Never mind the expense, executive search firms can still play an important role
8 November 2013
External executive search firms may be expensive but they still have an important role in meeting talent needs, in-house executive search teams told this week’s European Executive Search Congress.
Thu, 7 Oct 2013External executive search firms may be expensive but they still have an important role in meeting talent needs, in-house executive search teams told this week's European Executive Search Congress.
In a presentation at the congress in London, Colin Minto, head of global resourcing at G4S, outlined how a resourcing model that used freelance recruiters and researchers paid on an hourly basis, as reported in Recruiter in December 2012, had saved G4S £564k when compared with the typical 30% of annual salary that it would have paid in fees to external executive firms.
Despite such savings, Minto said he supported managers’ right to continue to use executive firms. “It’s what is best for the business – if they have a good relationship with an executive search firm that has supported them well in the past, I am not interested in breaking that [relationship] down to save X amount of pounds,” he said.
Joanne Welch, head of executive talent sourcing at PwC, said there were some situations where using external search firms was preferable to an in-house team. These were when confidentiality was required and when an appointment was internally politically sensitive, to add capacity to her team, and to give PwC access to individuals that it lacked.
Robert Allen, senior manager for EMEA talent acquisition at SunGard Consulting, agreed that the networks developed by executive search consultants were valuable, and not something that his team had. Allen added: “We would have to resort to executive search” when a speedy hire was of the essence.
Minto said he wasn’t interested in using executive search firms that provided standard search services, but in those that “surrounded it [their offering] with other values”. These included, he said, those that provided expertise in workplace planning, strategic workplace planning, helping to build in-house teams, and employer branding.
Welch added that PwC valued companies that could provide research and carry out market mapping.
In a presentation at the congress in London, Colin Minto, head of global resourcing at G4S, outlined how a resourcing model that used freelance recruiters and researchers paid on an hourly basis, as reported in Recruiter in December 2012, had saved G4S £564k when compared with the typical 30% of annual salary that it would have paid in fees to external executive firms.
Despite such savings, Minto said he supported managers’ right to continue to use executive firms. “It’s what is best for the business – if they have a good relationship with an executive search firm that has supported them well in the past, I am not interested in breaking that [relationship] down to save X amount of pounds,” he said.
Joanne Welch, head of executive talent sourcing at PwC, said there were some situations where using external search firms was preferable to an in-house team. These were when confidentiality was required and when an appointment was internally politically sensitive, to add capacity to her team, and to give PwC access to individuals that it lacked.
Robert Allen, senior manager for EMEA talent acquisition at SunGard Consulting, agreed that the networks developed by executive search consultants were valuable, and not something that his team had. Allen added: “We would have to resort to executive search” when a speedy hire was of the essence.
Minto said he wasn’t interested in using executive search firms that provided standard search services, but in those that “surrounded it [their offering] with other values”. These included, he said, those that provided expertise in workplace planning, strategic workplace planning, helping to build in-house teams, and employer branding.
Welch added that PwC valued companies that could provide research and carry out market mapping.
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