How do you pick the right recruiter?
How do avoid making a mistake in selecting such an important trusted advisor?
In a survey project conducted over 3 years with 425 CEOs and Senior Executives we identified the Top Ten Mistakes that are made in choosing executive recruiters. We took on this survey project after hearing over 25 years horror story after horror story from companies who had retained recruiters to help fill critical positions.
We began to wonder why so many CEOs and Senior Executives were frustrated by the process of choosing and working with executive recruiters.
In my following ten blog postings I’ll identify the Top Ten Mistakes of Choosing Recruiters. You’ll probably want to LOLROFL as my daughter is fond of texting – you’ll first want to Laugh Out Loud while Rolling on the Floor when you read the Top Ten Mistakes. Then laughter will give way to anger and frustration as you realize how your company has made multiple mistakes in choosing and working with recruiters over the years – the bad hires, the painful experiences, and searches not completed – all the result of mistakes in choosing recruiters – and which could have been easily avoided.
Do you have a pet peeve about choosing or working with recruiters?
What’s your horror story that you could share with our blog readers?
If there was one mistake you’ve made in the past in choosing a recruiter, how would you avoid making that same mistake in the future?
Listen to our recent Radio Show Broadcast in our FREE Audio Library on this subject of the classic mistakes companies make in choosing recruiters.
Join us in our LinkedIn Discussion Group on Hiring Top Talent for a conversation about choosing and working with recruiters.
Barry Deutsch
Business guru Peter Drucker has said, “Of all the decisions an executive makes, none are as important as the decision about people because they ultimately determine the performance capacity of the organization.” Warren Bennis, professor of business at the University of Southern California and author of Managing the Dream, calls the search for top talent “the most significant problem facing all organizations.”
According to a study by the Corporate Leadership Council, hiring the wrong executive can cost an organization as much as three times their annual salary. The Gallup Organization has noted that the cost of poor hiring decisions may even be much higher than previously estimated. Some researchers have calculated the cost of a bad hire can be as high as twenty four times the position’s base salary.
Presidents, CEOs, Boards of Directors, and Hiring Managers should never underestimate the ramifications of a bad hire. The fallout can affect an entire organization, doing far more damage than leaving the position empty would have.
While reasonable experts may disagree about specific salary-to-cost ratios, the fact remains that the cost of new executive failure is much higher than merely search costs and salary. Those are just two of the direct costs.
Indirect costs typically add up to much more.
Some of the direct and indirect costs noted in various studies we reviewed include:
- wasted salary, benefits, and severance
- lost recruitment fees and training costs
- lower personal productivity among dissatisfied employees
- disruptions caused by dissatisfied employees
- higher turnover rates among productive employees
- damages to reputation and market share
- lost management time
- increased stress and anxiety from people problems
The person hurt most just might be the executive who was set up for failure. This person accepted a position based generally on a vague job description, and then found reality did not match up to their or the hiring manager’s perceptions.
Having a structured, formal, and sophisticated hiring process, with well trained people in the process will ensure that these bad hires are significantly reduced and often eliminated.
Calculate the total cost of a bad hire using our “Cost Of Bad Hire” worksheet. CLICK HERE.
Recruiters | Barry Deutsch October 28, 2009 | 
Comments (0) 
