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Make these 20 projects their focus instead.
➤ Convert those awful job descriptions to job postings to attract talent. Not bore them.
➤ Create Employer Brand collateral – video interviews of leadership and employees
➤ Conduct in depth exit interviews to improve employee retention
➤ Interview and coach your employees to help them grow their career internally
➤ Develop career pathway program so employees easily understand promotion options
➤ Create automations in the ATS to speed up the process during future hiring peaks
➤ Provide training to hiring teams on how to effectively interview
➤ Develop standard hiring processes and assessment methods for “regular” hiring needs
➤ Construct a Succession Plan and process
➤ Create Employer Brand collateral – “Day in the Life” blogs of key teams (sales, customer service, engineering)
➤ Analyze how to handle internal pay equity, especially in relation to external hiring.
➤ Create a program to move pay increases from a COLA to a performance-based system
➤ Gather feedback from all applicants in the last year. Analyze data. Improve hiring experience.
➤ Develop meaningful DEI programs to diversify future applicant pools
➤ Plan early career pipeline and/or internship programs for future use
➤ Identify new associations, universities, meetups, and tools for sourcing
➤ Develop and populate LinkedIn Recruiter projects for recurring hiring needs
➤ Improve process for preboarding (between offer and start date) to decrease fall offs
➤ Improve onboarding and first week experience
➤ Promote hiring team engagement during preboarding. Establish check lists and automations.
➤ Create or refresh your career page content
In case you’re wondering where these ideas came from, I did them during the Covid crisis.
Executive search isn’t some mysterious dark art. You’re not paying for secret handshakes and a magic Rolodex.
But that’s exactly what legacy firms want you to think.
They sell prestige. They sell access. They sell fear. And some companies buy it—because no one wants to screw up a high-profile hire.
Here’s the truth: access is the easy part. Executives respond more than anyone. The real challenge? Fit. Immersion. Results after the hire. And most firms skip that part entirely.
Jeff Smith and James Hornick rip the curtain off the smoke-and-mirrors world of exec search—and explain why most firms are failing their clients (badly) in The 10 Minute Talent Rant, Episode 109, “What Everyone Gets Wrong About Executive Search.”
Episode 109