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Screening candidates for team fit is more fruitful and accurate than corporate culture match. Work is a lot like life in general in that screening candidates cultural fit is what many strive for.  While it is a lofty goal, it is also a bit of star Trek wishful thinking that all will be well in the universe and a perfect hire will happen.

 In life, we tend to mingle with people who are quite like ourselves. As an individual, a person would usually be drawn to another who expresses similarities, in language, music, and style are among the things. In a few words: we are attracted to the same culture. The same goes for the business world.

Companies have a selection process where they usually look for candidates who share the same values and methods of their organization, i.e corporate culture. Screening candidates for team fit takes more work but in the end it is about the performance of the team and the impact the individuals being considered for hire will impact team dynamics.

Each team has their own culture.  And teams are made up of individuals.  If everyone thinks the  same and has the same corporate culture and process methods philosophy, their is no innovation, no challenge to different thoughts as everyone is robotic in their thinking.

And cultural fit should not be mistaken for one’s own prejudice. A candidate should be hired based on how they would make a positive impact on the team he/she will work within and how that in the end would be beneficial for the company without clashing with other employees and while at the same time maintain demeanor. If these are met  y assessing team fit instead of culture fit,  then that new hire is likely to fail.

Screening Candidates for Team Fit is Essential to Team Success

While cultural fit can be discerned in the screening process, whether the candidates fit the team he/she will work within is one of the main purposes of utilizing psychometrics to asses a candidate’s impact on team dynamics.  The major problem is the reliance upon one-way behavioral testing that partially measures a potential candidate’s potential behavioral patters, values, and motivations, but fails to take into account the team composite regarding relational communications style, decision maing and conflict resolution skills, and leadership/management style.

Many feel that in  a panel interview they can discern within a few hours how a candidate will impact team dynamics and weigh heavily on Human Resources to provide the behavioral assessment.  the interaction established in the interview exhibits the candidate’s credentials to accomplish the job and an essential fit needed to perform efficiently within the role, but cannot measure team fit.

Behavioral interviews are often used; unfortunately, the standard practice does not work well. Organizations need to measure a candidate’s behavioral profile against the composite reading of the team’s behavioral profile. This type of psychometric measurement combined with the in-person interviews can accurately tell how the candidate’s approach and conduct are compatible with the ones practiced within the team, as well as within the company.

According to Entrepreneur, Corporate culture is “a blend of values, beliefs, taboos, symbols, rituals and myths companies develop over time.” In itself, a company has their own identity within its workforce and it greatly varies from one organization to another. Within a company, it is common that different people are working together.

Screening Candidates for Team Fit Means a Good Hire

Screening candidates for team fit assures that teamwork is common and important in a corporate setting. Employees who value working with peers and acknowledge the input of various ideas is most likely to work well in an organization that puts emphasis working in teams. Working with others is an important part in business organizations.

However, when an employee prefers to work alone, he or she might be a good cultural fit in an organization that is more inclined in working in teams.Screening candidates for cultural fit and team fit also measures the capability of an employee to embrace diversity and exhibits no qualms in working in an organization that is compatible to their own set of principles and ideals. Companies need to recognize and employ candidates who exhibit these traits. Employees who are happy in their work environment tend to perform better and stay longer.

Despite the diverse personalities within a workforce, a company needs to find balance in shaping their work culture that will assure its accomplishment. Working in organizations would mean meeting a lot of people with different backgrounds. Both cultural fit and team fit emphasizes an employees’ abilities in and characteristics that can contribute to the success of the company.

A Recruitment Process Unmatched

NextGen’s award-winning Leadership Vault search process begins with the Discovery step where the objectives of the role, how a candidate will use their skills, team dynamics, and value proposition are determines.  The target candidate profile includes researched competitor and company targets followed by documenting accomplishments, relative KPIs, depth of industry / customer relationships, and scientifically based team fit analysis.

Success based recruitment fees where majority is based on acceptable deliverables and the actual hire.  Backed by a custom on-boarding plan and a 24 to 36 month replacement guarantee and a retention rate of 93% of our placements are working for same client at 3.5 years of service with 72% in 5 years.  You should expect NOTHING LESS than hiring an “A player” when you pay a recruitment fee.

