Do your Recruiters Meet your Expectations?

A White Paper from NextGen Global Executive Search

©2012 NextGen Global Executive Search LLP 1

Do your Internal & External Recruiters Measure Up?

Introduction ∞

Chapter 1:Why Many Executives and New Employee Hires Fail ∞

Chapter 2: What the Studies in Poor Performance in New Hires Reveal ∞

Chapter 3: Bad Interviews are a Result of Poor Recruiting Processes ∞

Chapter 4: The Top Areas of Failure with Percentage of Respondents ∞

Chapter 5: Why Technical Competence as the Primary Identifier is so Bad ∞

Chapter 6: Why 50% of ALL New Hires are Either Bad Hires or Miss-hires ∞

Chapter 7: Defining Performance Objectives over Job Descriptions ∞

Chapter 8:Why Retained Search is Actually Cost-Effective ∞

Chapter 9: Conducting “behind-the-scenes” Industry Reference Checks ∞

Chapter 10: Going a Step Further before Short-Listing Candidates ∞

Chapter 11: High Impact Onboarding - Longer Retention Rates ∞

Chapter 12: Conclusions ∞

Chapter 13: Contact Information ∞

Table of Contents



The facts about recruiting “high impact A Players” and avoiding failure rates cannot be denied. Unfortunately, too many organizations fail to take these facts into serious consideration. Retention of key talent and effective recruiting are significant and difficult problems for most companies.


Introduction


� A study of executive failure pegged the average failure rate for recruited executives in their first year at between 40% and 50%. (Executive Search Information Exchange 2001)

� On average, the cost of a failed executive is estimated to be more than $500,000 or 2.5 times salary. And that does NOT include organizational, opportunity, productivity, and transitional costs for the new executive. (Mercer Management 1999)

� The cost of a bad hire ranged from one to five times annual salary. 26% of respondents reported that replacing an employee that doesn’t work out cost their organizations three times annual salary and another 42% said bad hires cost two times annual salary. (Right Management 2008)

� 75% of newly hired executives are having trouble with interpersonal skills (the ability to build relationships, collaborate, and influence others). A troubling finding of the study is that many of these executives had both strong technical skills and years of previous management experience and yet they fell short in the interpersonal area. (American Society for Training & Development 2011)

� 46% of newly-hired employees will fail within 18 months, while only 19% will achieve unequivocal success. But contrary to popular belief, technical skills are not the primary reason why new hires fail; instead, poor interpersonal skills dominate the list. (Leadership IQ 2009)


1:Why Many Executives and New Employee Hires Fail


The study found that 26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept feedback, 23% because they’re unable to understand and manage emotions, 17% because they lack the necessary motivation to excel, 15% because they have the wrong temperament for the job, and only 11% because they lack the necessary technical skills.

The three-year study by Leadership IQ compiled these results after studying 5,247 hiring managers from 312 public, private, business and healthcare organizations. Collectively these managers hired more than 20,000 employees during the study period.


2: What the Studies in Poor Performance in New Hires Reveal


While the failure rate for new hires is distressing, it should not be surprising: 82% of managers reported that in hindsight, their interview process with these employees elicited subtle clues that they would be headed for trouble.

But during the interviews, managers were too focused on other issues, too pressed for time, or lacked confidence in their interviewing abilities to heed the warning signs.


Before we blame the Hiring Manager – remember the recruiter set all this in place – AND that is where the FAILURE started in the recruiting processes.

3: Bad Interviews are a Result of Poor Recruiting Processes


Wait a minute!

� Coachability (26%): The ability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers and others.

� Emotional Intelligence (23%): The ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions, and accurately assess others’ emotions.

� Motivation (17%): A sufficient drive to achieve one’s full potential and excel in the job.

� Temperament (15%): Attitude and personality suited to the particular job and work environment.

� Technical Competence (11%): Functional or technical skills required to do the job.

