CEO / President Executive Search

With most executive search assignments, our firm is working with several key decision makers of a corporate client. Usually, we have at least one Human Resources representative, a function or department hiring manager, and several superiors, peers, or staff level reports who have input into the hiring process.

Working with boards and search committees to fill executive positions adds another dynamic to this decision making process. And, we successfully work with the corporate team, board or search committee, and the finalist candidates to achieve everyone's ultimate objective.

Here is some of our client feedback:

Board Member
You brought us quality candidates; facilitated the interview sessions; did not impose your thoughts on us; respected our time and attention to the subject; were professional in all matters dealing with us in the search process; provided advice when appropriate.

Board Member
Your firm was a very valuable part of the search and selection process. I originally thought our HR staff could do the search without any assistance from outside of the organization. I am satisfied that I was wrong and that we would have erred should we have attempted the search without professional help.


PLANNING & COORDINATION
Success with an executive search process requires thorough planning, coordination and communication, and then execution. We start by meeting with the search committee and/or board to discuss the search and develop a process that meets everyone's objectives. If necessary, we will also meet with the senior management team for their input and involvement in the process.



For board member coordination, we can coordinate flexible meeting schedules or teleconference discussions to meet everyone's availability.




CUSTOM RESEARCH
Career Solutions uses a multiple source methodology to acquire a comprehensive pool of potential candidates that are passive, active, and internal/referral. Our research objective is to identify the complete universe of potential candidates specific to an assignment. Our staff identifies and tracks potential candidates through the initial technical qualification.




FINALIST SELECTION
Once we develop an adequate finalist pool, we proceed with more detailed analysis of each candidate. Our finalist selection tools include detailed interview evaluations including direct input from candidates:



Input from certified evaluators of validated psychometric assessments:



And, executive core competency assessment by our consultants, reviewed and validated in conjunction with search committee and board feedback.

And finally, detailed interviews of key references, picked by our search committee and not the candidates, to validate the critical competencies, strengths, weaknesses, and managerial characteristics of each finalist candidate.

Even with all this detailed analysis, sometimes it is still not crystal clear who the front runners are until the entire committee casts their votes ranking each finalist:



While this process may appear time consuming, it far less time consuming than an executive search process that stalls with no clear decision or having to start the process over.

Career Solutions executive search process does provide your search committee or board with comprehensive evaluation to confidently reach a consensus decision for your new CEO or President.

Board Member
Thank you very much for all you have done in getting us this far through the maze which, of course, we all hope will lead to a new and effective CEO. You have done a super job and it is much appreciated. Once again, thank you for the work you did for us and for leading us through the process. If you have need for references in the future, please do not hesitate to call.

Loan Administration Officer - Indianapolis

Loan Administration Officer
Commercial Banking
Indianapolis, Indiana


POSITION SUMMARY
This individual is responsible for managing assigned work out credits to ensure that the quality of loan administration processes is maintained and the documentation of loans meets established requirements and standards. The incumbent provides the highest quality of service to every customer.


ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES:
Develops plans of action with borrowers which present a program to ensure no loss to the Bank or to recover the maximum amount with minimum loss where possible. May also work with outside professionals to develop plans.

•Makes presentations at various Loan Committee meetings regarding proposed plans of action and/or status reports on those plans.

•Works with internal staff regarding action plans for problem loans remaining with line officers.

•Ensures adherence to policies and procedures, maintaining accounting records, controlling collateral, and ensuring proper loan approval and retention of documents in an accurate and timely manner, in order to ensure that proper policies, procedures and documentation exist to support the lending process.

•Ensures the process of accepting, safekeeping and releasing collateral which includes the recording of all recordable instruments, preparing reports, maintaining insurance, reporting and documenting HDMA and other files in an accurate and timely manner in order to ensure the control and maintenance of all notes, general ledger and other loan documentation.

•Prepares the computer processing of loans, payments, customer information and daily loan balancing, communicating with senior management and personnel regarding enhancements and/or amendments, including charge-offs, non-accruals
and interest adjustments. May also resolve problems in order to ensure the integrity of loan processing procedures while providing excellent customer service.