The cost of failed executive hires is tremendous. This is NOT limited to just CXOs and SVPs – same goes with VP and Director levels. It is surprising how many mid-cap and large conglomerates retained big-named search firms without realizing that with the exception of a few principals that manage the business and no longer recruit, most of the recruiters for these big firms are a revolving door. They flow in and out according to economic times. Boards should look towards smaller well-established retained executive search firms who have experts that have been working there for a dozen years or more and have a solid history of recruiting in your niche industry.

The cost of failed executive hires is not only damaging – it can prove to be fatal. First are the costs related to the executive compensation, benefits, and severance package, as well as indirect cost such as travel, poor strategy and poor business plan execution, lost market share, lack of direction for the rest of the staff, and lack of trust in the Board of Directors. I see it all the time where I not only need to find a replacement CEO, CTO, CFO, or SVP, but also one that has turnaround experience and is willing to come into a situation that is not ideal for immediate success.

Several times over my career in Executive Search I find myself working with a candidate who believes they are an ideal fit for a retained search assignment I am conducting. My retained search work is “performance based” NOT contingency based, which means that when a client has paid a deposit for my time and effort, I am expected to get the job done.For an executive search consultant, getting the job done means nothing short of bringing forward high-impact “business changing” candidates to our clients. These are the “A Players“.  Not only must they have the required experience, expertise, and a proven track record of success, but he/she must prove to me that they can meet the challenges of the position, meet or exceed my client’s expectations, and make a “direct positive impact” on my client’s business.

Most fail to understand the impact on the cost of failed executive hires is. The truth is that by and large, about 55% of all employees at any given company are in fact “C” Players. They can do the job they were hired to do; they show up for work on time, do the job they were assigned, and are loyal to their managers.  However, they lack the entrepreneurship risk taking mentality, the “take charge” attitude, and the take no prisoners’ mindset required to make an impact on the marketplace.  In addition, they are easily replaced by outsourcing at a lower cost as well as artificial intelligence, software automation, and robotics.  And the latter three can run 24/7 without sick days, benefits, training, and their performance is most often anything but mediocrity.

Avoiding the Cost of Failed Executive Hires

While for many positions it is acceptable until technology advancements eliminate many “C” players, companies will continue to hire them for many roles.  At functional leadership and key engineering, sales, and operations the cost of failed executive hires can be fatal.  Many VPs and Directors will look to “B” players, which based on my 20 years experience in executive recruiting, are roughly up to 30% of all employees at any given company.  They outperform “C” players any day of the week and possess the intuitiveness and hunger to succeed that makes them valuable to their employer. They have a track record of success, albeit in their department but rarely make a definitive impact on the company’s overall performance in the marketplace or the business strategy.So what really is an “A” player? The misconception is that “A players” only exist at the executive level.  That is purely a myth.  Most “A players” were born that way or evolved into it in childhood, teenage, or young adult years.  These unique individuals comprise the Top 14% of the global workforce.  They are easily recognized early on.  In their youth, they were leaders and entrepreneurs – whether having the most lawns to cut, starting a community newspaper, excelling in Junior Achievement or inventing a product or service company that was acquired by a bigger fish.

These “A players” are not always leaders as their ideas, thought processing, and inventiveness make them excellent engineers. Same goes with RSMs and MAMs who can blow out the quotas as an individual, but if you try to move them into leadership levels they fail.  The strategic thinker and the ability to “sell their ideas” type of “A players with superb interpersonal communications and conflict resolution skills are in fact the type of functional leader or senior corporate executive that is a “game changers” not only within a client’s vertical market, but have had similar success in other vertical markets within that industry or in a different industry altogether. They have a responsibility to the owners (founders, investors, and stockholders).

​​​​Cost of Failed Executive Hires is due to a poor Talent Acquisition Process

A Forbes article by a Silicon Valley CEO reveals that the cost of failed executive hires is estimated to be more than $500,000 or 2.5 times salary. And that does NOT include organizational, opportunity, productivity, and transitional costs for the new executive. As an Officer or Board member, you must ask yourself, why would you risk letting mediocre executives hires to occur?The same can be said of a VP of Engineering who needs principal level systems software engineer for that matter. You may save yourself a few dollars in the short run recruiting someone with your existing recruiting process, but the long term effects in the cost of failed executive hires may cost YOU and YOUR STOCKHOLDERS much more than 2.5 times salary or a recruitment search fee.