Study from Leadership IQ 2009


4: The Top Areas of Failure with Percentage of Respondents


Highly perceptive and psychologically-savvy interviewers can assess employees’ likely performance on all of these issues. But the majority of recruiters and hiring managers lack both the training to accurately read and assess candidates, and the confidence to act even when their assessments are correct.

Unfortunately, technical competence remains the most popular subject of interviews because it’s easy to assess. But technical competence is a lousy predictor of whether a newly-hired employee will succeed or fail.

In addition, Human Resources focuses on one-size-fits-all behavioral tests which may reveal general aptitudes but fails to measure and predict performance for the actual role and fit into the department/organization.



5: Why Technical Competence as the Primary Identifier is so Bad

The financial cost of hiring failures, coupled with the opportunity cost of not hiring high performers, can be millions of dollars lost, even for small companies.

This is due to a combination of poor internal recruiting process, the use of poorly defined job descriptions that ignore the specific business need to solving either the unique technical challenges or defining in detail the corporate objectives, plus most executives are simply too busy to perform an intensive interviewing, screening, behavioral and intangible assessment throughout the entire Talent Acquisition life cycle.

It is true that 50% of ALL hires are

either bad hires or miss-hires.

And that is especially true in “customer facing” roles.



6: Why 50% of ALL New Hires are Either Bad Hires or Miss-hires

Are your recruiters still working on “HR or legal-defined” job descriptions?

Do they have the expertise to use SMARTE to define

the “Performance Objectives” of the role they are recruiting for?


7: Defining Performance Objectives over Job Descriptions


2 Education/Experience

Personal/Professional Background

44 Personal/Professional Background

4

1

3 Adaptability

5 Corporate Culture & Company Lifecycle

6 Accomplishments

Skills/Intelligence

Do your Recruiters define All of the Tangible Skills & Experiences Required?



Why does the position exist, or if replacement, why?

What aptitudes and leadership qualities are mission critical?

What accomplishments and external/internal motivations are non-negotiable?

Conversely, which are not needed?

Asking the RIGHT Questions Determines the Role’s KPIs

BenchmarkKey

Performance Indicators

Determine the critical goals and major business successes the

candidate will be accountable for

producing.



thought processing, reasoning , and persistence traits

motivational factors and problem solving style

conflict resolution skills

planning and organizational skills

execution and project management techniques

leadership qualities and relationship building skills

Identify Key Intangible Traits of the Ideal Candidate

Do your recruiters look BEYOND skills, experience, education, and accomplishments?



When it comes to Key Positions, why risk your stakeholders’ investments on poor internal recruiting processes, poor screening by contingency based search firms, or job postings? Why hire a B or C Player?

Why choosing a retained search firm actually SAVES you money in the long run. The really good ones use Performance Based Fees in which the majority of the fees are paid on meeting measured deliverables. They should also have be speedy, transparent, and in the end resulting in new hires that positively impact your bottom line.



8:Why Retained Search is Actually Cost-Effective

Work with the Hiring Manager to develop real-time hypothetical reasoning and situational scenario behavioral interviewing questions and mini-projects for potential candidates to reveal if they have the motivations, aptitudes, leadership, learning ability and intelligence, accomplishments, persistence, and adaptability to fit the specific role and move your strategy forward.

What? Our recruiters NEVER thought about this?

©2012 NextGen Global Executive Search

LLP 15


10: Going a Step Further before Short-Listing Candidates

How silly that anyone actually believes references provided by a candidate are not skewed - meaning useless!

Your recruiters should confidentially cold call former customers, colleagues, and vendors that the candidates have worked with; these reveal the best unscripted references possible.

How silly that anyone actually believes references provided by a candidate are not skewed - meaning useless!

Your recruiters should confidentially cold call former customers, colleagues, and vendors that the candidates have worked with; these reveal the best unscripted references possible.



9: Conducting “behind-the-scenes” Industry Reference Checks

How about Onboarding?

A performance evaluation tool is not near enough. Before that a customized onboarding program SPECIFIC to that role/position AND the performance objectives of the role needs to be put into place.

