Executive Search Services post Covid 19
Posted on June, 2020
For over 50 years Executive Search Consultancies have focused on resourcing senior level resources for organizations across the globe, as the battle for talent increased in the decades following the Second World War. The industry once again has a new challenge ahead of it, posed by the Covid 19 pandemic. The disruption during the past few months is unprecedented in terms of furloughs, downsizing, cost cutting, freelancing, virtual working with the overall employment market being very chaotic. One large group in the Middle East has even cancelled all the job titles, across all levels, setting off an exploration towards uncharted waters. Will this health crisis that is now an economic crisis, which is crippling all sectors, pervaded all business sizes, across all geographies, be the end of the road for Search Services or an opportunity to re-invent itself and play a much more decisive role than before?.
Executive Search process has gone through several changes since inception. Some of the standard screening parameters such education, work experience, assessments, salary budgets, cultural fit, availability of a resource in a particular location and the timeline to mobilize, in other words the search for the Right Person, for the Right Position, at the Right Price, Right Place, Right Pace as a core deliverable, will continue as before. Search Consultancies who are adept at resourcing through multiple channels and platforms, will continue to add tremendous value in the times to come as organizations will always need that professional advice to attract and recruit strategic talent, who seldom actively search for opportunities.
Organizations are now reinventing themselves through a new pedagogy of how they will operate. With new norms such as work from home, virtual teams, RPA, AI, asynchronous processes, and resource optimization are some of the innovative ways in which business are now being managed. Organizations therefore will need business leaders that are able to operate on a different landscape that is dotted with newer challenges. Most potential leaders would have had limited experience post Covid 19, on how they will lead teams, in a world that has changed so dramatically and hence organizations that are aligned with the Right Search Partner, will be the winner.
Five important elements that differentiate market leaders in the Search industry from others: Sector expertise, Functional expertise, Geographical expertise, Trust and Focus. The pandemic has given some of top Search Consultancies an opportunity to sharpen their strategies, enhance their reliance on techology, reinvent the methodology to be more tactical, last but not the least make the commercial offer more sustainable. Search firms are now making a customized solutions and not a one size fits all model, that previously lasted several decades. Transformation has become the key driver, to stay ahead of the curve. As Zig Zagler said ‘when obstacles arise you change the direction to reach your goal, you do not change your decision to get there’.