Agile Executive Search: yes, it’s a thing.

Inspect and adapt is the name of the game, as the recruitment world gets more into analytics and data, optimizing and tailoring for speed, quality and fit, it’s high time Executive Search does the same. But there is a catch (as always), can it really be done?

Too Long: Did not Read: We know it can be done, increasing speed, quality and strategic fit, with the added bonus of not locking ourselves into a single process but continuously inspecting and adapting our approach. The key take-away: unique blend of fit- for-purpose and Agile makes Executive Search a stronger source of ROI for both clients and candidates. Let’s talk about it.

The ROI (return on investment) of hiring executives, be it C-Suite or senior leadership, is more often than not, understated. We instinctively know Talent (with a capital T) is a critical strategic lever for a firm to build stronger sources of competitive advantage across the board. Most of us in this industry will tell you it is a lot harder than you think, especially when you factor in seniority. We have to know your business, understand your strategy, completely analyze your industry and peripheral markets to build a picture of which talent will have the most impact on your environment, and we have to do it in tremendous time pressure.

At the core, we are strategic advisors. That means we don’t just get a job spec, look for a couple of attributes and be done with it. No. We are like tailors on the high-street. Our business is one of fit-for-purpose. Every search (recruitment project) is different, much like every company or circumstances tend to differ (be it geography, industry and the like). And much like tailors, we are advisors. You think you know which suit is going to look good, but most of the time, clients are wrong, not that you don’t have style, you do. But we know what is going to look great, because we have an external POV (point of view), we know what is in fashion, we know the cuts and can advise you on what’s working or not and what is likely to stand the test of time or fade out.

Of course, we need to look at material, the backbone of a search strategy (industries, segments etc.). Sometimes we go radical, in case you want to change your style (transformations, M&As etc.). That takes a lot of time and expertise. More importantly, our job is to show you what “could be” and what “would be” with the right approach.

All that takes time, and tailors tend to have different approaches, styles and methodologies. Afterall, it is an experience.

This is where Agile comes in. All of us at Reborrn are consultants and makers, emphasis on the makers part, all that means is that we like to tinker with stuff. In our Executive Search lab, we tinkered with new ways of interacting with both clients and candidates across our markets, starting from the obsession of maximizing ROI for clients and candidates alike.

We did our homework and tested our approach across a broad spectrum of searches (Recruitment projects) for Commercial, Finance and Operations functions for small, mid-size and blue-chip companies. The next section will look at the behind-the-scenes thinking and results across two key areas: the brief and the candidate/client experience.

A bit of background, at Reborrn we approached our Executive Search journey map (all the steps from A-Z involved in a recruitment process) with an inefficiency detector, staying true to Agile, we looked for waste. We found a great deal of “slack on the line” where, through experimentation, validation and a whole (LOT) of feedback both from clients and candidates, we found opportunities to hack the process to deliver significant ROI.

Applying the agile mindset and methodology to the way we do Executive Search is a key learning in itself, filled with assumptions and myths busting moments. Clients may not have the clearest ideas when it comes to who they want to recruit, but boy do they know what they want from the process. Ultimately, it boils down to two things: Do it fast; and do it well. That means for us that the measure of success, unsurprisingly remains time to hire (tth) and NPS (net promoter score). Asking for continuous feedback throughout the process is not revolutionary in any sense of the term, however, having the agility in our way of working to quickly inspect and adapt is a definite plus.

Let’s get to it by first deep diving on why the brief needs to be the first area to investigate and impact, it holds a substantial amount of hidden ROI.

💡 Client briefing: time for a strategic rethink!

Our first focus area is the client brief. Hacking the intake was more about rethinking our approach to getting the actual brief. Beyond the usual Wishlist and back and forth with clients on what they actually need. We do far deeper, doing a full-scale strategic assessment in the forms of interviews (hiring manager, peers, and members of the team), reviewing survey data and using tools and techniques to suss out the why of what the client is trying to achieve.

An example: we recently conducted a strategic recruitment in the Security industry, where the initial brief we got seemed straightforward, we want someone with new channel experience. Once we applied our approach, it turned out that the new channels they had in mind were more akin to a complete commercial overhaul from both an RGM (revenue growth management) and RTM (route to market), drastically altering the lens through which we approached the search strategy, since we were now looking for someone to completely transform the function and not just someone to manage the Business Development/expansion from a Sales perspective.

What this approach gives us is a crystal clear 360 picture of the environment, culture, expectations and the like, it also gives our clients a great way to define and put into perspective the PICOS (picture of success). We view it as a prime directive of our strategic advisory role to challenge clients on their true needs, it just makes the process smoother and transparent. Yes, it takes more time and involves more resources on the back-end, but the ROI is much higher once you know what you are looking for, and becomes exponentially easier to explain to candidates, which is our next area: storytelling x design.

🚀 Experience-led: storytelling x design x transparency

Client

We often hear how the client and candidate experience is paramount, yet, we rarely ask them what they consider to be great experiences. Here we have to go back to basics, how we communicate. Agile gives us a great tool, user stories. In essence, for each search, we build user stories to ensure we understand the why (described above), the benefits and most importantly, the acceptance criteria. There is substantial hidden ROI in experience.

