Recruiting for senior leadership roles can be hard. Think of the qualities you desire in your senior team: reliability, top-drawer leadership skills, and the acumen to spearhead the growth or transformation of your business. The challenge is not only to find the best in the market, but to engage with them and persuade them that their work life could be demonstrably better working for you.
At SPE Resourcing, we believe that a generalised, broad-strokes approach isn’t going to serve you or any candidates well. In our experience, the best candidates are generally in senior roles already, well remunerated and probably not considering a move outside of their current business. For this reason, you need to work harder to attract and educate top talent, with recruiters who act as a buffer for, and extension of, your brand.
As one of the top executive search firms for hospitality, retail, leisure and private equity, we know a thing or two about the benefits of hiring a specialist. Here they are…
In our view, no recruiter can say a thing about your ideal hire unless they’ve spent time in the same sector, with their boots on the ground. Filling board of directors positions and other executive staffing roles requires in-depth knowledge of where you rub shoulders against the competition.
What are the skills that other companies are acquiring? How can management techniques prove themselves for increased revenue or brand awareness? In short, where does natural talent overlap with the pressures, timescales and processes you’ll put at the heart of the vacancy?
Organisations are stronger when they see the bigger picture. This is one part of what a specialist recruiter does – isolating the strengths your company has, as well as potential weaknesses, to source a leader who can really address them.
Searching for a candidate can seem like a numbers game. But by focusing on quality over quantity, SPE doesn’t waste a moment on people who are there as a ‘reserve’ choice. No – instead, every single prospect is contacted because they’ve earned the privilege, either in their current work or past experiences.
This careful, selective process goes both ways i.e. for the candidates and the clients we serve. Our executive headhunters get to know your business and its people intimately; throughout the hiring process, we’ll stay in touch and ensure that, if something changes, we’re right there, adapting our candidate search to keep pace with it.
What’s more, because of the close relationships we maintain with both clients and candidates, we’re able to easily identify potential matches. We can head back to someone who – potentially – hasn’t been in the hiring line for several years. Now, however, things could be different; they already trust our judgement, so we can bring them in for a serious discussion about what they might offer.
None of what we’ve described can be said of a typical recruiter. Even an in-house hiring process, in all probability, won’t match the time, attention and rigorous quality that we provide. In-house teams, for all their strengths, rarely have the strength of network we have, and more saliently the independence and objectivity a candidate can crave. Furthermore, it’s tough to put the word out for executive staffing unless you know who to talk to. Leave it with us – we have a lot of influence in the retail, hospitality, private equity and leisure markets, and know exactly where to look.
Interested in partnering with a specialist recruiter? It really is a no-brainer… Contact us for more information, and turn the first wheel on your executive search journey.