How to Alleviate the Cost of Failed Executive Hires

NextGen Global Executive Search not only reduces the cost of failed executive hires, we virtually eliminate them.  The award-winning Leadership Vault search method, developed over 30 years, is a the recruitment platform utilized by our executive search consultants that properly measures the potential candidates we identify by psychometrics to determine a strong match to role fit and team fit, document KPIs and the depth of candidates’ industry relationships, and provide a custom onboarding program that includes new hire self-development planning and a mentoring / coaching program that is easy to realize with little investment of time.  Backed by an industry leading 12 to 36 months replacement guarantee, the common feedback is the hire we placed met or exceeded their objectives.  Looking to fill a key  functional leadership or senior executive role in your company?  Reach out and see the difference engaging an Executive Retained Search will make to the quality of candidates you will interview. We don’t get paid in full until you are 100% satisfied.

It’s a very tough market in electrical and computer engineers for companies that provide security applications, Ai, IoT, and aerospace products.  Under rules from FAA and ITAR to FCC to ITAR to DoD, the education bubble shortage of US born engineers is evident.  Requiring US citizenship or green card (permanent residence status), real unemployment nationwide across all industries is still high.

First we need to understand the reality of the education bubble.  In the USA, the primary reason we have a decline in economic power is that since the 80s we have moved from real education in science, history, english, writing, and mathematics to “social awareness” and social justice teaching.

As such, we produce a declining number of electrical and computer engineers for four decades – especially USA natives. Want proof the education bubble is worsening?  Graduates numbered 14,584 in 2004-05, but declined to 14,209 in 2005-06 and 13,783 in 2006-07. Master’s degrees also dropped in the same time period, recording a significant decrease from 41,087 in 2004-05 to 38,451 in 2005-06, followed by a smaller decrease to 37,320 in 2006-07.

Education Bubble Creates Shortage of US born Engineers

Enrollment of U.S. citizens in graduate science and engineering programs has not kept pace with that of foreign students in those programs as new foreign student enrollment for 2008-2009 increased by approximately 16.0% from the previous academic year.  Since the federal government took over education with the Department of Education in 1979, our elementary schools and high schools have declined and at the university level the education bubble is worse.

The Education Bubble shortage of US born engineers exists due to this social engineering. The education bubble has come about doe to the federal government’s free-spending ways.  We re broke as a nation and cannot continue to give student loans to those whose GPA is not deserving.  And like my family did for me and my siblings, it is a parent’s sacrifice and savings to put a kid through college.  Or going to school at night while working full time like my father did.

Or going via the GI Bill by serving in the military.  Or busting your butt in 2 years of community college like my own son did (who then received full scholarships for bachelor and master based upon his grades) who then achieved a PhD in Space Physics.  He soundly defeats the issues in the education bubble.

Reasons for the Education Bubble Shortage of US born Engineers

Education should be about Learning and Competition

The education bubble shortage of US born engineers exist due to a failure to deal with real life in educating our children.  Just as in life there are winners and losers –  and no one should receive a trophy just because they tried.  And if you did not win, so what?  I was taught to keep trying.   And I spent 2-3 hours a day in homework from elementary all the way through high school.   In elementary and high school  we were encouraged to join clubs and be involved.  Me –  I chose football and Key Club.

Those two things taught me competition, being a team player, and giving of my time to my community.  With fierce competition and high education standards, we had no education bubble.   And the focus on high academic standards prepared me for college.  Today our schools focus on “feel-good” social engineering and teaching children political and social correctness rather than the 3 Rs and molding children for a bright future. We need to address the fundamentals about the education bubble.

We as citizens and responsible voters can CHANGE the education bubble. Scientists and engineers today make up only 4% of US employment; even doubling their number would in itself have a modest overall impact on the economy.  It seems odd to me that for the sake of so-called global diversity, we fail to provide encouragement and programs to elevate our own minority citizens and break the bonds of failing inner-city schools to allow these kids to learn STEM.  I think you’d be surprised how well inner city children in Chicago can become engineers and scientists if only provided the will and means by our academic elitists.