Additional Responsibilities: Special projects as assigned by the Vice President, Loan Administration.


REQUIREMENTS:

Bachelor’s degree in business or accounting, or equivalent work/educational experience

•Five-plus years of position-related experience which includes lending and/or credit analysis experience with a banking institution.

•Ability to influence lenders to correct problems and deficiencies in a loan package.

•Knowledge and understanding of compliance issues and regulations, as well as the Bank's lending policies and procedures.

•Knowledge of the Bank's audit policies and procedures.

•High degree of accuracy and attention to detail.

•Ability to organize and prioritize tasks.

•Working knowledge of computer applications, plus proven experience effectively using a personal computer.

This individual must have the ability to interact effectively on a routine basis with colleagues, senior management, clients, and the public. Must have the ability to work independently and without supervision. Must have excellent written and verbal communication skills. Must be able to work individually and as part of the team. Must have exceptional relationship building skills.

Should have a high degree of computer literacy with an attention to detail. Must be able to handle multiple functions simultaneously and maintain good organizational skills. Should be a creative thinker, interested in sharing new ideas. Must have good time management skills. Must strive to understand interrelationships of the organization.

Physical requirements include the ability to use a keyboard and telephone. Ability to sit for up to four hours at a time performing desk and computer related duties. Must be able to travel independently throughout the office and extensively over the road to prospect and company locations.

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee in order to successfully perform the essential functions of the job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit, use hands to finger, handle or feel, and talk or hear. The employee is regularly required to stand, walk, and reach with hands and arms. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus.

Licensed Investment Advisor Start Up Regional Staffing - Regional Bank

Career Solutions was brought into a major strategic initiative in retail banking for a large regional bank ($120 billion in assets). One part of the project was a talent upgrade for Branch Managers which involved targeting high deposit competitor branches ($50 million deposits or more) to interview their branch managers against a "Dominator" profile developed by the corporate human resources team at the bank. The second phase of the initiative was the roll-out of a new position in retail banking, the Licensed Financial Consultant (LFC).

We were very successful with both projects and probably received more accolades about the "Dominator" recruiting than the LFC recruiting. But, the LFC project was actually much more challenging (than our client realized) and we delivered incredible results in terms of actually hires in Indianapolis and Chicago. Our cost per hire was a major achievement, especially considering the quality of LFC candidates we were able to bring in for the bank's employment team.





The key to our efficiency and cost savings passed on to our client was in our up front research. The bank was requiring that finalists must already have their Series 6 and 63 investment licenses for mutual funds, annuities, and life/health insurance sales. We were able to identify only potential candidates who already had those licenses, allowing us to focus on the other critical competencies for the position.

Ultimately, we filled about 15 of the positions in a seven month period in branches near Louisville, throughout the Central Indiana area, and in the Chicago market which was new to the bank.





We were able to focus on the same performance competencies for the LFC candidates that we were focusing on with the "Dominator" profile for top branch managers. While the bank was very excited to land high performers in a new position within the retail division of the bank, it probably created problems.

These high performers, used to working on incentives, quickly came into their new bank branches and realized the fastest way to exceed sales goals and earn a bonus was to "flip" the branches deposits over into annuities and mutual funds. The new LFCs really hit the ground running and began raiding the bank's deposits to meet their goals. This under-cut not only the branch managers but also the bank overall since some of the investment products promoted were outside the institution. Senior management quickly realized the problems and restructured the goals and incentives for these new LFCs.

Midwest Competitor Staff Identification (3,000+ candidate database) - Global Accounting Firm

Because Human Resources is an organizational function comprised of eight or more disciplines, some of our most successful assignments have been outsourcing partnerships with a corporate Human Resources team that cannot spend the time and resources dedicated to talent research, recruiting, and selection that a specialist firm like Career Solutions Group, Inc. can.

One of our most successful large projects was with a global public accounting firm that asked us to construct a database of their competitors' talent in the Midwest. The project was so successful that it was later expanded and later updated. After four or five years, what had started as a 1,200 candidate interview record database had become a very extensive and detailed database of over 3,000 candidate interviews in metropolitan cities in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan.



