What Is Executive Search?

Successfully transitioning your company into the new millennium is a challenge no matter where you are located or what you do. The need for leaders with the right mix of skills, experience and cultural compatibility is critical- leaders who can successfully guide your business in a rapidly changing economy. In this environment, the free and effective movement of management talent is vital to allow companies to take full advantage of a pool of well-educated, highly skilled executives. To help them build the leadership capital they need, many companies now turn to retained executive search firms.

Finding High-Caliber Talent
Simply put, executive search is a means of finding the high-caliber leaders in local, regional or international markets. The search firm acts on behalf of the client company seeking the right senior manager for a specific role- or, for example, a team of managers to pioneer entry into a new market.

The Value of Executive Search
Executive search brings value to clients because the search consultant provides a company with domestic and worldwide knowledge of the managerial market within its industry, as well as a sophisticated network of relevant industry contacts to identify suitable candidates for each assignment.

The search process involves working with clients in long-term partnerships to understand their businesses, organizations, inner culture and thinking. This means that a top search consultant can not only advise on a strategic hire, such as that of a chief executive officer, but also offer insight into the development and implementation of major strategic human resource programs. Confidentiality is paramount.

Securing Key Players
For companies looking for senior managers in an increasingly tight executive market, executive search may be the only way to secure the right mix of skills, experience and cultural compatibility As companies expand into new markets and globalization becomes the key strategic focus, the need to identify executives with international experience and the ability to build market share in emerging economies is even more pressing.

Using a high-quality retained executive search firm ensures that the client will benefit from confidentiality, a commitment to finding the right manager whatever the challenges, specialist knowledge of the industry and the ability to secure the best players in a timescale tailored to the client's objectives. A hallmark of a solid search firm is that the majority of its work comes from satisfied clients- clients who return again and again to find the executive talent they need to grow their businesses.

Employment Agency, Advertised Selection, Contingency Search and Retained Search
An employment agency works on behalf of the applicant. It looks for jobs for people. Those seeking employment come to the agency to see what positions companies may have open, so the pool of applicants for an opening is limited to those seeking new employment. The agency receives a fee from a company only when that company selects a candidate sent by the agency

With advertised selection, a company advertises in publications announcing a specific job opening and the necessary qualifications. Those interested respond by sending or faxing a resume. Again, the pool of applicants is limited to those seeking new employment. The value of advertising is that it identifies a broad range of candidates from both within and without a client's business sector and is an effective data-gathering technique.

A contingency search firm's fee is paid only when the client actually hires a candidate presented by the firm.  Contingency firms are used primarily and most effectively at the middle and lower management levels. The most obvious advantage is that a client does not pay for services unless it hires a suitable candidate presented by the search firm.

In retained search, the consultant works on behalf of the client company. For example, the search firm may conduct a search on behalf of a client seeking thc right senior manager for a specific role. Typically, these candidates are not actively seeking new positions. It is the retained search firm's role to identify and interview candidates who may fit the culture and needs of that company, then to present a "short" list of those candidates to the client. The retained search consultant serves as a management consultant -- providing objective insight and advice.