Rather, the point is that scientists and engineers contribute disproportionately to the creation of jobs for the other 96% of the nation’s workforce by generating knowledge, by innovating, and by establishing new companies based on that knowledge and innovation.  We can overcome the education bubble shortage of US born engineers.

First, the outlook for 2018 and beyond is worse unless we dramatically increase H1B visas.  It amazes me how often I hear “we can recruit on our own as so many people looking for work” and Hiring Managers who tell me “HR sends them garbage resumes, but the corporate decision makers have their hands tied.”

If you are in artificial intelligence, aerospace or defense systems, cyber security, industrial manufacturing or robotics, mobile digital media, broadband or mobile network operations, wireless infrastructure or IoT data  / devices / networks, you often are required by federal regulations and laws to hire US citizens or green cards due to the security clearance needed.

More so, when you need vendor-facing, or customer-facing engineers where the candidates in USA must be able to speak plain understandable English, the education bubble shortage of US born engineers is even greater.  Oddly we lead in philosophy, history, sports nutrition, social services, marketing, and law degrees.  Some of those are needed but we are woefully declining in science and mathematics (ranked 27 in the world and dropping) as the education bubble shortage of US born engineers increases.

Choosing the best type of search firm makes all the difference in getting the best possible hire for your team. According to Leadership IQ, 46% of new hires will fail within 18 months. The statistics only get worse.  Take a hard look at the expanded facts as presented by Dr. John Sullivan on ERE. About the 6 Ugly Numbers Revealing Recruiting’s Dirty Little Secret.  Choosing the type of search firm to work with is not an easy choice.  It is astonishing but not surprising.  When the agenda is how cheap can recruiting be done, the results are obvious.

Instead of looking deeply at the process a recruitment firm uses to identify, assess, and deliver potential candidates. When filling a key role, the cost of the fees is the first mindset.  What you should be thinking about is the end game – the services offering differentiation and the results.

Does the search firm accept verbatim the job spec verbatim?

1. 1. brief overview of the company culture, benefits, and market position. Rather than on the opportunity (USPs) of what this role will do to elevate one’s career. As well as the challenge being offered to entice interest
   2. Job specs focus on responsibilities when the focus should be on short- and long-term objectives with timelines.
   3. Too much emphasis on boiler plate requirements including skills and experience. The focus should be on prior directly related accomplishments & key performance indicators. What the new hire has done and will do with those skills and experiences. Not simply the number of years he/she has had them.

Simple economics is that the supply of good candidates is low while the demand to fill key roles is high.  As such, using job boards or career websites means that only active job seekers. Sadly in today’s market that is most often the underemployed and unemployable.  Because with low unemployment rates, good candidates are very passive.

They don’t look at job postings and they rarely respond to recruiter type emails. Those who are happy with their role, current employer, compensation; as such they are rarely ever looking for a job.  They are open to a challenge, the opportunity (unique selling points), possibly location, product or service, and company size.

Does the search firm have a verifiable track record of new hire retention?

It seems odd to me that one would not ask for proof of this.  Case in point is I have a direct competitor who is larger than my firm with more offices.  We both have done retained search for the same client.  We have each placed 3 at the C suite and VP levels.  All three of my competitor’s placements departed within 2 years while the three we placed are not only still there at 3.5 years but have been promoted and are meeting or exceeding the objectives for their respective roles.

What makes the difference?  The search process, assessments methodology, using psychometrics and the type of relationship.  My competitor interfaces with and is managed by the client’s HR group while we work directly with Executive Hiring Managers.    One more thing – look at the firm’s replacement guarantee clause.  If it is ranges from 90 days to one year, that tells you they don’t stand behind their work.  At NextGen Global, we stand behind our work with a 24 to 36 months replacement guarantee.

Does the search firm use science based methods and AI to identify team dynamics?