Using a standardized process for passive candidate research development, we identified all of our client's competitors staff personnel by discipline (tax, audit, or information systems) and by title (associate, senior, supervisor, manager, senior manager, director, partner). We developed a custom database for our client's project and created a layout to present the technical interview data we gathered. The database was searchable by fields or keywords and sortable in several options of report layouts. We also provided our client with the full database in a published three ring binder.



The published three ring binders became recruiting workbooks for our client's corporate recruiting team. Corporate recruiters could easily browse city by city through competitors' staff to target select potential candidates and to avoid candidates that could be too difficult to recruit.





In addition to gathering standard career history, education and compensation information, our staff took candidates through a detailed interview process with scripted options for tax, audit, and information systems options. We gathered industry specialization information, business entity experience (SEC public or C corp, S corp, or LLCs and partnerships).





Our question regarding "interest in a Big 5 firm" while simple, opened the door for corporate recruiters to follow up quickly with those expressing interest. Our staff gathered other key personal comments and information related to motivation for a career change.





Later when our client acquired one of its major competitors, our database information was used to determine the value of potentially incoming acquired staff due to the merger. Many less valuable staff were eliminated from the merger based upon this competitive intelligence provided to our client.

Midwest Competitor Staff Identification (3,000+ candidate database) - Global Accounting Firm

Because Human Resources is an organizational function comprised of eight or more disciplines, some of our most successful assignments have been outsourcing partnerships with a corporate Human Resources team that cannot spend the time and resources dedicated to talent research, recruiting, and selection that a specialist firm like Career Solutions Group, Inc. can.

One of our most successful large projects was with a global public accounting firm that asked us to construct a database of their competitors' talent in the Midwest. The project was so successful that it was later expanded and later updated. After four or five years, what had started as a 1,200 candidate interview record database had become a very extensive and detailed database of over 3,000 candidate interviews in metropolitan cities in Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan.

Medical Device Competitor Staff Identification - Cardiovascular Device Manufacturer

While recruiting process outsourcing and executive search are Career Solutions Group's focus, we find that sometimes the value of our service is different from our client's perspective.

Take for example what started as a recruitment process outsourcing project for Guidant Corporation (now part of Boston Scientific) and became what we call a "Competitive Talent Assessment".

As with most of our large outsourced recruiting projects, we developed a custom database for the assignment based upon our client's specifications and requirements.

For Guidant whose corporate offices were right across Monument Circle from our office, they asked us to first develop a database of just the names and titles of the sales people at their primary direct competitors, concentrating on the eastern half of the US. We built a database of over 500 salespeople from Boston Scientific, Medtronic, Biotronic, Cook, St Jude, J&J Cordis, and some other smaller players.

Guidant instructed our team of recruiters to work quickly (probably since they knew what would happen in a short time).





When Guidant executives in Guidant Sales Corporation began reviewing the preliminary results of our database, they were surprised and excited. Our staff wasn't just gathering recruiting information and interest, we were gathering extremely valuable competitive information.

In addition to gathering standard candidate interview information about career history and education, we were interviewing Guidant's competitors about the specific products that they worked with (stents, guide wires, pacemakers, balloons, etc.), the number of years they had worked with each product, and whether they were certified or trained in those specific products.





However in a good percentage of the 450 total interviews, we were getting very detailed specifics from competitor sales people about their total sales volume in a particular hospital, sometimes broken down by product, sales volume by hospital or clinic in each territory, what the sales person volume had been over the past three years, and where they currently ranked against their peers.

Within a few weeks, our staff had interviewed hundreds of Guidant's competitors and details from the interviews populated the new competitor database. Medtronic and Boston Scientific's legal departments contacted Guidant's legal department when news started circulating of a retained recruiting firm on Monument Circle in Indianapolis interviewing hundreds of their employees. Their contention? They told Guidant to tell their contracted agent, Career Solutions, that we were unlawfully using their voice mail systems. Seemed a little bizarre. But, Guidant said to wrap up the project.





We delivered the finished product in several software versions and in hard copy in a three ring binder. Guidant's HR team was able to quickly recruit several key competitors over to their team as a result of the project.

