• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

JP Cornerstone

Just another Cornerstone Accelerator site

  • JP Cornerstone
  • About
    • About JP Cornerstone
    • Code of Ethics
    • Professional Practice Guidelines
    • External Privacy Notice
  • Offices
    • Stockholm
    • Helsinki
    • Oslo
    • Copenhagen
  • Services
    • Executive Search
    • Board Search
    • Leadership Consulting
    • Interim Management
    • JPC Selection
  • Insights
  • News
  • Contact

Should Executive Recruiting Move Faster?

July 16, 2019 by Cornerstone International Group Leave a Comment

Executive recruiting is not a race to finish first

This month, we release a significant new study of business trends based on interviews by our Partners in 20 countries. In this series of posts, we look at the impact of the study findings on the bedrock of business growth, hiring and managing top talent. First up, Speed: the accelerated pace of business.

 

Our latest study – Where is Your Business Heading? – identifies three current impacts on global trends.  The first is the new, ever-faster pace of business – the demands it creates and the procedures it modifies.  Do these include executive recruiting? Do we need to find new talent faster?  And the answer, inevitably, is yes and no.

Let’s start with yes.

Technology has almost completely re-written the hiring process. No more classified ads for workers or prestigious half-pages for executives. The Internet is a gigantic job-board and time-to-hire has been slashed from weeks/months to days/hours.

For most people, that is. LinkedIn lists 600 million ready to work and says one is hired every 10 seconds. Specialist recruiting firms match candidates with algorithms and flood the hiring company with “best qualified” resumes.

But that just gets you to first base. Someone still has to read the resumes, select, reference check and interview, negotiate and hire. The time here has also been reduced – but not as much — by early steps in AI and machine-managed profiling.

Clients encourage and seek out speedy service under the early-worm strategy that fears someone else will get the best people if you don’t move fast.

All of which thinking has merit but remain subject to the most important criteria of them all. The value of the hire to the company.

Every new employee brings value in different ways. The relevant assessment in recruiting requires turning around the telescope and looking in the other end. Value to the company will range widely from the plant worker to the decision maker and the best way to see it is to look for the cost of loss.

 

Cost of failure can be huge

If a machinist falls short, a replacement is swift and straightforward.  If an executive doesn’t fit the culture, the cost can be huge ($500k+), the disruption major and the risk of lost intelligence extremely serious.

Which brings us back to the other answer above, which was “no”. Reducing the time-to-hire is the least of your objectives the higher up the recruiting echelon you go.

To understand why, you just need to examine the service offer of the Retained Executive Search firm.  The companies already mentioned, the pile-‘em-high resume senders, are called Contingency Search firms. They compete with each other and are rewarded only if one of their resumes is accepted.  The retained firm is contracted exclusively to find the best candidate. Period.  (Go here to download our e-Book “Retained or Contingency”)

Time-to-hire has been shortened in the retained biz (some firms promise finalists within a month, compared to 2-3 months not long ago) but the time taken, however long, is still dictated by the in-depth assessment and qualification process.

Here’s how Cornerstone International Group President Larry Shoemaker explains it.

Retained search firms not only look more intently at available candidates, they actually create them. Superior knowledge – of markets, sectors, cultures and companies — is one of the foundations of the retained service model.  And, most important of all, is knowing who has not offered their services but who might be persuaded to.

Known as “passives”, these are high quality men and women who are currently employed.  Skilled recruiters, however, know the type of company and the type of offer that might pry them loose.

This intense focus on finding exactly the right person for each opening shows that retained search firms are acutely sensitive regarding the cost to the company of a failed hire. It is probably THE most important reason for their being hired in the first place. Against this backdrop, the need for speed is attractive, but strictly secondary.

NEXT:  The impact of a shrinking world on executive recruiting.

Filed Under: Cornerstone Blog

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • In a Disruptive World, Choose to Be Resilient and Thrive
  • Attracting Leadership Talent in a Private Company
  • It’s early in 2025 – what has changed?
  • Thriving in an Era of Continual Business Reinvention
  • Managing Multigenerational Workplaces Across Cultures – Part 2

Recent Comments

    Archives

    • June 2025
    • March 2025
    • February 2025
    • December 2024
    • September 2024
    • August 2024
    • July 2024
    • June 2024
    • May 2024
    • April 2024
    • January 2024
    • November 2023
    • October 2023
    • May 2023
    • March 2023
    • February 2023
    • January 2023
    • December 2022
    • November 2022
    • August 2022
    • July 2022
    • June 2022
    • March 2022
    • February 2022
    • January 2022
    • December 2021
    • November 2021
    • October 2021
    • September 2021
    • August 2021
    • July 2021
    • June 2021
    • May 2021
    • April 2021
    • March 2021
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • February 2018
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • July 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • October 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • October 2014
    • June 2014
    • April 2014
    • March 2014
    • February 2014
    • December 2013
    • August 2013
    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • May 2012
    • March 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • July 2011
    • May 2011
    • March 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • August 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
    • March 2010
    • February 2010
    • January 2010
    • December 2009
    • November 2009
    • October 2009
    • September 2009
    • August 2009
    • July 2009
    • June 2009
    • May 2009
    • April 2009
    • March 2009
    • February 2009
    • January 2009
    • December 2008
    • November 2008
    • October 2008
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
    • December 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • June 2007
    • April 2007
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • September 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • June 2006
    • March 2006
    • February 2006
    • January 2006
    • November 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • June 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • February 2005
    • January 2005
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004
    • August 2004
    • July 2004
    • June 2004
    • May 2004
    • April 2004
    • March 2004
    • February 2004
    • January 2004
    • December 2003
    • November 2003
    • October 2003
    • September 2003
    • August 2003
    • July 2003
    • June 2003
    • May 2003
    • April 2003
    • March 2003
    • February 2003
    • January 2003
    • December 2002
    • November 2002

    Categories

    • Cornerstone Blog
    • Uncategorized

    Meta

    • Log in
    • Entries feed
    • Comments feed
    • WordPress.org

    Copyright © 2025 · JP Cornerstone · Sitemap

    Website Development by LimeCuda