Let’s go back to that Leadership IQ study where it found that not only do 46% of new hires will fail within 18 months, but at the executive level it is for lack of interpersonal communications skills.  The truth is EACH team is unique.  By creating a composite of the team profile measuring values, motivations, decision-making traits, conflict resolution skills, relational communications traits, leadership and people skills, the recruiter can then compare the potential candidates’ capabilities to make sure they are either a strong or potential match. Choosing the type of search firm as you can see is part science, part experienced based skill set.

Choosing the type of search firm based on niche specialty

We pride ourselves on being startup experts.  While we do perform retained and succession bench search for one role at a time, over the years we have partnered with an outsourced HR and payroll services firm to offer Team Building talent acquisition management services for startups with less than 25 employees in the initial startup phase.

We save clients hundreds of thousands of dollars while filling key roles they need to meet customer or product/service design and roll-outs. Our work is primarily with startups, mid-cap, and spin-offs.  We rarely recruit for publicly traded companies or companies large than 5k employees.  The reason is simple.

As entrepreneurs ourselves, we understand how VC and PE forms work, we work often with board members in recruiting entrepreneurs, risk-takers, movers and shakers who focus more on the value proposition of equity and generous stock options based on meeting performance objectives. For large companies the latter are generally limited to a select few senior executives.

The larger the company, the less effective we can be as they tend to want their HR or TA group “manage the recruiter” demanding we adapt our search process to conform to theirs. This is what we call “tying one hand behind my back” syndrome.  We turn down companies asking us to do that.  If you are a large conglomerate or have more than 5k employees, it is best to go with a very large firm for most positions.  However, if you are looking for a senior executive or functional leader who is a change agent, a turnaround expert, a solid risk-taking decision maker or motivator, for those roles your best bet is the smaller boutique search firm.

Two neat tricks to ensure your choosing the best type of search firm

1. Look at the Linkedin connections of the recruiters you are considering. If you need to recruit a senior executive, does the recruiter have those connections with both your industry and with C-levels?  If the need is to recruit a VP of Sales of a Director of Engineering, do they have those relevant connections”?  You’ll be surprised to find most recruiters’ connections are with Human Resources and other recruiters which means they have few relationships with the type of people you seek.
2. Does the recruiter have intimate knowledge and experience in your industry? Look at articles and posts they’ve written.  If they are all about just recruiting or job seekers instead of Artificial Intelligence, Wireless, or whatever your industry is, how well do you suppose they understand your products, services, marketplace, or customers>

When you consider the cost of retained search look past the initial fee.  Look at the results of the person hired via the firm.  If the new hire assimilates quickly, is immediately productive, and meets or exceeds the objectives of the role, the cost of the search fee is irrelevant.  And remember, good search firm ONLY recruit “A players” who by definition produce 8 to 10 times more than “B players”.  It’s really a no-brainer in the value.

Let’s look at defining the Key Performance Indicators or even better defining how performance objectives focused recruiting can be used in the recruitment screening process.  Many hiring managers and recruiters for that matter have a misconception that these are used only after the hire or limited to executive leadership roles.

To understand why performance objectives focused recruiting is effective, let’s look at a why it should be utilized as enhance both job postings and the screening process.  Typical job descriptions delivers poor results, negative advertising, and lousy applicants. Generally they bespeak of a little company branding, responsibilities, requirements to apply, and a brief overview of benefits.

What does work is to use defining the performance objectives focused recruiting in the job description and developing ideal candidate profiling of a position. The issue is most Human Resource departments, corporate recruiters, and external recruiters lack any sense of understanding of how to analyze how a potential candidate may perform or what they will do to meet those defined objectives.

Performance Objectives Focused Recruiting NOT Requisitions

One of the gurus I learned from to define performance objectives focused recruiting is Lou Adler.  Here is a link to his site.  The best description of the SMART techniques come from Lou Adler’s point of view as I believe he states it best.

What do you want the new hire to achieve with “x responsibility”?  Take each required skill and ask what are the objectives of using this skill and how well the candidate may meet those objectives based on accomplishments and similar tasks performed by using SMART techniques.

1. Specific – details of what needs to be done (task, challenge, project, or problem)?
2. Measurable – amounts of change / % of change required
3. Action – what will the person in this role actually do?
4. Results – what needs to happen to accomplish the major objectives?
5. Time – how long will it take from start to finish for this objective to be reached?