We later learned the true value of the information that we had gathered from Guidant's competitors and the strategic value of our initiative. Specific competitive information was distributed internally to Guidant staff who could best utilize it. Guidant stock was trading in the $20s at the time, well below CEO Ron Dollen's comments that it should be near $100 per share. Our competitive talent assessment project was one in a series of salvos shot at higher priced competitors sending the message that Guidant intended to grow aggressively regarless of Wall Street's belief that not having a drug eluding stent would kill the company.

It did not take long for the market and the competitors to react. Through a fierce bidding war, complicated by some product recalls, Guidant was sold for $76 per share months after completion of our project.

IN-sourcing: Bringing Specialized Talent To Indiana - Clean Tech Power Generation

Prior to Coal Gasification becoming a household term during the Presidential debates, Career Solutions Group developed a custom recruiting solution for a state-of-the-art facility processing raw coal into Syngas. Our staff worked in a retained search agreement with joint venture partners Conoco Phillips E-Gas Gasification in Houston and Wabash Valley Power in Indianapolis to develop a talent acquisition and selection strategy which included custom research of passive and active candidates, systematized interviewing practices, and a detailed selection process.

This gasification facility had been built as a Department of Energy project and had unique, high tolerance processing technology. The technical management team determined that the local labor market did not have the highly trained, advanced technology technicians needed to operate the facility's equipment. Therefore, our talent recruitment and sourcing strategy required relocation of all candidates to Indiana.



Being unable to attract desireable highly trained technicians from across the US to Indiana and faced with a time-critical start up of the plant, our custom recruiting solution used unique research methodology to identify sources of passive candidates. Our staff then target recruited over 200 highly skilled technicians who had completed the desired technical curriculum to be trained to run gasification process technology.



From these 200+ potential candidates, our staff successfully recruited and referred 47 qualified candidates within a five month period. After working with the technical management interviewing team to determine the desired finalist candidates, our staff took finalists through a detailed talent selection process focused on behavioral qualifications. Eleven candidates were relocated, mostly from warmer climates like Florida, Georgia, and Southern California to Indiana. More than two years after completion of this project ten of the eleven are still at the facility.
This cutting edge facility has since been converted from coal gasification to petroleum coke gasification which converts a waste product from the oil refining process into synthetic natural gas. The plant is gaining international attention with this use of a waste product to generate energy.





In addition to our recruitment of Operating Technicians, we successfully filled Reliability Engineering positions at the plant.
Career Solutions Group's Permanent Placement Service is a project based, passive candidate recruitment system designed to recruit a high volume of passive candidates for multiple positions or target passive executive level candidates for single positions, using custom, targeted research and detailed three part finalist talent selection.

For more information on the gasification process read Wikipedia or the redefining clean energy information at theGasification Technologies Council.

National Sales Force Expansion Project - Fortune 200 Company

Custom Recruiting Solutions Based Upon Client Goals

Client Problem:
The Director of Human Resources for a major electromechanical manufacturing company (Emerson Electric) learned that he had 90 days to staff 15 new Sales Engineer territories. At the same time, the President of the Company had asked him to direct and lead an organizational survey and analysis at all company facilities in North America. His Assistant Director had been with the company for only two weeks and was not yet capable of managing either major project.

CSG’s Solution:
Career Solutions Group had filled several of this client’s Sales Engineering positions previously and understood their hiring process for this type of position. Our staff had a working knowledge of the company's technology in chemical process automation, control and instrumentation for process flow, level, temperature, pressure measurement in oil & gas, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, food processing, and other applications. Career Solutions offered to coordinate the sales force expansion for the Director of Human Resources from our Indianapolis office in a recruitment process outsource (RPO) staffing solution.

Here is how we tackled the assignment-
We laid out an aggressive timeline to complete the recruiting project while allowing for the Holiday weeks in November and December (deadline was in January).



Our first step was to ramp up our capabilities for this project to handle a larger volume of phone calls, faxes, email, data storage, and administrative support needed. We hired a Programmer to build a project specific database, hired three Staff Recruiters, and an additional Administrative Assistant to help with the high volume of data entry. Our office coordinated communication between 14 of our client’s regional offices around the US, four other external Recruiters (Houston, Minneapolis, Boulder, and Austin), and several hundred potential candidates for the 15 positions. We provided the Director of Human Resources with daily updates on our progress and weekly project status reports on position coverage and interview activity. Our staff interviewed all respondents to ads run nationally and in each local market. We interviewed additional potential candidates from target competitor sourcing and referrals.

