Being the second most populated country in Southeast Asia, the Philippines is considered as one of the emerging Tiger Economies in the region and also in the world. Furthermore, the Philippine Economy is rapidly advancing in global services and trade. According to the Philippine Statistic Authority (PSA), in April 2019, the employment rate was estimated at 94.9 percent comparing it with 94.5 percent in April 2018. Where 58.5 percent is comprised of services and 34.6 percent involved in retail trade, this is due to the emerging Industry 4.0. This implies that there are more job opportunities for Filipinos for the next couple of year. That is why job hunting in the Philippines is considered as one of the most competitive in terms of hiring top executive rankings. At the moment, many emerging multinational companies are looking for executive talents, which is why many search firms are emerging. So how does search firms look for possible candidates?
Process of recruitment
Let’s first analyze the process of recruiting; there are two types of recruitment: internal and external (known as third-party). For internal recruitment, the company does the hiring itself, which is handled by the human-resources executives, to find and get candidates to fill up the jobs that they necessitate. The advantage of hiring internally is that the recruiters, or the HR executives, knows who have qualified accordingly with the job that they offer, as well as they retain the full control of the hiring process in the company. But there are disadvantages for internal recruitment, one of the drawbacks is a challenging course of actions in hiring, interviews, and screening, the issue is also time-consuming for the company’s HR department, and lastly, the references checking for the possible candidates. So that is why most firms in this day and age are leaning towards third-party recruiters.
Now let’s take a look at how third-party recruiters examines for candidates. First, they look for potential talent that they can introduce to their client company, so what these recruiters do is to get loads of resumes of these job-seekers then they show these to their client company. Usually, the common culprit about this old style of recruitment is that a number of these recruiters does not hand over any feedback to the job-seekers whether or not you’ve gotten the job, the hindrance here is that recruiters are entitled to give you at least a feedback if you’re accepted or not by a company. If that’s the case, it is better to turn your back on and find a new recruiter. So that is how the traditional third-party recruiting works.
Traditional Style of Recruitment vs. Executive Search Firms
The conventional style of recruitment is where they work for large job openings or when they are being assigned by a company to look for candidates. Once the candidates have submitted their resumes, the contingency recruiter will send this resumes as many as possible to their client company and look forward that one of these candidates becomes accepted. If you scrutinize in detail how these recruiters work, it is like they act as a real estate broker, where they look for a possible house for sale and place it in their databank. If the recruiter sees that the home for sale has by no means profitable, he/she will walk off and leave to look for more houses, which is valuable. In that sense, we see that a traditional recruiter simply looks for highly accepted executives that can be hired so that in the end, they can get their commissions.
In contrast with the executive search firms, the modern way of recruiting executive candidates, instead of seeking and sell possible candidates to their clients, they act as consultants to their clients. Instead of merely looking for potential candidates, they seem also look for passive candidates, individuals who are not looking for a new position. More often than not, the role of executive search firms is to source a crucial opening for C-level, VP, or Director job. They also maintain the databases of these candidates and encourages their contacts in different divisions in which they frequently work with and preselects or the possible candidates carefully by utilizing their own assessment methods to suit the job accordingly to their client’s company along with the job candidate. Since they act as a consultant to their client company, it is beyond advantageous for the company and job candidate to get the fittest for the job since the retained search firms are knowledgeable about the company.
So the why executive search firms, over the tradition search firms?
We see that executive search firms are knowledgeable about the organization of their client; also they look for candidates who are not actively looking for a position furthermore they do not present many candidates to more than one for a particular area in the company. With these facets, it indicates that they have a retained exclusive basis to their clients, which develops into long-term relationships with their clients and candidates coupled with the degree of confidentiality that they deal with in all aspects of job hunting. Even though executive search firms is more involved and takes a little bit time-consuming, it is guaranteed that they converge only who are appropriately suited for the job position, so once you’ve got an interview from them the possible probabilities of being accepted is high. In comparison with the traditional search firms, there is a reasonable chance that a headhunter is also competing with other agencies or even to their client themselves since they act independently with the company. What is more, they somewhat work undiscerning when they are selecting possible candidates for consideration.
So how does an executive search firm modernized job hunting?
Since executive search firms are targeted mainly to C-level, VP or Director positions, they keenly scan and search for possible candidate thoroughly by contacting them directly which generally delivers the best result when it comes to hiring. A strong argument that executive firm exemplifies is that they give the best return on investment over time since they have a lengthy process of searching and interviewing various candidates before sending them to the company. Unlike with the traditional recruitment where the HR managers of the company will interview these candidates again for them to know if the candidate is truly qualified, given that the conventional recruitment firms are not knowledgeable about exactly what the company is gazing for.
Overall, the significant difference between the traditional process of recruitment over the executive search firms is that conventional recruitment will only identify the appropriate skill set and experience to match the qualifications of the company. On the other hand, executive search firms targets to look for the best fit for the job since they act as a consultancy firm; where they know the dos and don’ts, the culture and the job policies of the company. Moreover, the executive search firms also do the filtering and selecting the most suitable candidate for the company. So in a sense, it is much more trouble-free for the company to hire executive employees as well as it is timesaving and cost-effective towards to the company because they don’t consume time for interviews and screening of countless candidates.
So what do you get in executive search firms? Executive search firms conduct a detailed interview with the company’s management team along with their human resource team to develop an extensive understanding to the position to be filled as well as the qualifications needed for the executive position to be recruited. They furthermore do research and analysis about the specific profile qualifications and experiences of each candidate comprehensively, and they conduct numerous interviews with the hiring executive before they introduce them to the company.
To know more about executive search firms, please visit https://springboard.com.ph/executive-search-and-consultancy/
