Insights into the forces shaping our industry.

In over 18 years of professional search, we’ve ‘met’ a lot of people. We’ve had 100’s of 1,000’s of conversations over those years. Of those, we’ve captured over 113,000 individual contacts within our database. Many of those, we’ve had detailed conversations with and have recorded information on qualifications, career moves, education, income, ability to relocate, and much more.

One of the more common responses we have with a new client is that they already know ‘everybody’. Our typical retort is that we have well over 100,000 people in our database, plus we’re connected on social media to over an additional 100,000… the people you ‘know’ are the ones you see. Larger companies only benchmark large companies. Smaller, local companies only benchmark direct competitors and typically only ‘know’ the visible people: sales, mostly. We have over 30,000 companies in our database; all in the electrical industry. Most companies only ‘know’ a dozen or so companies that are competitive to themselves.

One of our largest clients has a history of hiring people from her earlier career… since she feels she ‘knows’ them and trusts them and feels they will do a great job in her company. Yet there is no comparative process of benchmarking the known people versus the unknown.

The typical talent process boils down to contacting the small population of people you ‘know’ or posting jobs on social media or job boards to attract actively looking candidates.

Well, each example is likely to produce talent. Some of those approaches may be successful; most won’t be in this talent market.  But let’s clarify what we do versus how most companies find talent:

1. We work only in exempt positions; generally, from street sales up to C-level. At the lowest levels of our expertise, the minimal salaries typically are above $75,000, and most of our position salaries are beyond $100,000. Our C-level candidates are typically over $250,000/yr. As such, we are not in the ‘staffing’ business, nor are we active in searching for hourly or any non-exempt position. Posting jobs to a mid-management candidate is highly unlikely to be effective; including posting on LinkedIn or Facebook.

2. We focus on qualifications, not ‘who’. Our process is to reach as broadly as feasible and deliver of breadth of candidates; which may include some people you know; but it always includes people you don’t know. The key to identifying talent is to look outside of your field of vision.

3. We deliver breadth and diversity. Our candidates are qualified to do the job; as defined by your specifications. We reach into companies that aren’t on your daily dashboard and include people who may be a ½ step below the title, but are qualified to make the move to that level. The key value is assessment of talent.

Realistically, this is a very competitive market for quality talent. The process to identify the next candidate has to be focused on finding as many candidates as possible; through every means available. Relying on word of mouth, job postings and LinkedIn searches will limit the pool of candidates to the ‘interested’; but not always the ‘qualified’.

We’ve been very fortunate to become the largest, professional search firm dedicated to the electrical industry. In May of 2017, we were honored to be included on Forbes’ Top 250 Search Firms’ list. We’ve grown, we’ve worked with scores of companies and have a tenured staff of people who simply just ‘get it’. We’re part of the industry, we talk with leaders in the industry every day and we share that collective knowledge across our company. For us, talent acquisition is not about sending resumes, it’s all about finding that person that fits our clients’ needs; with the industry savvy to ramp up quickly in their new role.

After 18 years of collecting data.. we’re now poised to add the next level of service to our clients. In February, we will be launching a new platform of services to assist our clients in ‘connecting’ with people. We will be leveraging 18 years of our own connections and offering services that no other firm has ever had the opportunity to offer. A sneak peek:

● Mapping services

● Compensation surveys

● Introduction services

● Matching companies’ products to potential customers

● And the launch of the expanded and improved: electriconnect.com.

2018 will be our best and largest year in our history… stay tuned on how we can help you achieve your best year as well.

Ted Konnerth, Egret Consulting Group’s founder and CEO, recruits on a retained basis, helping leaders in the electrical and lighting industry identify their next C and V-level hire. He is also the executive director for the International Retained Search Associates, allowing him to liaise with skilled recruiters around the globe. To learn more about how Ted can help your company attract talent view his biography, check him out on LinkedIn or email him at tk@egretconsulting.com.