csgSelectionQC – an adequate candidate pool

Why is it important to start an executive recruiting or search process with an adequate potential candidate pool?  

At Career Solutions Group, we believe that the executive search process, whether for a single position or for a multiple position staffing project, has three phases – research, candidate identification and recruiting, and finalist selection.

Research or generation of the names and contact information of the correct titled people, active and passive job seekers, has become a commodity in the internet age.  With minimal training and effort, anyone can compile an adequate candidate research pool for most positions in any organization.  

However, in some situations custom, passive candidate identification does make sense.  Situations where there are very specific technical requirements, when relocation is not an option, or when more than seventy correct titled people cannot be researched per position would be examples of inadequate publicly available research.

Without adequate research the recruiting process is likely to stall.  The yield of potential finalist candidates who are qualified and interested will be too small.  This results in a worst case scenario of a hiring manager moving from the recruiting phase into finalist selection with unequally qualified candidates.

Having unequally qualified finalists can make the vetting of finalists either very easy or very difficult.  But, it always results in selecting talent for one position from a hodge-podge of finalists.

The best practice is write job specifications so that adequate research can be developed or to supplement publicly available research with custom, passive name generation.

Moving into finalist selection with all qualified finalists allows a hiring manager the best opportunity to focus on getting the right fit.