Because interviewing, as important as it is in the process of identifying final candidates for senior leadership positions, is not an effective way of predicting their eventual on-the-job performance.

Hiring mistakes are incredibly expensive. They result in direct dollar costs that far exceed the salary paid to an individual. They are responsible for huge lost opportunity costs. People use executive search firms because they know this, and want avoid these mistakes.

Executive search firms excel at finding good enough candidates. They present a short list of potential individuals and then transfer the burden of identifying the best person to you.

We work with you to help you with exactly that - finding the best candidate in a group of good enough individuals. We use techniques proven in a variety of business and other settings to sort out the best from the good enough. Executive search firms say that the final selection is based on "chemistry". We can help you move beyond that.

Recruiting and executive search has changed a great deal in the last two years with the advent of job boards like:

• Workopolis,
• MonsterBoard,
• 6figureJobs,
• Higher Bracket

It is changing even more rapidly with the explosion in executive oriented social networking sites like Linked In, and the addition of relatively cheap job boards to just about every professional association or networking web site.

Finding candidates is no longer the issue. Matching resumes to a list of job specifications is also largely done by software these days.

That leaves the evaluation of candidates. There is a big difference between finding a "good enough" candidate and finding the "best candidate" in a list of candidates.

If a "good enough" candidate will meet your organization's needs, then your HR organization and external recruiter will do the job.

What we do?

If the position is a senior leadership one, or you are an organization striving to be excellent, then a good enough candidate will not do. You will need to take steps to do more than just interview in order to be able to select the best candidate. That's where we can come in to help you with this.

Our approach to predicting final candidate performance on the job, and our work with you, are described in a voice over Power Point presentation that we would pleased to share with you. Contact us for a copy.

Contact Roelf Woldring by e-mail or by phone. Let's talk.

Your first steps - before you work with us

It starts when you decide to do the recruitment. At that point, you will have a job spec or your HR recruiter or executive search firm will create one for you. It generally lists:

• the job and its main responsibilities,
• the specific performance targets for the upcoming period,
• a brief description of the career background of the likely candidate,
• a brief description of the core competencies that will most likely equip a person to do the job.

If it is an executive position, it may get listed on Linked In or one of the executive oriented job boards. These days it really helps to get the word out that you are looking of a person to fill such a post to as many professional networking groups as you can. Research shows that as many of 80% of the executive jobs in Canada are filled through networking, rather than through formal advertising or through formal executive search.

Whatever you do, resumes will start to come in. Your HR organization or executive recruiter will sort through them and short list potential candidates. Unless you tell them otherwise, they will stay very close to the spec that has been created. That works for "business as usual" jobs, but does not for ones that require innovative leadership. If that is what you are looking for, we may need to work with them to broaden their perspective as they review and sort resumes.

Your second step - when you start to work with us

As soon as the job spec exists, get us involved. We will come in and talk to you. We will put together a process by which the final short list candidates are engaged in a set of activities that allow you and use to evaluate and predict their on-the-job performance. They need to know that they will need to do this in order to be considered for the position. So we need to get the process clarified while the resumes are coming in, so that we can communicate straight forwardly with them.

The details of our work with you are described in a voice over Power Point presentation that we would pleased to share with you. Contact us for a copy.

Contact Roelf Woldring by e-mail or by phone. Let's talk.

An after thought:
Do you need an executive recruiter?

It depends on two things.

First, the capability of your HR organization - if they can handle the process of getting the search out on the street or on the web, then you may not need a search firm.

Second, do you want to reach into competitors or other organizations to directly "intrigue" individuals working for them with the possibility of working for you. One of the things that executive recruiters can do for you is reach out to such individuals, when a direct approach by your HR staff or yourself would have business consequences that are best to avoid.