Tired of Unqualified Candidates? How to Find an Executive Recruiter Who Delivers to Your Needs

Your search for the perfect executive could take as little as 45 days or as long as 90 days – though the timeline will vary depending on your specific industry. You need a partner who will work hand-in-hand with you. Executive recruiters learn about your business needs, find the right candidates, and guide you through the executive search process.

Rather than sifting through countless potential (and often unqualified) candidates, an executive recruitment firm cultivates the perfect candidates for you. And they can push the envelope, finding talent that even you didn’t realize you needed.

But if you’ve had a negative experience with recruiters in the past, you’re not alone. To work effectively with your organization—and to work effectively with your potential candidates—you also need the right executive recruiter.

What are you looking for in your next executive?

According to Equilar, the average tenure for C-suite executives has been dropping; it’s now down to a median of 4.8 years, even amongst Fortune 500 companies. But whether you’re a scrappy startup or an established enterprise, you need executives who move you forward both today and tomorrow.

Because you know your business best, the process begins with you.

Begin by defining the qualities and skills that you want to see in your candidates — the nice-to-haves and the non-negotiables.
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Consider how you want to align your search with your company’s values and culture. Think about the aspects that matter most to you regarding cultural fit.
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Situate your hiring around your business goals, whether you’re interested in a business-minded executive or a technical executive. Are you a Series A startup in growth mode — or a PE-owned private company looking to add ARR?

How to vet potential executive recruiters

Not all executive recruiters are made equal. Like most things, you have to cut through the noise to find a great executive recruiter – especially one that understands your hiring needs specific to your company.

Pro tip: the executive recruiter for you can exist outside of your specific industry niche. Not only does this help open the aperture to new top tier candidates, but it gives your company a competitive edge.

The best executive recruiter is one who works to understand your organization, your teams, your business goals, and any translatable experience.

A tell-tale sign that an executive recruiter is one step ahead? During your role intake meeting, they ask role-specific questions you may not have the answer to – or even thought of – yet.

Ask recruiters:

How do you surface potential candidates? Great recruiters are great relationship builders, and have a deep network of contacts they can tap, including executives who are not actively on the market, but would make a move for the right opportunity presented to them by a recruiter they trust who knows what would compel them. Great recruiters also don’t rely on existing relationships or an impressively sized network alone, they deeply understand your needs, then they use strategic research and sourcing methods to go find the people who will meet those needs.
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How do you vet the candidates that you find? And what is your pass-through rate? At the executive level recruiting requires a nuanced approach, balancing the fulfillment of key qualifications, ensuring cultural alignment, and strategically positioning the company for its next phase of growth. Many candidates look great on paper, but we’ve found that typically it’s only 1 in 5 or 1 in 10 who pass the live screen of a discerning recruiter.
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At what stage do you forward candidates to us? The recruiter should properly outline the communication cadence and level of depth throughout the process. This will include when and how they will be submitting candidates for the next step. Once the recruiter has sourced and vetted the candidate, they will curate their screening notes and the candidate’s resume, and forward them to you.

Ideally, your executive recruiter isn’t simply someone who finds candidates and sends over half a dozen or more resumes — they are a consultative partner for your organization. They understand your company and vision deeply enough that their candidates are thoroughly vetted and highly qualified before they are ever presented.

…And look out for these red flags

How can you identify the “wrong” recruiter? It’s important to be aware of potential red flags — the wrong recruiter can waste a lot of your time.

The wrong recruiter:

Boasts about the size of their database. Yes, a large database can be an asset, but what really matters is the quality of the candidates the recruiter is tapping, not the quantity.
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Displays poor communication. They don’t seem to understand your needs (you’re constantly repeating yourself), or they don’t respond on time.
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Throws spaghetti at the wall. They seem to forward you candidate’s that aren’t solid fits, playing a numbers game — rather than carefully curating.
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Submits candidates to multiple opportunities. This happens often when industry specific firms work solely within a niche industry. Often candidates are being submitted to multiple competitors. You could end up finding the perfect candidate only to have them courted away.

At the end of the day, the wrong recruiter will operate as a short-term service provider rather than a long-term partner. When growing your company and needing to hire, efficiency, trust and quality are what matter most. You don’t have time to waste and neither do the candidates!

Behind the Scenes: the executive search process

At Full Umbrella, we build long-term partnerships. We work deeply with our partners to understand their unique needs. Because of this, we provide a service that:

Operates as an extension of your team. By understanding your organization, goals, team, culture, and executive needs, we are able to best represent your organization to potential candidates.
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Is judicious with your time. Through our knowledge and experience, we present only the candidates most qualified for a given role. You are no longer in the position of having to sift through an endless sea of potentials; every candidate we present is the best of the best.
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Continues to deliver value. As a long-term partner, our work is never done. Over 90% of our partners are repeat clients. Not only do we offer our full cycle executive search service, but we have a robust network of diversity consultants, HR-tech partners, and free equity and inclusion events/assets.

When we worked with Rutter, 75% of the candidates we submitted to the hiring manager moved to the next interview round, ultimately placing 6 candidates. Rutter’s team didn’t have the time to find candidates for each specific role. They needed our expertise and a highly qualified and curated list of candidates who were already sold on the opportunity to join their fast paced team.