5 benefits of engaging an executive search headhunter

If you are searching for an executive search headhunter, you are probably researching how to make a successful senior appointment for your business – are you hiring a domain specialist, director or C-level candidate?

At this stage, employers often consider a specialist executive search firm, like Intelligent People. The reason behind this? Senior executive searches are simply too important to the success of businesses – having a high performing leader can make or break a business and affect its growth.

We have complied a list of 5 reasons why you should think about engaging an executive search headhunter.

1) Your executive search is time critical

• Are you nearing a product launch?
• Do you need to deliver growth as soon as possible?
• Are you behind schedule or deadlines?
• Do you simply need to deliver now?
• Is there a market wide event that will affect your business – economic, social, political, competitor launch?
• Is a current senior executive leaving the business? Do you need to replace them as soon as possible to ensure there is a handover period, and continuity for your team?

These are all common situations at work, and why employers often look to the help of a dedicated executive search headhunter firm. We all know that time equals money, and a long, drawn-out executive search will often leave you missing out on the most skilled candidates in the market – often they are only available for a short period of time before they are snapped up.

2) You require a senior executive with specific or niche domain experience

• Have you exhausted your current candidate network?
• Do you need to turn to passive candidates to find the specific skills and experience you require?
• Do you require extensive market research and a market mapping exercise needs completing?
• Are you recruiting for a new position / department and therefore do not possess the experience internally to spot the best candidates for the business?

Positions that require specific domain experience can cause problems for internal talent teams if they do not have previous experience in hiring within these fields. It may require more input from the domain leader; however, this takes them away from their day job which can have a knock-on impact on performance.

Employing an executive search headhunter with the specific domain experience you require allows you as the employer to relax, knowing you have a team of market professionals on the case.

3) Your in-house talent team is under-resourced

• Do you already have too many vacancies to fill?
• Do you have the capacity to do the necessary research and do personal outreach?
• Do you have endless CVs to shortlist?
• Are you getting lost in background checks and references?
• Are you struggling to see through the admin of scheduling interviews?
• Are you struggling to give feedback to all candidates throughout the hiring process?
• Does the executive vacancy place too much burden on your existing team members?

Doing a great job at executive searches and headhunting takes an incredible amount of time and is a struggle if its time that you do not have. Engaging a headhunter will enable you to spend quality time on briefing the firm, detailing all the requirements, the roadmap, the experience required etc, and then you can take a backseat and wait for the shortlist to be presented.

4) You are struggling to attract the right quality of candidate

• Do you not have the expertise within the market to communicate correctly with prospective candidates?
• Are you unsure what the market rate is or are confused about current salary and benefits expectations?
• Does your employer brand needs improvement?
• Are you always losing candidates to your competitors?

Not only can a long hiring process create a loss of productivity, increased employee stress and have an impact on the bottom line, but it can also damage the perception of the brand within the candidate network. If a position is noticeably vacant for a long time, and is being posted on job sites, it can lead to questions from candidates – why are they finding it hard to recruit? Is there a problem with company culture?

5) You need your hiring process to provide cost-effective results

Hiring an executive search headhunter will give you the best chance for success – i.e., hiring an executive level specialist that will impact the performance of your business.

There are other advantages too. Not only does it positively improve performance but professionally executed executive searches do reduce or eliminate the cost of retraining, rehiring, or poor performance.