Henley Research International is a leading provider of executive research and talent intelligence. As part of our Recruiting Weekly series their MD, Mark Senior, shares his thoughts on “five things they didn’t do 10 years ago” and why!
#1 We didn’t work directly with In-House Recruiters
Ten years ago our work was exclusively for executive search firms. They were given retained search mandates by companies who needed to fill senior vacancies. The search firms took the brief and sub-contracted the job of finding and approaching candidates to us. Then, in 2009, the economic downturn came, the world changed and companies began focusing on cost reduction including cost reduction in recruitment.
In-house recruitment teams grew up everywhere. For a couple of years there wasn’t much in the way of recruitment anyway, but, as things started to improve again and companies began to hire, the share of the searches entrusted to executive search firms was smaller than previously.
The executive search profession at that time took a negative view of the growth of the in-house recruiter. The reality of course is that clients choose different models of operating and indeed very often a mix and there are many talented in-house recruiters who are excited by the challenges of working on the inside, just as there are many talented consultants in search firms.
So with these changing times we had to adapt too and happily now there is a recognition that there is room for everyone and that companies will seek to get the best combination of quality search, value for money and time to fill.
For our part, our business is in a better place now with a great variety of work from search firms but also from an increasing number of corporate recruiters who recognise that it is executive researchers like us who invariably cover the hard yards and deliver the very best candidates in a cost-effective manner.
#2 We didn’t do Talent Pipelining
A decade ago we would get a call from a search consultant who had just won a retained search, take the brief and set about finding as many candidates as we could who might ultimately be the right fit for the vacant role. The key thing being there was a vacant role. Sometimes it might be confidential, but there was a vacancy which needed filling. A lot of our work is still like this.
What we didn’t get involved in was finding people to fill roles which weren’t vacant. Which at the time seemed logical – why spend time and money looking for people if you didn’t need them?
Now we are asked to do a lot of talent pipelining. In simple terms this means finding people for roles which may need filling in the (not too distant) future.
There are lots of good reasons why this works, and why companies are increasingly investing in proactive pipelining projects:
- Companies can assess the executive talent working for their competitors and in leading companies in other sectors
- They can, through us, create a dialogue with such talented executives which might continue over a period of time
- We can facilitate the building of a relationship between prospective employer and employee, dealing in advance with reservations and with commercial issues
- We can promote our client’s employer brand and in the meantime deal with concerns or preconceptions which might otherwise have proved a barrier to a candidate ultimately accepting a job offer
- And, as soon as a relevant vacancy does occur, the role can be filled from the talent pipeline at a low cost and in a short time, the hard work having already been done.
Talent pipelining continues to grow – not only does it lead to roles being filled with better executives quicker and more cost effectively but it delivers talent intelligence and informs companies how they can better position and promote their employer brand.
#3 We didn’t work in Asia
This isn’t strictly true because up to 2006 our firm had actually done a handful of searches in the Gulf States, which are in Asia, but we had done nothing further east than Dubai. In the last ten years we have undertaken around 50 searches or other talent intelligence projects, many of these in South East Asia and a lot of them focused on China.
Our firm is called Henley Research International for a reason, our international work has always been significant (it’s now the majority). However our reach has grown from a European one to a global one and the Far East is the fastest growing region for us.
There are many reasons for this and not just the well documented growth of China and other Asian economies. Our clients recognise that we have the tools and methodologies to identify the best candidates and to make the important first approach. Different cultures dictate that different communication channels and media are used, that approaches need to be made in an appropriate manner, and that the reaction to head hunting will differ by territory.
We now have two fluent Mandarin speakers in our research team and are truly geared up for Far East searches – whatever the impact of Brexit, whatever the Trump effect, the significance of Asia will only become greater and the level of executive search activity undertaken there will consequently only increase.
#4 We didn’t do Diversity work
Ten years ago Diversity wasn’t the issue it quite rightly is today. These days we do a lot of Diversity projects. It’s the flavour of the day but it’s not going to go away.
There has been a lot of lip service paid by companies to the pressure – from government, from pressure groups and media and from a whole range of stakeholders – to achieve greater diversity within their senior management teams. Now, as the pressures and the stakes for failing to act increase, more and more companies are showing an inclination to walk the walk.
There are a number of ways in which research providers like us can help. Here is one current example:
At this very moment we are half way through a Female Diversity Mapping project for a household name multinational company who have asked us to map key leadership roles in 30 major competitors in five key regions of the world. Our output will be a report containing profiles of 300-400 female leaders. This is effectively a long list of candidates – if our client wants to put females into its key roles in the years ahead this list will provide a brilliant starting point for targeting talent.
However, this Mapping project delivers more than this (admittedly powerful) list. What goes with it is an Insights report detailing, amongst other findings:
- What proportion of such leaders are female?
- Which competitors are in the forefront of appointing females to key leadership roles, and which are lagging behind? Where does our client rank?
- Which companies are the most successful at nurturing, developing and promoting female talent?
- What are the typical career routes taken by women into leadership roles?
- What sort of education have the most successful women experienced?
- And how often do they move companies?
From our perspective one of the great things about projects like this is that the results are shared with a multiplicity of stakeholders in our client company. These issues are important ones being confronted at the highest levels so our audience goes way beyond the internal recruiter and perhaps one hiring manager. This gives a warm glow from the perspective of providing something of real interest and worth, and the warmth of that glow can also reflect on the internal recruiter who has been instrumental in commissioning the work.
#5 We didn’t get involved in Employer Branding
Ten years ago, when we were phoning potential candidates to tell them about the executive role we were endeavouring to fill, we would ask them a string of qualifying questions to check they were right for the job. We still do that of course. Nowadays, though, the need for us to “sell” the role is much greater. We hear a lot about it being a “candidate’s market” and it is – the very best executive candidates are in demand and they are invariably very discerning and demanding when considering their next move.
When we take on a search we therefore familiarise ourselves with all the usual things – job specification and remit, the reasons the role is or will be vacant, the reporting structures, the remuneration package, location issues and so on. But these days possibly the most significant thing is for us to ask our client to pitch the role to us as though we were a candidate. This is often a revealing conversation.
If it goes well we march confidently forward into the subsequent conversations with potential candidates, armed with the persuasive ammunition to sell the company and the role. If it goes badly… well, let’s just say it’s important from the outset that we feel we can get the job done.
The days when even the biggest and best companies could say “why wouldn’t they want to work for us?” have gone and it is often executive research companies like us who are an important part of providing candidate feedback which can shape employer branding AND being the ones who promote it in the talent marketplace to get the very best hires.
