ETHICS: Basics all parties must recognize, practice and live by (Part 2)

WHO ARE the STAKEHOLDERS?

In the execution of Executive Search Services, there are three primary stakeholders:

1. the client company

2. the executive talent

3. the executive search firm

The client company is the organization in need of a professional executive to hire for a specific top-level corporate role. Client companies pay the professional fee of the executive search firm.

The executive talent is an individual. The corporate executive is usually gainfully employed (possibly also in-between jobs because he/she is taking a sabbatical) and known to possess the necessary skills and relevant experience that may be the person the client company would need to fill their executive opening.

The executive search firm is a third party entity. It specializes in assisting client companies to fill in their senior-to-top-level executive positions through the conduct of proven search & selection processes.

Given the above, executive search agreements or contracts are transactions between the client company and the executive search firm according to agreed upon terms & conditions encompassing: clear and realistic position description / person expectations; selection processes to be undertaken; timelines; professional fees to be charged; payment schedules; and, guarantees, among others.

Once both parties sign the contract stating they will work together on filling up a specific senior-level search assignment, one of the key deliverables of the executive search firm is to commence a comprehensive research on all available executive talents in the market that they have agreed to target. This “talent mapping report” lists all possible names of individuals who may possess the relevant skills and competencies, alongside a brief abstract, with each assessed as to suitability to the position that is being filled. It is the primary set of “working papers” for both parties and is returned to over and over again to make sure that anyone who may be worth considering has been identified and included.

While on the topic of ethics, it is important that even at the outset, the report identifies those talents who fall under the “off limits” category, i.e. persons who not actively approached by the search firm (nor the client company to ask the search firm to approach) for the search assignment in question. They include:

1. executive talent employed in a company from which the client company will not want to take a senior talent due to no-compete agreements that specifically exist in the Trade

2. executive talent who has in fact been successfully endorsed by the search firm to his/her current job and is still gainfully employed. It is the search firm’s duty to disclose these persons (successful placements) whom they cannot actively tap for a new assignment

3. It is likewise the duty of the search firm to transparently inform the client company the identity of any business enterprise that may be an active (ongoing) client. The search firm will be unable to “hunt” or prospect any new talent in said enterprise, for a given grace period

4. Following #3, the search firm is especially off limits from viewing his/her contact person in the client company that he/she is handling as a possible executive talent or candidate for a different search assignment and with another client company.

• It is the responsibility of the Search Consultant to ensure that he/she is not going to be unduly influenced by his/her contact person no matter he/she may “appeal” to be considered & especially if he/she is actually suitable as a potential candidate.

• In the “search world”, this may be described as a “cardinal sin” yet many so-called search pretenders commit without compunction. In this case of absolute absence of ethics, greed is the only motivation.