Once you have defined the near-term performance objectives, move onto the long-term objectives that will bring real added-value to the company.

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Candidate Profiling Performance Objectives Focused Recruiting

After discovering how to map those objectives you need to develop the ideal candidate profile. Next we will examine how a retained search firm performs these tasks including:

1. when and who should be involved in defining the team profile (not the corporate profile but the actual team the new hire will work within)
2. analyzing behavioral traits of ideal candidates measured against the team profile to determine effect of new hore on team dynamics
3. refining how performance objectives focused recruiting uses team fit and candidate profiling to target and identify the candidates who can meet or exceed the management objectives.

From an executive recruiting standpoint, job boards impeding death is apparent.  Job boards have always been a non-issue. The voluminous lists of pedestrian “McJobs” offered on job boards are targeted towards “active” job seekers. Largely all “C players” that make up 55% of the workforce. Who could easily be replaced by automation, software, Ai, or robotics. While they can actively show up and do a job, they add no real value. They are unlikely to contribute to or develop IP, fixing or resolving key issues or revenue rainmaking.  In essence what stockholders call overhead.

To further our assumption, there is empirical evidence that job boards impending death is near. It is agreed they have lost value even for active job seekers, some of the primary reasons being:

1. Companies using job boards rely on applicant tracking systems (ATS) or HRIS systems. These house, sort, and store applicants and employee records.  This means that your resume must be fully optimized to get past the 3-5 second look to be noticed.
2. Because of the sheer volume of responses most companies receive, many will only look at the top handful of qualified results. So active job seekers are competing with hundreds, or even thousands of other people for the same job.
3. A job board submission rarely goes directly to the decision maker or Hiring Manager.  You first must get through the Human Resources or corporate recruiter gauntlet. Many of these are simply not qualified to screen and assess for key roles.
4. Quality positions are just not posted on job boards.  In fact estimates are that as much as 80 % of new jobs are never listed. Instead filled internally or via networking.  Referrals on the other hand, make up 40% of new hires.

Who or What Caused Job Boards Impending Death?

Suspect number one: Social Media

One of the key trends that is driving job-seeking is the rise of social media networking. With the right research and approach, a job-seeker can generally locate and connect directly with people and companies.  LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook are the go to social networks.  This will hasten Job boards impending death and probably a big bonus for job seekers everywhere. But in terms of executive recruitment, it’s a non-issue. The passive candidates we seek won’t be lurking about in either local in a job-hunting mode.

Suspect number two: the companies themselves

Of the thousands of job boards that are out there – from Monster, Indeed and Career Builder to LinkedIn and all the niche sites dedicated to specific industries – there is not one that successfully connects with passive candidates. These A-players, who make up approximately 14% of the workforce, are rarely, if ever, unemployed, and don’t ever use job boards or post their resume online, even if they are searching for opportunities. Of that 14%, only 15% don’t want to move at all, and almost half of them are open to dialogue with a recruiter.

There are a few boards that claim to target passive candidates, but they levy an additional cost on top of your paid recruitment campaign, and still the resulting applicants are (most often) not ideal: they are, in fact, active job seekers and not passive candidates. They now push the idea that new algorithms and predictive data based on utilizing artificial intelligence means they can attract and better match applicants to jobs, yet these are still targeted to those who overwhelmingly use job boards – active job seekers.

So basically, by buying into this thinly veiled cash-grab and stalling job boards impending death, you are wasting valuable time and money when you should be focusing on more traditional recruitment techniques such as networking and relationship building to get the results you need.

Where are all the A-players?

The top players, known as “A players” who exist at every level from CEO to janitor, are rarely, if ever, unemployed, they are never actively looking for a job, they don’t post their resume online and they don’t ever use job boards – and for good reason.

For the most part, the job boards don’t do a good job of attracting A-listers. Jobs posted on job boards focus solely on responsibilities, skills required and corporate culture selling points. This amounts to mostly boring descriptions of positions that mention nothing about the actual opportunity in terms of learning or career growth.

Further proof in the death of the job board is their postings also rarely mention “performance objectives.” They rarely, if ever, describe the “team culture,” preferring to use ambiguous terms like “corporate culture,” or “vision,” creating a huge disconnect between our A-players and any available positions.

