Executive Search Part 1: An Education on a Widely Used but Misinterpreted Topic
If you conducted an internet search on executive search, you will likely to find very brief and often vague explanations. Some explanations are from those who explored the topic themselves and are now attempting to educate their readership, while others are consulting firms attempting to describe their craft of recruiting leaders for an organization. As I dug deeper into the topic that is a good part of my business, I found that the term executive search is often incorrectly used for describing types of recruitment services that are not true executive search.
The topic of executive search is a massive topic that dates back to the mid 1920’s. Over this series of articles, we will explore recruitment for leaders and managers, focusing on executive search. In future articles, I’ll explore its impact on the aviation industry, and finish with various perceptions around executive search and firms who conduct recruitment for executive management.
What is Executive Search
The practice of true executive search has a long history dating back to its start in 1926 by Thorndike Deland. Deland was a pioneer in executive selection and evaluation in the retail industry. He founded Thorndike Deland Associates, the very first executive search firm. He charged his clients 5 percent of the position’s salary - a bargain in today’s dollars where the fees range from 25 percent to 40 percent of the first-year salary.
It took nearly 20 years before other executive search firms began to see the market for recruitment services. Boyden was founded in 1946, followed by Heidrick & Struggles in 1953, Spencer Stuart in 1956 and Korn/Ferry, Russell Reynolds Associates and Charles Aris Inc. in 1969.
Executive search’s humble beginnings in the retail sector grew to today’s multi-disciplined executive search firms that include Financial Services, Technology, Consumer Goods, Transportation, Industrial, Health Care, Education, Public Sector and most other career sectors in the world. With the vast network of professionals in executive search, the Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants estimated that the global total revenue for executive search in 2017 amounted to over $14 billion and that is an 8.34 percent increase from the prior year. These numbers show that executive search services are growing in most career sectors due to the challenges faced with securing and retaining top talent in today’s markets.
The executive search firms that pioneered the profession in the mid 20th century started the true practice of executive search - a process of outsourcing recruitment support to a detailed and skilled third party consulting firm to lead the search process; professionally engage with the client and candidates; conduct targeted outreach to passive candidates; complete detailed interviews, evaluations and vetting of the candidate pool; and to guide the organization to a candidate that best meets their needs. To assist in this education, I asked Ron Smith, owner of R. M. Associates, an aviation executive search consultant that operated in the mid-90’s to mid 2000’s and performed executive searches for many airline operational and engineering roles with great success, his interpretation of the traditional executive search firm. It “encompasses thorough processes where the search firm does all of the work and from start to finish. That includes marketing position descriptions, client relations, outreach to potential candidates, detailed interviews with candidates and associated background checks and reference checks. Essentially, executive search allows the client to do their job by taking the onus off of the client. In the end, a detailed report is provided to the clients on the final candidates. After reading the report, the client should know all they need to about the candidates.” The two descriptions are essentially complimentary of one another.
Most organizations are not staffed to expend the time, effort, and professional engagement to attract the highest quality candidates. True executive search firms take the time to get to know the client, the organization and their key challenges through on-site visits and relationship building. This information is used to engage candidates and take the time to get to know them and understand their strengths, opportunities, leadership and character. This is accomplished by engaging and communicating with them frequently and in different ways. The fully-engaged approach takes a lot of dedication, time and effort on the part of the executive search firm; the time an organization that has suddenly found itself without a leader, needs to focus on the day-to-day activities and operations.
When an executive search process is executed correctly, the firm knows and understands all aspects of the position, the client and organizational needs, and the exact type of person and experiences needed to fill the role correctly, the first time. Jon Mathiasen, president & CEO of the Capital Region Airport Commission – Richmond International Airport attests to this statement. He said, “In my experience, executive search firms ensure that the process is complete with communication to the candidates who aren’t selected and have to be let down, and appropriate feedback to the candidates who never received an interview. It also should be a process that’s somewhat personal and led by professionals with a willingness to foster the success of the incoming executive as they make their way into the job.”
My company, ACS, practices this form of executive search. We believe in client and candidate engagement in the deepest form to ensure we know our clients, the candidates and they know us. A firm like ours utilizes the time communicating and interacting with the candidates as a way to learning the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses, leadership and character. We aim to understand the holistic candidate and the ability and experiences each one possesses; and, more importantly, the impressions they leave on the people they lead on a daily basis.
When I founded ACS in 2010, I built it around several key aspects. First, I maintain a genuine respect for the clients who are trusting their selections to us. Then, I make a commitment to the candidates who are counting on us to treat them and their career goals as respectfully and confidentially as we can. I feel an obligation to elevate the level of executive search offered to the airport and aviation industry and a personal commitment to the greater industry to bring equality back to the process.
By embracing a strong client and candidate engagement approach to our executive search process, we have been successful. We have a 100 percent placement rate, (meaning we’ve never had to exercise our guarantee, nor have we been terminated from any contracts) and best of all, we have satisfied clients and nearly 100 percent of the candidates have remained in their position or have been promoted to other roles within the organization.
An Alternative to Executive Search
One of the many alternatives that was born out of executive search that often gets confused with the detailed and very skilled practice is Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO). According to the RPO Association, it is a form of business process outsourcing where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external service provider. This process was developed as a way to improve recruitment processes, accuracy and metrics for organizations. While conceived as an alternative to the time and effort consuming processes of executive search, in recent years the RPO concept has gained traction but in diluted forms. When asking John Clark, vice president of SSP America about his thoughts regarding RPOs, Clarksaid, “I think of it as implementing a process to find the people that check the boxes. It’s a disconnected process limited to merely finding the candidates that meet the general qualifications for the client to review.” To that point, Jon Mathiasen’s reaction was “…when you speak of executive-level jobs, I would have a difficult time supporting a recruitment process outsourcing firm for executives. There needs to be a more personal and hands-on approach to that level of search.”
