12 Ways Retaining an Executive Search Firm Succeeds for Your Firm

A recent Harvard Business Review commentary reported that executives tend to stay with their current employer for an average of 3.3 years before moving on. This rate of turnover requires organizations to remain continually on the lookout for executive talent. Large companies build large departments to keep up with the river of turnover.

The best way to fill an executive vacancy is by engaging an experienced, successful executive search firm with a stellar history of placement and retention. Because filling frequent vacancies may be a fact of life for your company, developing a long-term relationship with a search firm you trust that’s always on call may be the best solution.

Advantages of Retaining an Executive Search Firm

Hiring a search firm each time you’re in need of a new executive to fill a spot doesn’t have to mean starting all over. Each time an executive recruiter is called in, he or she must spend time understanding the position and the requirements for a successful candidate. If executive openings are frequent or the organization is in expansion mode, the process of familiarization and job specification development can become unwieldy if search firms are working on a case-by-case basis. Management time ultimately gets wasted.

Retaining a successful executive recruiting firm for all future opportunities is far more efficient. The retained recruiting firm becomes a partner in a real sense. Several advantages come into play:

• Your retained search firm develops an “insider” understanding of your company. They “get” how your organization works, they grasp the key roles of management and understand the types of people who fit best.
• You become a high priority. Your company’s search becomes an ongoing “highest priority” engagement, taking precedence over other search projects.
• You retained executive recruiter team develops such an understanding of roles and responsibilities in your company that they can contribute significantly to the development of the job’s role, responsibilities and the description that defines them.
• Your retained search firm will significantly reduce the amount of management time spent on the search. Only early discussions of candidate requirements and final interviews will demand management’s time.
• Knowing the organization’s culture, a retained professional search team can project how well a potential candidate will “fit” the culture.
• Prior knowledge of the types of individuals who have fit well is an asset in the candidate selection process.
• Enhanced insight regarding key company stakeholders is beneficial to assisting the new hire to assimilate easily into the new employer.
• Retained recruiters are on a continual lookout for prospects. Keeping abreast of viable candidates and visualizing where they may fit with their client becomes an ongoing activity.
• Retained recruiters often participate in new executive orientation programs with onboarding follow-up programs to help new hires become comfortable in their new environment.
• Confidentiality is a necessary element of a retained search firm relationship.  It protects the client and the candidate.
• Shortened search time often results from the recruiter’s comprehensive understanding of your requirements.
• Cost-per-hire goes down as efficiencies are derived from repetitive recruiting. 
  
  

Dise & Company Executive Recruiting

The professionals at Dise & Company, based in Cleveland, Ohio, have developed processes for finding ideal executive candidates through networking, intense search and research and a follow-up coaching program that aligns the new hire more quickly with the culture of the organization. Much of the approach is outlined in our recruiting whitepaper “How a Great Executive Search Partner Can Help Your Organization Thrive.”