Insights

The value of having the right search partner for your business is enormous. A search partner brings a rigorous, research-driven and consultative approach. They proactively map the market, build longlists from deep industry networks and approach high-calibre passive candidates who are not actively seeking new roles. They understand the talent landscape you’re competing in. 

Where even greater value comes, is elevating this relationship to becoming a talent business partner. This is a true trusted advisor relationship to senior executives and boards. This goes beyond hiring individual roles in a transactional relationship, it’s about offering true market intelligence, benchmarking and talent services. 

Of course, this doesn’t happen overnight. Trust is earned. Often over many years. Only after a search firm has really proven their value can the relationship deepen. 

This can mean sharing privileged information with your search firm in order for them to be best placed to support the business. Providing advanced oversight of organisational changes impacting talent requirements can help enormously with creating smooth hiring processes. 

A long-term client of ours recently provided advanced notification of some significant organisational changes in the business which would then create specific hiring needs. This gave us the chance to conduct advanced research and talent pooling. As soon as the business was ready to proceed with the search, we had a huge headstart, dramatically reducing our time to provide a candidate shortlist.  

Partnering together over many years streamlines each search. Your talent business partner knows your company inside out, knows how to best assess candidate’s cultural fit. They know the types of individuals that can be successful in the business.

Your talent business partner knows how to best sell your company to passive A players so that they are intrigued and engage.

Over and above a core search service, your talent business partner can add additional value through a range of talent intelligence services such as talent pipelining and succession planning, competitor talent mapping and analysis, and compensation and equity benchmarking.

Prior to commencing a board search last year, we conducted a compensation and equity benchmarking exercise for our client, where we mapped out the compensation packages for Chairs and NEDs in VC backed businesses at similar stages. This gave greater clarity for our client on how best to structure a competitive compensation package with the right mix of retainer plus equity. 

For other long-term clients, we’ve advised senior leadership teams and boards on international talent landscapes in advance of overseas expansion decisions. Having recruited in 19 countries, we were able to use our knowledge of different markets to provide key talent insights to aid their business planning. 

Elevating your search partner to a talent business partner relationship is based on trust and value provided, and it takes time. However, the time investment that goes into this relationship can be repaid exponentially in added value to your business.