In contrast, executive search is a process that is highly engaged, detailed and produces success each time. That’s certainly something that Ron Smith believes in. His firm “…had 100 percent placement rate with my process and never had to replace anyone.”
RPO was started to focus on processes and metrics to make the recruitment cycle more efficient with less candidate and client engagement. We now have iterations of the RPO format that do not necessarily live up to the efficiency on which RPO was created.
Firms that use RPO methods can process dozens upon dozens of recruitments a year like a factory assembly line. The process doesn’t change from one recruitment to another nor does it entail much client or candidate engagement. RPO, in its current form, largely relies on email and electronic forms and automated interview software to complete the vetting and interview process for the recruitment firm. It leaves the candidate feeling like a number in a pool of unknowns while the client waits and waits for candidates only to have to sift through all the material at the end to understand the differences each candidate brings to the position. When you really think about it, client and candidate engagement were part of the winning formula for executive search. Now the new iteration of RPOs is not only less efficient because the process takes as long as a full-cycle executive search, but the “right fit” selection falters as well.
Executive Search in the Aviation Industry
Recruitment of executive leaders in the aviation industry, and in particular the airport industry, utilizes both the “true executive search” and “RPO” methodologies. While some organizations prefer to keep recruitment “in house,” many are finding that outsourcing the recruitment to an executive search firm provides the time-tested and high-quality version of a true executive search process. The result of using this process is proven by our 100 percent success rate and other firms using this process also have very few “do-overs” in their portfolios.
The RPO process used in our industry entails using email, candidate-led pre-recorded interviews, limited client and candidate engagement and ensuring that parts of the administrative aspects such as reference checks are shepherded by the candidate themselves. This type of process results in clients and candidates alike with a perception that they’re just one of many. It’s also produced several “do-overs” of recruitment cycles because a candidate departed within a year’s time. The question an organization must ask is whether they desire the quality of an executive search versus the quantity formula in the RPO approach.
To bring a greater perspective on executive search and RPO in the aviation industry, I asked each of the leaders I interviewed about their thoughts around solicitation and selection of executive search firms. The three leaders I interviewed, unknowing to one another had similar responses including:
Ron Smith
I think a focus on someone who understands the industry, people and identifying key strengths and weaknesses is important. The firm and person should also have a good network of resources at their disposal. It’s also important that the executive recruiter spend lots of time with the client to understand the position and organization; and then with the candidates to make sure they’re the right fit.
Above all, the client should have trust and confidence in the person and the firm performing the search. To that end, they should also review the firm’s success and failure rates. When I performed executive search, I always had a 100 percent success.
Jon Mathiasen
I believe having a public solicitation process gives legitimacy to the selection. I also believe that selection of the search firm shouldn’t be based solely on the name of a firm. The key question is to ask if they are hands-on or merely outsourcing parts of the process? And can the authenticity of the process be challenged?
In selecting the firm, you really want a sense of the people that will be handling the different disciplines of the process. From the analytical, psychological candidate review, those principals should be knowledgeable and know what to “look for” and “look out for.”
It’s important to look at what the firm’s previous work has been along with their success and failures. If they’ve had a failed process and it’s turned into a public battle, legal or political, then it’s something to be cautious of. The firm should have a high level of professionalism, dedication and commitment to the process and the candidates involved. You need to make sure the applicants are not just another number.
John Clark
I believe the industry should look for companies with an incredibly solid recruiting methodology which produces the caliber of people the client seeks. The company needs to demonstrate precisely how they would go about mining for candidates and be able to walk through proven examples of its success.
As part of this process, a good measure of success is to understand for which airports the firm has recruited, the corresponding positions and how long the selected candidates have stayed in their positions. If a firm has done a great job at recruiting executives, the selected executive should be in the position for a while. And, if they leave early, then the firm has not done a good job of recruiting.
And, if the hiring goals include a focus on diversity, I would suggest the executive search firm ensure it has a clearly defined set of diversity expectations. For example, my definition of diversity isn’t just based on race and sex. It’s also ethnicity and work experience (public and private sector).
In closing, my hope with this first article was to establish a baseline of differences and uses of executive search for the readership and the greater industry. Given that RPO was born out of executive search and is very popular, it’s not the true high-quality form of executive search that it’s often mistaken for. From the research and interviews with industry leaders, it seems be an alternative that might need some refinement if it’s continued to be used for executive-level positions.
Eric founded ACS with the vision of offering a fresh perspective on talent management, learning and diverse recruitment to the airport and aviation industry. His experience spans general aviation, Part 139 commercial service, and shared-use airport management ranging from non-hub to large hub airports. He has managed airports and their operations and maintenance departments as a supervisor and manager while recruiting and developing their respective staff.
Eric is a Certified Member, Airport Certified Employee (ACE) – Operations, and ACE – Security, through the American Association of Airport Executives. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Aviation Management with Minors in Airport Management & Planning and Spanish from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIUC). He also earned his Private Pilot Certificate through the SIUC’s Part 141 Aviation Flight Program. Eric is currently working toward a Master of Business Administration in Human Resource Management from Fitchburg State University and has completed several courses in talent acquisition from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Eric is also involved in various organizations including Airport Minority Advisory Council (AMAC), Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO), ACI-NA, AAAE, National Association of State Aviation Officials (NASAO) and others where he lends his expertise to committees and is a regular expert presenter on a variety of human capital topics.
As the Chief Executive Officer of Aviation Career Services, Eric has led the strategic vision, operations, administration and client engagement for the firm from its inception.
