Krista Bradford

Candidate Pipelines: More Proactive than Traditional Search

One of the things that gets me up in the morning is the promise of invention, of finding a better way to do something.  Innovation doesn't always happen, but when it does, it occurs at the margins, which is where I've positioned my firm.  (We do retained search, but we're not a traditional retained search firm. We offer human capital intelligence, which powers all of our search engagements, but we're not a traditional research firm. ) And if the reactions of my clients are any indication, I think may have stumbled upon something big: candidate pipelines.

Candidate pipelines are fast becoming my firm's most popular offering. They are proactive and enjoy economies of scale, which make them more cost-effective than retained or contingency. Instead of working on on-off searches, which is hugely inefficient, we deliver a stream of candidates across multiple current and/or future openings.

Companies trying to reduce their dependency on retained search tell us they see candidate pipelines as a means to that end. Moreover, because we deliver the candidates and all of the expert research along with it, each pipeline builds out a company's internal search capability.  Quite simply, the research can be used to make additional hires at no additional cost. Companies unable to fill the positons with contingency or unable to afford that option also find pipelines effective and affordable. And it is certainly preferable to openings languishing unfilled.  In additional, companies that have tried turning to research only to end up with a list of names and no candidates find pipelining a preferable alternative. 

Moreover, all of our research and granular documentation -- we are proud to show our work -- is far more transparent than traditional search and serves as a better platform upon which to build trust and collaboration with each one of our clients. Management consultant Gautam Ghosh found my earlier posting on trust interesting. Says Ghosh, "In my opinion, there are certain things that are taken to be the 'norms of operating' in an industry. I wonder how the growth of jobsites and increase in transparency is changing the way executive search firms conduct their business? Is trust increasing or decreasing?"

How do you know if you're ready to try a candidate pipeline? If you have more than one related opening (similar roles:different locations; different roles: similar target comopanies; similar roles: different levels), you may be ready.  If you've found it hard to fill all your openings, you may be ready.  If you have positions that regularly open up like clockwork, you may be ready.  And if you've ever stopped to wonder whether there must be a better way, at least, it is worth a shot.

The Buzz: Leveraging Word-of-Mouth in Search

In an age where we don't believe the ads we hear and can't keep up with our email, texting, voicemail and webinars . . . word-of-mouth  offers one of the most effective ways of being heard.  The Anatomy of Buzz, a book by Emanuel Rosen, has tremendous implications in the world of executive search.  Candidates get hired (or not) based on their buzz --  on whether colleagues think they're "hot" (in a business sense, not in the Paris Hilton sense of the word). 

Nowhere is the importance of buzz more apparent than in the world of recruiting for venture capital portfolio companies.  The moment a search firm presents a candidate, the VCs check their extensive, highly connected personal networks. If the answer comes back "no information" or worse, if it comes back "loser", that candidates will not move forward.

So now, let's look at search from the search consultant or recruiter's side.  As the shortage of talent grows, it becomes imperative that opportunities be interesting in a good way and that our companies stand out as employers-of-choice.  They need to be "buzz worthy" so that one candidate tells another and within the space of a few days, the social networks in your industry are fired up and buzzing about how cool it would be to come to work for you. 

If fact, buzz is critical in the world of executive search, where candidates conduct due diligence to evaluate their opportunities in much the way VCs evaluate their investments.  If VIPs are interested and involved, that creates buzz. If a company is backed by the right investors, that creates buzz. If a company has developed a hot product its about to introduce to the world and word has leaked out, all the better.

So instead of treating every contact or call as the same as you go through your list of "To Do's", think about how best to leverage those that are super-connected in your network, those most likely to spread the news and to fire up the buzz on your network. How do you know if someone in your circle of friends and colleagues is a super-connector? You don't have to go to them: typcially, they come to you. Chances have already contacted you, hungry for information. Next time that happens, instead of getting irritated at the interruption, stop and consider the opportunity and share your most buzz-worthy news.  And then sit back and watch the buzz begin.

How much do you trust your search firm?

Trust. I don't know about you, but it's huge in my book. It makes and breaks deals, friendships, and, at times, fortunes.  In the world of executive search, the best companies and the most brilliant leaders depend on us to have their best interests at heart.  Yet, if that's the case, why do off-limits remain such a big issue? And why, at the end of the day, do so many clients trust their search firms so little?

I would argue a couple of issues are at play.  One is a lack of transparency.  A good many retained search firms refuse to share the information they've gathered over the course of a search, arguing that to do so would violate search consultant - candidate confidentiality.

Please.

As a former investigative journalist, I know all about confidentiality. In fact, unlike search partners, I had to be willing to go to prison to protect a source. If there are some details that a candidate would rather not share, it is easy enough to redact from data exports and update reports to the client. That is why I suspect that the primary reason search firms refuse to share the data they gather over the course of a search is pure self-interest. They simply don't want to help their clients build their own database.  Another reason is that some firms may be afraid to "show their work" quite simply because they haven't done it.

