by Joe Pacini

Created on: August 16, 2008

When recruiting for an executive level position in today's intense war for top-talent, the best of intentions can fall short without a comprehensive identification, search, and recruitment program that integrates a market-driven, candidate-focused, and active to passive candidate business solution.

The best practice leaders focus on their core competencies and outsource the rest. Why? Because finding the right professional among a large group of potential fitting people takes time, effort, and commitment. This is difficult to execute effectively when you are busy being successful for your organization. Particularly if the position is a critical hire, it is best to outsource the entire search to a reputable, credible third-party executive recruitment firm with significant experiential expertise. An average retained executive search takes 150 people hours to complete. If it takes that long for highly experienced management consultants to effectively conduct a search full-time, how long do you think it will take for those that do not have the time to invest or have specific guidelines in place for efficient execution of a recruitment search plan?

Professionals that invest varying degrees of time and effort in how and when they search for new positions fall into the group of active candidates'. Other people that are not actively searching for a new position may entertain the right opportunity if approached in an appropriate, confidential, and consultative manner fall within a group of passive candidates'. Recruitment strategies divide into several categories. One is an active-passive continuum that broadens the pool of great professionals to include those actively searching for the next career move to those more passive that need the right persuasive message.

A professional that is potentially interested in a new position in recruiter terminology is a prospective candidate'. When the professional decides that they are interested in the position, future opportunity, and company, they become candidates'. Once this person accepts the position, they advance to finalists', and ultimately to placed-candidates'.

Step One: Job description and performance profile
Write a complete job description that includes company information and exactly what this person is going to do. List five to eight major objectives, sub-objectives, duties, responsibilities, reporting structure, and advancement potential. Detail how each objective relates to fulfilling the organization's business strategy

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