All information gathered was entered into a database created for this project. Viable candidates were forwarded jointly to the Regional Offices and Corporate for review and scheduling interviews. We helped prepare and debrief applicants for interviews. Every person that we contacted on behalf of our client received our client’s response card sent from our database of addresses.




Our Results:
We hit our goal of having all 15 positions covered with at least four viable applicants by the first week of December. Ten positions had offers accepted before Christmas, three positions were filled internally, and two positions were cancelled by their respective regions. The client considered the project a huge success for the organization – and the database is still in use to this day.

National Market Expansion Recruiting Project - Fortune 1000 Financial Services Company

Career Solutions was retained by the CEO of a $2 billion company over several years in a strategic market expansion project.

For each of over a dozen metropolitan markets in the US, a global management consulting firm conducted a market study to determine if a given city met the corporation's criteria as an expansion market. If the market was approved, Career Solutions took over in phase two of each market to conduct a thorough assessment of talent in the market meeting the client's position profile. Our job was -



In each market, we conducted thorough research of passive and active candidates meeting the position profile. The we interviewed anywhere from 70 to 120 potential candidates per market before focusing on usually six to ten finalists.



We managed the finalist candidate pool for the Market President in each location. Our team took finalist candidates through coordinated detail interviews with either the Executive VP or CEO of the company, coordinated assessments, reference checking, and management of candidates through negotiation to start date.

Following successful placement of a Market President, Career Solutions team then worked with the newly placed Market President to recruit and build out the new team for the market, usually using the new President's input to guide the search in the local market.

In each market we went into, we had no prior knowledge of the market and knew none of the candidates. Through our detailed and thorough process we were successful in helping this CEO establish 16 new markets as the company went through a substantial 10 year growth period.

Rapid National Sales Force Expansion - Fortune 500 Sales Engineers

Custom Recruiting Solutions Based Upon Client Company Goals

Client Problem:

The Director of Human Resources for a major electromechanical manufacturing company ( Emerson Electric) learned that he had 90 days to staff 15 new Sales Engineer territories. At the same time, the President of the Company had asked him to direct and lead an organizational survey and analysis at all company facilities in North America. His Assistant Director had been with the company for only two weeks and was not yet capable of managing either major project.

CSG's Solution:

Career Solutions Group had filled several of this client's Sales Engineering positions previously and understood their hiring process for this type of position. Career Solutions offered to coordinate the sales force expansion for the Director of Human Resources from our Indianapolis office in an outsource staffing

solution.

Here is how we tackled the assignment-

We laid out an aggressive timeline to complete the recruiting project while allowing for the holiday weeks in November and December (deadline was in January).

Our first step was to ramp up our research and interviewing capabilities for this project to handle a larger volume of phone calls, faxes, email, data storage, and administrative support needed. We hired a Programmer to build a project specific database and hired three Staff Recruiters, and an additional Administrative Assistant to help with the high volume of data entry.

Our office coordinated communication between 14 of our client's regional offices, four other external Recruiters, and several hundred potential candidates for the 15 positions. We provided the Director

of Human Resources with daily updates on our progress and weekly project status reports on position coverage and interview activity.

Our staff interviewed all respondents to ads run nationally and in each local market. We interviewed additional potential candidates from target competitor sourcing and referrals. All information gathered was entered into a database created for this project. Viable candidates were forwarded jointly to the Regional Offices and Corporate for review and scheduling interviews. We helped prepare and debrief applicants for interviews. Every person that we contacted on behalf of our client received our client's

response card sent from our database of addresses.

Our Results:

We hit our goal of having all 15 positions covered with at least four viable applicants by

the first week of December. Ten positions had offers accepted before Christmas, three positions were filled internally, and two positions were cancelled by their respective regions.

The client considered the project a huge success for the organization and the database is still in use to this day.