Performance, Growth, and Retention are Key

Many HR department uses a “one-size-fits-all” approach to ongoing evaluations. The problem here is your internal and external recruiters should be CUSTOMIZING a Performance Evaluation Tool to measure the new hire’s progress for THAT PARTICULAR position.



11: High Impact Onboarding - Longer Retention Rates

You should customize the onboarding process for each new hire with intentional activities spread out over several months (phases) to assist in the new executive or leader’s assimilation into the culture/department, measure performance, and initiate the growth potential.

The retained search firm you choose should include a full one year replacement warranty to ensure the placements meet performance objectives sooner and are retained longer.



� Does your onboarding program FOR THAT NEW HIRE instill confidence in you AND the new executive or leader that the transition process into your culture, department, and leadership development is sound?

� Does it ensure a new leader will be effective in a short time?

� Does your onboarding program FOR THIS HIRE improve the average retention time of your leaders and executives?

� Is it gaining you a competitive recruiting edge for leadership talent?

� Does it maximize the chances that the new leader will be engaged quickly with the company’s culture, the department’s people, and the executive team?

Is your Executive Onboarding and for that matter Employee Onboarding World Class?

If it does NOT do ALL of the following, either you are missing a key component in recruiting or your existing internal recruiters and 3rd party executive search firms are not meeting YOUR RECRUITING OBJECTIVES.



©2012 NextGen Global Executive Search

LLP 20

Phase Objective Timing

Affirmation Ensure the new leader or executive

constantly believes he/she made the right

decision.

Begins no later than the Offer Letter and

continues through Day 90.

Welcome Communicate a highly-personalized

message of acceptance and attention.

Begins with the Acceptance Letter and

continues through Day 30.

Foundation Transfer company, department, and role-

specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes for

accelerated competency.

Day of Acceptance Letter through Day 60.

Assimilation Immerse new leaders in the company

culture and help them be proud of it.

Most important phase: Acceptance through

Day 120 (3 months).

Contribution Within a predetermined number of days or

weeks, begin to see real productivity from

the new hire and provide a positive

experience that he/she is a contributor.

Day 15 through Day 120 and beyond.

Growth Begin to see an independence and

demonstrated insight in the knowledge,

skills and attitudes of the new leader.

Day 60 through Day 180 and beyond.

Sharing Gain an early ROI by utilizing the

“graduates” as Advisors and garnering

feedback from them and their managers

Begins when the new hire’s Onboarding is

completed at Day 120. Execs are

Ambassadors. Leaders are Advisors.

Is your Talent Sustainability strategy based on Customized High Impact Onboarding with a

Schedule for Every Stakeholder to be Involved or Driven and Run Mostly by HR?


How can NextGen Global Retained Executive Search help?

� Have an executive position or key staffing need you need to fill? NextGen can fill that search assignment using our proprietary Performance Based Retained Search process.

� Our placements are backed up by the best warranty in the retained search business – a one year replacement.

� We strictly recruit “A Players” who produce 8 to 10 times more than even “B Players”. Bear in mind that studies show that up to 55% of all workforces are “C Players” (bodies who show up and do minimal tasks).

� Each placement we make includes a customized Renewal™ World Class Onboarding program. This assures the candidate assimilates into the culture quickly, produces sooner rather than later, and is retained longer.



12: Conclusions

Craig HuffordManaging Partner

Retained Executive SearchAerospace & Defense

Cyber SecurityMedical DevicesEnterprise Systems

Charles MooreManaging Partner

Retained Executive SearchWireless SystemsMobile NetworksEnergy Oil & Gas

Smart Grids & Renewables

Steve CaballeroSenior Partner

Talent SustainabilityOnboarding & RetentionLeadership Development

Executive Coaching



13: Contact Information

web: www.nextgenges.com phone: (630) 560-4412 email: [email protected]

Business

Do your Recruiters Meet your Expectations?