Be Part of The Team

Team culture is also important, but you’ll never see anything about that on a job board. Individual work groups are unique and have their own “team culture.” A team culture is defined according to the personalities and behavioral patterns of each individual team member, as well as how they all work together.

The only way to determine whether a candidate will fit with a team culture is through personal connection – something you just won’t get with a job board.  When recruiting A-players, you must present them with opportunities that are significant.

This could be reflected in title, objectives, location, an attractive company size, growth, and product/service market share, but at least one of these things must be present to assure that you are piquing their interest enough to even have a shot.  As for how and where to find the A-players, if you take away the online and the bulk of social media, traditional recruitment methods always win the day.

Numbers never lie

If you’re looking for proof that job boards impending death is near, look no further than your own ROI. Numbers never lie. For every job board you invested in over the course of a year

1. how many hires occurred?
2. how much did each hire cost you?
3. what was the level of the positions you placed from a job board candidate?
4. were there any critical roles filled? What is the retention rate of those hired from a job board?

Most evident is just to take a at Indeed, a job aggregator service and you will find that the same jobs are not only posted by the actual employer / company, but also by numerous contingency search firms. and RPOs  Its recycling the same “C players” – that 55% of the workforce that are bodies and will show up to work to be paid, but contribute nothing to the bottom line.  Once you start crunching the numbers, the evidence will probably give you a clear picture of the unfortunate, unvarnished truth.

Personal connections always yield the best results

Retained executive search companies have always relied on interpersonal and industry relationships to bring about successful results. As anybody in this niche knows, the discovery of most A-players come from actual conversations that bring forth referrals. Technology has infiltrated our society and industry, changing the way the world around us turns. It is still the tried-and-true grass-roots efforts that win the day.

The verdict on Job Boards Impending Death

In closing, let’s consider the advantages that a niche, retained executive search consultant brings to the table.  If using a retained executive search professional, the hiring manager doesn’t end up with an inbox full of “flypaper” resumes. They instead receive a shortlist of 2-3 “finalists” who can meet the performance objectives of the position. These people are truly A-players who will produce 8-10 times more value than B-players.

This proves that the result is well worth the placement fee and time investment. Leading us to conclude with confidence that this is a far more valuable. Not to mention a more viable and cost-effective solution over the waste in the death off the job board.

The objective is to conduct forward-looking interviews  about what this person would do in short and long term coming on board.  Many recruiters lack depth in screening, interviews, assessments; rarely discover how a candidate will affect team dynamics.

This causes the Hiring Team to waste valuable time in an interview performing screening of candidates’ background and experience.  This tells you that the recruiter failed to do their job.     Which begs the question – exactly WHY and HOW is your recruiter earning a fee?

Why do Forward-Looking Interviews Work?

The recruiter should provide detailed documentation about relevant experience, accomplishments, leadership/staffing abilities, budget/P&L performance, analysis of industry expertise; depth of industry relationships.

For Engineering and Product Management roles, the recruiter needs to document patents and intellectual property development.  In addition, address how they affected product or service R&D, delivery, market impact;  customer / vendor relationships, GTM strategies.

For sales and business development roles it’s all about how did the candidate grow existing or creating new markets, quota vs. actual, average sales volume / sales cycles.

For senior executives the recruiter needs to determine key accomplishments such as turnarounds and growth types; industry leadership by being a major speaker at industry trade shows / conferences and relationships w/ customers, vendors, analysts, and investors.

Doing these allow for the  Board or CXOs to conduct forward-looking interviews.

Forward-Looking Interviews Get the Best Candidates

If the recruiter began the search by identifying the short and long term objectives of the role. everything  else falls into place.   Combine that with scientifically based team profiling and determining a strong team fit.  It is important to know the leadership qualities, relational communications style, decision making traits, selling of ideas or products / services, and conflict resolution skills.  These types of interviews will reveal much more than rehashing what is on a resume.

For an in-depth look at how to utilize proper recruiting methods that will prepare your team to schedule time ONLY the best candidates in forward looking interviews,  please view of download the PDF titled Why Forward-Looking Interviews Work Best in Recruiting.