An example: We worked on recruiting a senior finance profile for an established scale-up in the travelTech industry. After our strategic deep dive, establishing the acceptance criteria of the search, we simply asked them how they wanted to communicate. This is a fast-paced world, the usual process would just not cut it. So we used WhatsApp ([insert preferred app] that serve the purpose) as we prefered to take the short-cycle communication route (no lengthy reports, no hour-long presentations — data and evaluation only), presenting quickly and setting up an interviewing process to match (meaning chemistry calls, panel interviews and case-study based presentation).. We placed in 18 days.

Clients in Executive Search expect a certain experience, mostly because they are used to what process the firms they have worked with apply. We think that it should be the other way around, it is our job to make sure we communicate and provide a tailored experience for each client, whilst retaining the same degree of quality in delivery, as mentioned in the previous example. Removing the necessary and focusing on how the client wants to communicate is a source of hidden ROI that can make the difference between a 2-months vs. 18 days process. Time is money afterall.

Candidate

Leveraging our deep understanding of the challenge at hand with the definition of the “why”, we set out to disrupt the candidate experience, using a blend of storytelling, design and a relentless focus on transparency. Storytelling serves two purposes, it is a great employer-branding tool, but also the true first touch the candidate will have with our client’s organisation. To us, candidates expect clarity on what they are asked to contribute to the role and how their experience and aspirations can match and make a difference. This is particularly pertinent since candidates give us their time, their energy and ultimately an emotional investment, it is a matter of trust. We owe it to them to make sure they get added-value at each leg of the journey.

An example: a recent finalist (who did not get the job) gave us very detailed feedback on what he liked about our process. In one word, transparency. I gave him tough feedback. It is our job to not set up the executive for failure. We do this by digging deep, being completely honest and detailed in our interview process. We are tough interviewers, not only because we owe it to the candidate to be candid, but because our responsibility is to ensure the person can be successful. That being said, we are equally tough with clients when they evaluate candidates based on completely arbitrary criteria, and when we feel the feedback is not warranted, we push back. Challenge is critical to an open and transparent process. The client is not always right, despite what the lore says.

Beyond transparency, efficiency and a deep respect for the time our candidates spend in the process with us, we also wanted to look at how we could leverage design. Design is critical, it is a major part of employer branding after all, we care about these things. Design is not just a job description, or some branding elements, it is the whole ecosystem, it is the tone of voice and essence you want to give. A client put it in a way I think is brilliant, it is swag (stuff we all get) meaning the design we apply to the communications and overall process has to scream the company’s culture. We like swag, it tells a story we all have a hard time putting into words. To amplify the examples mentioned earlier, start-up vs. established mid-size, the process has to reflect the swag, the innate and tacit differences. Oftentimes, it can be a great marker for where the company wants to go.

An example: We worked recently for a blue chip company recruiting a new digital profile. The company itself is in the midst of a digital transformation, which made us think, how we could leverage and add a bit of swag to it. We used a video screening through a platform that allows the candidates to submit short form digital answers (we also went the short-circuit comms route WhatApp, Viber and the like). We also added their new EVP (employee value proposition, which we helped design) pillars to give the full picture. This enhanced the candidate experience, both in process and understanding of the culture.

This is an example of how tailored-made experiences through design, targeted communications and our overall ethos of honesty and transparency, can uncover hidden sources of ROI which makes the process an accurate reflection of what the company is trying to accomplish.
Let’s use Agile one last time with an “over’’ statement.

Where does that leave us…

With results. we love data, so let’s look at some stats across the only dimensions we care about:

• Time to Hire on average for 2020: 45 days (for exec search…that’s pretty good, but we are continuously finding ways to get that number down)
• Placement rate for 2020: 100% (that is one sticky rate!)

These are still subjective, we don’t do 100 searches a year, we might, soon, but at the moment, we don’t. The key learning for us here is that our process produces results, we see the difference. Approaching ES hacking and adapting the Agile methodology but not compromising on the Agile mindset, we are able to reduce time to hire, we are able to make placements stick and we are able, now we need more data here, to create strong client/candidate experiences.

That being said, this is a journey, we test and learn, our lab is always coming up with better solutions to pain points and ways to amplify gain points. So far, our strategic deep dives, our experience-led process is working, until it won’t and we find even better ways. There is a lot of freedom in always inspecting and adapting, we continuously improve, we keep pushing and using new technologies and harnessing the power of swag in the process and experience for both candidates and clients.

🔥 Our backlog: exciting experiments and continuous improvement!

What’s in our backlog? Our current experiments include overhauling the case-study interview (we know work samples are the highest predictors of success, but we don’t do this well-enough), make the chemistry call the most ROI for fast-fit assessment with vision, mission and values, and many others.

This is a conversation, finding hacks here and there is not enough, we, as an industry, need to rethink our value proposition, Agile is the ideal blend to make Executive Search 2.0 the norm.