this is the first step that must be achieved. When priorities are established, the search can proceed smoothly. Specifically, here are the things that agencies do:
- Determine the skills, abilities, and knowledge required for the position and offer insights and perspectives so that the organization or company can ponder for what they need.
- Create a customized brief description and details for the position with all the candidate specifications and qualifications. The details should include information about the company, the position, and the accompanying responsibilities, goals, and challenges of the position. And the qualifications must include experience, traits, and competencies required.
Determining strategies
Strategies are made in order to make searching easier. This procedure is what makes up a strategy:
- Research about companies and various sectors to look for people with the qualifications and skills required.
- If there are promising candidates, create a list of all the best-qualified people for the position. Lastly, contact them.
Attract, test, and evaluate candidates
From the previous step, the best-qualified candidates will be contacted to evaluate them. The evaluation will proceed as:
- Interact and communicate with the potential candidates to see how interested they are in the role.
- Conduct technical and formal interviews to test their competency based on the required knowledge, abilities, and skills in the position specification.
- Create another list of the best-qualified candidates after the evaluation.
Presenting the most qualified candidate
The list you will receive are the candidates that went through the evaluation and are ready for your interview. The presented candidates are the most qualified based on the agency’s analysis and evaluation based on required specifications.
The company can conduct its own interview to test the candidates further and confirm and gain knowledge about the candidates firsthand. After that, their executive capabilities will be assessed.
Completing the exec recruitment process
Once the company has decided which candidate they prefer, they will background check the person thoroughly to assess further all of their strengths, weaknesses, and competencies.
The agency, in this part, will help in negotiating compensation details and terms to complete the whole process. Once everything is done, most agencies perform follow-ups from time to time with the company and the candidate to check the progress of the transition.
What’s the Difference Between a Recruiter and an Executive Recruiter?
What is an executive recruiter, and how does the position differ from a regular recruiter? A recruiter and an executive recruiter have the same general role in a company: handling recruitment. However, they differ in the group of people they handle or recruit.
An executive recruiter specializes in recruiting and handling highly skilled potential employees for executive-level positions. A recruiter, on the other hand, deals with people for lower-level positions and, basically, less skilled potential employees.
Benefits of Executive Search
Senior-level executives are essential in a company and have a significant impact on its performance. That’s why choosing the right person in a position like this is a crucial and critical process. And an executive search agency helps companies choose and hire the right people for positions as such so that their business can move forward.
What are the benefits of executive recruitment? Exec recruiters will:
- Map the market for you - The executive search agency will give you access to excellent networks of various leading candidates in the industry by mapping the market for you. This can provide you information on where to locate your search for candidates.
- Provide you with solutions - With an agency, getting tons of CVs won’t be necessary. The agency will match candidates to your company or organization’s needs, considering all your business goals to look for people with the right skills, knowledge, and abilities to help you achieve your goals.
- Offer fresh insights and perspectives - Agencies can also offer you an objective approach. It’s easy and common for companies to recruit people with the same background as the previous person in charge. However, an agency can encourage and give you ideas to look beyond that and find people who can significantly help your company and business develop and improve.
- Approach and evaluate the most qualified candidates - On your behalf, the agency will contact and assess which among the potential candidates are best suitable for the position. They will assist you all throughout the exec recruitment process.
- Be trustworthy - An agency can also be an advisor for your company. They can be trusted since they can sell the position well and they understand company requirements and politics.
How to Search for Executive Positions
Executive recruiters offer many benefits for companies trying to recruit senior-level employees to their business. But, sometimes, you know exactly what you’re looking for in an executive and don’t want to work through a middleman. But where do you look for somebody to fill the position? This is where Talenteria comes in. With this powerful platform, you can create a stunning career site, thus attracting top talent that will make the perfect addition to your executive team. Ready to get started? Reach out today for more information.
