In this day and age, the competition for finding the best talent for a specific position within your business is one of the most competitive job markets. The Philippines is one of the world’s biggest users of outsourcing and offshoring employees. One example of this is JP Morgan Chase & Co. JPMorgan Chase & Co., a leading global financial services firm and one of the largest banking institutions in the United States, have invested in Php11.789 billion just with outsourcing employees. In addition, this is a relatively new field for multinational corporations. Whether it may be customers or other businesses, these corporations have been entering its local market to provide products and services. These factors see great potential in obtaining Filipinos that are highly skilled. These Filipino talents can be put into leadership positions or roles by both Filipino companies or international companies. What each and every business wants is to have the best executive talent to work for their company. With today’s technology and resources more abundant than ever, these companies are using them accordingly to finding and creating more sophisticated ways to attract and retain this much-needed talent.

The Philippines contains some of the best talents in the world when it comes to a global workforce. One reason why the Philippines has a strong domestic company is because these Filipinos are not just the drivers, but also the leaders behind multinational corporations. Nonetheless, you will have a difficult time in finding these Filipino leaders since a lot of them are being sorted out by headhunters and executive search firms. In retrospect, companies that try to hire on their own that use their internal resources will often lead up in them having costs instead of profit because they often fail to find the right person for the job. Making an email can be a start in reaching out. However, don’t be surprised if you don’t get a reply – headhunters have a tendency to respond only to those that may fit their hiring needs. With this being said, a simple search on LinkedIn will most likely not help you in finding what you will need. You will need to gain their trust which will make you stand out from the rest of the companies who are getting turned down. In terms of being the job seeker, having a massive array of networks can be start, industry leaders, or active with other professional organizations is another way to stand out from the rest. You will need a headhunter who can source for you with grace and carefulness to ensure you will get the best person for the job. These recruitment specialists have been trained to use every key strategy in every possible means to attract the right candidates. One example is conducting advanced online search techniques to be able to tap into their huge database of applicants (Take note that these applicants have been qualified and have been screened).  Even after strategically sourcing candidates for a position and failing, a great headhunter needs to overcome being overwhelmed by the difficulty or nuances of a specialized search. Finding the best recruitment partner will give you an understanding on a market-based perspective. In addition, they will also give their own backed up insights that most companies miss when seeking talent. Other than recruiting, these executive search firms can be a building block in order to gain more connections to industry leaders and other candidates who may not even be seeking a new opportunity at the moment. Most of the time, these are the candidates are not on the radar of most employers.

Another factor other than having trust of these executive search firms is that the approach needs to be attractive when shown to candidates. How will these candidates pick you in the first place if your approach wasn’t done correctly? Since you will be asking for a leadership role, the leaders that you will want to be part of your team needs to influence and inspire your people. Besides that, they would need to know the ins and outs of your company. With this, it will positively impact the processes of your day to day operations. Which in the long run, if everything goes to plan, can drive your profit upward. Once you have partnered up with an executive search firm that knows what you want and what you hope to achieve (both short-term and long-term), they can now assemble what they know, who knows the top leaders in specific industries and markets in order to find the most optimal way of attracting talent in this candidate-driven market.

Once getting a trusted executive search firm, here is a clear perspective of how the full executive search happens and what to expect from it:

  1. Meeting with the headhunters — once choosing and finalizing which executive search you will choose, immediately have a meeting with them to get contracts, agreements, and documents signed on both parties to start the process. Discussing what candidate, qualifications, when you need him or her, the company’s mission, vision, culture, strategies, and objectives will be discussed in this stage. On their part, they will do a more comprehended analysis of your business to find the optimal candidate for the company.
  2. Formulate strategies — having used what qualifications you will need for your business as well as the executive search firm’s analysis,  the headhunter will come up with certain strategies (with the use of contact, network databases, and social networks) to find and hopefully connect with the qualified candidates.
  3. Choosing candidates — talent mapping is done by executive search firms in order to minimize the choices of candidates. The qualified and approved list shall undergo screening tests to see if your standards are met.  After this, interviews and meetings shall be done again and will come up with a list of at least 10 candidates.
  4. Delivering the shortlist for your approval — headhunters will usually perform a final evaluation to the chosen candidates to make sure the credibility of these candidates. After the final evaluation, the list will be reduced to half.
  5. Closing the deal and welcoming your new executive — the overall process of this usually lasts for 30 days to 2 months. After choosing the executive picked by the headhunters, you can discuss the company and contractual arrangement with the newest executive.

By having these three secrets for an executive search firm, your client will feel that they are in good hands and at the same time make them feel like they’re not wasting resources and money:

  1. Engage and mobilize your team’s leaders — the hiring manager needs to use their connections in order to target a certain network that can fill the pipeline with qualified candidates — this includes existing leaders on the team, investors, advisors, board members and other stakeholders.
  2. Do your deep-dive research — this might seem an obvious step, but having a deep and comprehensive analysis will be the differing factor to be able to find the most fitting candidate. By doing deep-dive research, the firm can fully grasp the role and the qualifications of people who would fit in it. Having a recruiter with the best awareness (knowing the ins and outs of the business itself) should lead this since he/she comprehends the process of the business.
  3. Find and utilize the best external help for you — by having an independent consultant in where you have a trusted person in there, these consulting companies might be able to do a better job in looking for the better candidate. This will entail and ensure that you are not just picking a candidate just to fill the pipeline. One factor that you have to ensure is that you bring them as soon as possible for them to know the research portion of your process and overall be a true extension of your own team. There will be times where you will be hesitant of this step and think to yourself that bringing in someone externally will mean that you failed, but that kind of mindset will just bring the executive search firm and your client down.

 

REFERENCES:

N/A. (n.d.). Executive Recruitment Agency and Search Firm Headhunting for the Top Roles in the Philippines. Retrieved from https://manilarecruitment.com/services/executive-search/.

N/A. (n.d.). A Closer Look at How Executive Search Firms in the Philippines Work. Retrieved from http://www.gesg.ph/a-closer-look-at-how-executive-search-firms-in-the-philippines-work/.

Hulog, L. (2019). Finding the Right Executive Search Firm in the Philippines. Retrieved from https://doingbusinessinthephilippines.com/finding-the-right-executive-search-firm-philippines/.

Mcdonald, A. (2016). Guide to Working with an Executive Search Firm. Retrieved from https://manilarecruitment.com/manila-recruitment-articles-advice/guide-working-executive-search-firm/

Moran, G. (2014). The Secrets to Working With an Executive Recruiter. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/233752

Koloc, N. (2014). When Building Your Team, Delegate Recruiting But Hiring Is Your Job. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235728.

Koloc, N. (2014). When to DIY Recruiting and When to Hire a Recruiter. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235045

Krumrie, M. (2018). How to Find a Headhunter (and Other Executive Recruiting Myths). Retrieved from https://www.jobscan.co/blog/how-to-find-a-headhunter/
Rettig, J. (2017). The Three Secrets to Executive Recruiting I Learned at Apple, Yahoo and More. Retrieved from https://firstround.com/review/the-three-secrets-to-executive-recruiting-i-learned-at-apple-yahoo-and-more/