Whom do you trust?

Because we're a search firm powered by a high-performance research engine, we're big believers in showing our work. In fact, we learn that by drilling down and providing granular detail, we've provided an important platform from which to build out a real consultative relationship of trust and collaboration.  It takes courage to show that level of detail, but it speeds corrections of errors and in so doing brings strength and resiliency to the process.

Another issue is off-limits.  Ironically, search firm specialization creates the very off-limits issues that clients wish to avoid. In fact, off-limits and specialization are diametrically opposed.  If you want deep domain expertise, then there will be many companies from which your search firm can't recruit. 

That is why we advocate for other kinds of search firm specialization.  Ours is human capital intelligence. We power every engagement with expert research (He who has the best information wins.) Quite simply, that kind of specialization rewards trust with less search, more find. 

Six Degree Myth and Why It Matters in Search

The other day, I was discussing social network mapping theory with Valdis Krebs and the amazing things one could learn from the networks of executives to inform recruitment and retention.  During the conversation, Valdis casually mentioned something that detonated in my mind in the hours and days immediately following our discussion: the six degrees of separation thing is, essentially, a myth. 

The six degrees theory emerged, according to wikipedia, as follows:

The small world experiment comprised several experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram examining the average path length for social networks of people in the United States. The research was groundbreaking in that it revealed that human society is a small world type network characterized by shorter-than-expected path lengths. The experiments are often associated with the term six degrees of separation, although Milgram did not use this term himself.

It may not be a small, small world afterall . . .That may explain why Jobster - the social networking meets job referral site - has had so much trouble catching on.  Basically, as Valdis explained it, with luck one's direct connections (to the second degree) might be willing to make a referral, but with every degree beyond that, the likelihood of a subsequent referral becomes exponentially smaller.  In the end, only a small percentage of a social network actually makes referrals to the sixth degree. In other words, most referrals reaching beyond one's immediate connections go nowhere.

So, if the myth argument wins out, then online social neworks are not the silver bullet they've been made up to be . . .at least when it comes to referrals.  The lesson for executive search? Do not depend on online social networks for referrals and introductions. At The Good Search, we've always found it to be far more effective to simply pick up the phone. 

Time for a New Category of Executive Search

Donny Deutsch, Host of the CNBC television show "The Big Idea" features successful entrepreneurs who've launched products, companies, and at times, even whole industries inspired by the realization "there must be a better way!"  Where are the big ideas in executive search?

In the recruiting industry, we essentially have two flavors of search firms: Retained and Contingency.   The two models are distinguished primarily by how they prefer to be paid.  And while the end product is essentially the same (a placement), the process is very different.  Retained tends to be far consultative and labor-intensive. The candidates are scruitinzed to a higher degree quite simply because more is at stake. Contingency is highly transactional and is typically aimed at the staffing level.  They have to make a rapid placement or else they move on.

Research firms have primarily taken a back seat to search firms, whether retained or contingency. Retained search firms, in their effort to stav off competition, frequently marginalize research and framed it as a low-level, if not secretarial, back-office function . . .  this even though research is the very thing that identifies and develops candidates.  Ironically, it is viewed as tactical -- simple name generation -- when the very opposite is true.  Search that does not leverage hard-core research (human capital intelligence) is tactical. In other words, most retained search is tactical. 

Denigration of search research, from where I sit, is mired in the good old boys' network that attempts to keep clients snookered into believing that they make better placements simply because they say so.

The reality, my friends, is that one makes better placements if one is smarter as in  "he who has the best information wins".  And the only way to make yourself smarter in search is to power every engagement with expert human capital intelligence.  This form of research is not a simple list of names. Rather,it leverages market intelligence and competitive intelligence to deliver candidates faster-better.  Search without it is like searching with your eyes closed. 

At the end of the day, search should not be defined by how you bill for the service (retained versus contingency), but by how you deliver the candidates.  If your search process isn't informed by actionable intelligence, than it is search dumbed-down.   

Are we a retained firm? Yes, because that is how we are paid. We are retained to conduct individual executive searches. Our process is powered by human capital intelligence, from start to placement and onboarding. We are also paid to conduct multiple searches, delivering a pipeline of candidates across a range of openings. We are paid to create benches of candidates.  We are also paid to develop organizational intelligence (org charting, executive mapping and profiling).  Instead of just a candidate at the end of a search engagement, our clients get the candidate and the intelligence.

We  believe we've created a new category of search. We're not your typical retained search firm. We're not your typical research firm. So what to call it? Intelligent search? Proactive search? Smart search?   Whatever the category, the idea is simple. Search powered by human capital intelligence is simply more evolved, inspired by mantra "there must be a better way".