When you make the choice to hire an employee from outside your organization, you have two basic options with entirely different requirements on your time. You can manage the process yourself or outsource it to a staffing professional.

Internal vs. Outsourced 

There are times when it makes sense to manage the recruiting process yourself and other times when it makes sense to use a professional search consultant. You may want to manage it when think you can find the person relatively easy, maybe the talent pool is large enough that really great people are contacting you.  As long as you and your staff have the time to sort through all the resumes and perform the initial screening to narrow down the search to the top few candidates, it?s clearly the way to go. If you decide to manage it yourself please keep in mind, it?s very time consuming.  You lose productivity and generally have to make up for it somewhere, and you have little control over who is going to see and respond to your advertising, missing the passive market.  Having said that, handling the process yourself may be appropriate in some situations.   

There are times when it makes sense to outsource a project. While we are searching for your next great hire you are free to do your primary job and forward your company goals. We are your third party PR department targeting the top performers in the industry and marketing your company and the possibility of working together. When our search is complete you will only have to choose between a few capable people to interview.  They are pre-qualified and very interested in you, your company and your vision. We think of and manage all the details it takes to find and hire the right person.  Things like references, interview schedules, flight arrangements pre-closing and closing them on your position.  Therefore, many companies decide to outsource the recruiting process to specialists such as ICS Partners to save time and allow them to stay focused on efficiently running and forwarding their business.

Engaged vs. Contingency Search

Recruiting Strategy

There are several differences between engaged and contingency search firms, but the primary distinction between the two is the development of a search strategy, the implementation of the search process and the engaged search consultant?s ability to focus all their time and attention on your needs.  An engaged search consultant is normally hired exclusively to perform the search assignment and evaluates all candidates being considered for the open position (internal and external).  This allows the engaged search consultant to best represent the interests of the client and uniformly assess candidates for the qualities being sought by the client, providing a high-level of confidentiality and uniformity to both the client and candidate. Conversely, a contingency recruiter usually does not have an exclusive assignment, but rather races against all other sources in hopes of presenting a winning candidate before anyone else does.  Contingency recruiters are normally forced to divide their time among several searches and multiple clients to balance the risk of not being the first search consultant to get their candidate in the door.

Many contingency recruiters specialize by industry and function. Engaged search consultants often specialize, but because they are driven by original research for each engagement, they are capable of applying the search process across industries and functions.

Service

Contingency search is geared toward identifying candidates ? but as a natural consequence does not necessarily produce the same level of qualified candidates who are more often found when extensive research, screening and in-depth interviews are applied to the process.  Contingency search consultants often work with a large number of job openings, and, using a database of known candidates, look for a match on paper and send those candidates? resumes to the client for possible interviews.  Contingency search can be appropriate when multiple qualified candidates are likely available in the marketplace for a position and the salary level is below $100,000.

The engaged search process is tailored to situations when it is critical to hire not just any candidate, but the most qualified person available.  The level of service required to fill these positions is typically higher and requires significant research, thorough screening interviews, referencing and a high degree of confidentiality through the process.

Fee Structure

Fees for the two kinds of service are similar ? typically 25% to 30% of the guaranteed first year compensation of the person hired.  Contingency recruiters receive one lump sum payment upon the hiring, while the engaged search consultant is on retainer through the search process; either way, the end cost is the same.

Process

The way the fee is paid has a great deal to do with how the project is executed and what kind of results can be expected.  When a company engages an executive search firm to fill a particular job, it is paying for the process of conducting a search.  Without being paid on engagement, a contingency recruiter has no assurances of being paid at all, therefore affecting the process and level of service.  As a result, a contingency recruiter cannot afford to invest a great deal of time working on any particular search, because a successful outcome may often depend on factors beyond their control.  When a higher level of service and the best possible candidates are mandatory, the client is best served by engaged executive search.

The foundation of the ICS Partners search process is to understand the client?s requirements, develop a precise search strategy, implement targeted research, and apply our years of experience and developed skills to identify and assess candidates.  Open communication with the client is critical to the process and is integrated into every step.

For additional information regarding ICS Partners and how we can serve your needs, please contact us:

ICS Partners
Integrity, Commitment and Service
Executive Recruiters

1500 N Farview Drive
Payson AZ  85541
928-468-0961
info@ics-partners.com