Your interest in this topic suggests you are accountable for bringing an exceptional leader into your organization.

Step One – Getting Beyond the FaÇade

Large Firms

Large firms often make impressive initial presentations by presenting slick brochures, upscale offices, well educated professionals and extensive client lists. However, the first contact is often with an Office Manager or Senior Partner and not with the people that will actually be doing the search: people who scan directories and files and other sources to get preliminary lists of candidates, others (often people in training) who make the initial telephone contact and do the preliminary screening of possible candidates and then the principal assigned to the search. It is extremely important to find out and to get to know the person who will actually be the contact and to have a strong voice in selecting that person.

Regional or Mid-Size Firms

Regional or mid-sized firms typically have a three tiered approach in which partners and senior consultants handle large clients; associates and people yet to have ownership or a partnership deal with medium-sized clients, and the trainees handle lower level searches and smaller clients. When these firms are busy they can get overloaded and may not provide timely or thorough service.

Boutique Firms

Small firms which rely on one to four key people are usually staffed with a couple of very experienced people and then others who have solid exposure and experience. Such firms usually have specialists who are industry specific and are well known within their specialty or generalists who can work on searches in a variety of industries and the recruiters provide very personalized hands-on service. But, if there are needs for many searches at once they may have trouble meeting the demand or may need to get other smaller firms involved and this can present administrative demands which are challenging for such firms.