Insights into the forces shaping our industry.

There is a point in almost every executive search when a company tells us they do not want to rush the process. We understand that. Hiring the wrong person is expensive, disruptive and can have consequences that last well beyond that person’s tenure. A senior sales leader, engineer, operations executive, product leader or general manager can have an enormous impact on a business, so companies absolutely should do their due diligence. They should ask difficult questions, involve the right people and make sure the person fits the role, the culture and where the company is going.

But there is a big difference between being thorough and being slow, and too often companies confuse the two. A lengthy hiring process does not necessarily mean you are making a better decision. Sometimes it simply means you are taking longer to make one. While the company is deciding, discussing, scheduling another meeting and waiting for everyone to get together internally, something important is happening on the other side. The candidate is making decisions too. They are forming opinions about the company, the opportunity and the people they would potentially be working with. Every day that passes without communication is part of that evaluation.

This becomes particularly important in executive search because these are recruited candidates, not applicants. There is a significant difference. An applicant sees your opening and raises their hand. They come to you. They have already made the decision that they are interested enough in your company and opportunity to pursue it. They may be actively looking for a job and interviewing with several companies. A recruited candidate is different. In virtually all of the searches we conduct at Egret Consulting, we are approaching people who are not actively looking for another job at all. They are successful where they are, well compensated, respected by their employer and perfectly comfortable staying exactly where they are. They were not sitting at home scrolling through job postings waiting for your position to appear.

We called them. We started the conversation. We learned what might motivate them to consider something different and what would have to be true for them to leave a successful situation. We talked about their career, their current company and what they want to accomplish next. Then we introduced your company, your opportunity, your leadership team and the reasons why considering your opportunity makes sense. By the time that person agrees to interview, significant recruiting took place. Interest has been created where it did not exist before.

That is why companies need to remember that when the interview begins, they are not simply evaluating the candidate. The candidate is evaluating them. Every interaction tells that person something about what it might be like to work for the company. How quickly do people respond? Do they do what they say they are going to do? Can the leadership team get aligned? Do people communicate with each other? Can decisions get made? Are priorities really priorities? You can have a beautiful website and talk about your culture, growth plans, technology, people and vision, but if you take several weeks to provide feedback after an interview, guess which message the candidate is more likely to believe.

We see this play out far more often than it should. The candidate interviews and the conversation goes extremely well. Everyone seems excited and the candidate walks away more interested than when they went in. Then nothing happens. A week goes by. Then another. We follow up and hear that the client is busy, they have not had a chance to discuss the candidate internally, someone is traveling, someone else needs to weigh in or they want to interview a few more people. All those things can be legitimate, but eventually the explanation matters a lot less than the time that has passed. At some point something changes, and unfortunately sometimes that something is the candidate.

Recently, we had a client take more than four weeks to get back to candidates about the next step in the interview process. The company is based outside the United States, where much of the staff takes extended vacation during the summer. That may be completely normal within their organization, but it did not feel normal to the candidates sitting on the other side waiting for an answer. Two candidates withdrew from the process. One raised a question that every company should think about. If this is how long it takes to decide during the hiring process, what happens when I work there and need an answer for a customer? That candidate was no longer simply evaluating the position. He was using the interview experience to evaluate how the company operates. Fair or unfair, that became his perception of the organization, and perception matters when you are trying to recruit someone who does not need your job.

We had another candidate interview, 2 weeks passed and there was still no feedback. We followed up and the company responded twice, explaining that everyone had been busy and they had not had the opportunity to discuss the candidate internally. We understand busy. Everyone is busy. But put yourself in the candidate’s chair for a moment. You prepared for an interview, researched the company, rearranged your workday and probably had to be somewhat creative about taking a conversation without your current employer knowing. You spent an hour talking with company leadership and perhaps started seriously thinking about what leaving your current employer might look like. Then you hear nothing. Candidates rarely interpret that silence as enthusiasm. Eventually they begin to assume that either the company is not interested or the organization simply has difficulty making decisions. Neither conclusion helps you recruit them.

We had another client whose key decision maker was traveling internationally and could not provide feedback after interviewing one of our candidates. Three weeks later, when the client was finally ready to respond, the candidate had already accepted a position with a competitor. That situation is particularly frustrating because the competitor did not necessarily have the better opportunity, the better company or the better compensation package. But that competitor made the decision. The strongest candidates are not sitting in a holding pattern waiting for one company to decide what it wants to do. Good people have options. The best people usually have a lot of them.

Once we introduce someone to an opportunity and they begin seriously considering a move, their mindset can change. They start thinking about what else might be possible. They become more receptive when someone else calls. They may take a conversation they would have ignored three months earlier. You may have been the company that opened the door, but that does not mean you are the only company that gets to walk through it.

Communication becomes even more important when expectations have been set. We recently had another candidate withdraw from a process because the client told him directly that they would have a decision within two weeks. Two weeks came and went with no decision. Eventually four weeks passed before the company provided an answer, and by then the candidate had withdrawn. His reasoning was simple and difficult to argue with. If the company could not keep its word about when it would follow up during the interview process, why should he trust what they would tell him after he joined?

Things happen. Decisions get delayed. Business priorities change. Someone gets sick. A customer issue blows up. Travel gets extended. Candidates understand all of that because they are professionals dealing with many of the same things in their own jobs. What they do not understand is silence. If you tell someone you will have an answer Friday and realize on Wednesday that Friday is no longer realistic, tell them. It does not require a lengthy explanation. A short conversation or email can preserve credibility because the candidate knows where things stand. Silence does the opposite. It leaves the candidate to create their own explanation for what is happening, and that explanation is rarely favorable to the company.

Hiring is a little like dating in that regard. You go on a first date, have a great conversation and there appears to be real chemistry. At the end of the night the other person tells you they had a wonderful time and would love to see you again. Then they disappear for three weeks. At some point, you stop thinking they are busy and start thinking they are not that into you. Candidates do the same thing. If you tell someone they are impressive, that you enjoyed the conversation and that you are excited about moving forward, then disappear for several weeks, your words lose their meaning. Interest needs momentum, and momentum is very difficult to recreate once it is lost.

None of this means companies should make careless hiring decisions or rush through interviews simply because they are afraid of losing someone. Speed and recklessness are not the same thing. The answer is to build the process before beginning the search and then actually manage it. Know who needs to meet the candidate. Determine what each person is responsible for evaluating. Coordinate calendars. Agree internally on what success looks like. Decide what information you need before you can make a decision. If the candidate needs three interviews, schedule three interviews. If five executives need to meet the person, figure out how to make that happen efficiently. If a key decision maker is going to be unavailable for three weeks, address that before candidates enter the process rather than allowing the entire search to stall afterward.

Once an interview takes place, provide feedback quickly. It does not always have to be a final yes or no. There is an enormous difference between needing more time and disappearing. As a search partner, we can keep candidates engaged when there is communication. We can explain that the company remains interested, that another internal conversation needs to happen, that someone is traveling or that the next interview is being scheduled. We can manage expectations because that is part of our job. What is much harder to explain is silence. When we know what the client is thinking, we can manage the process. When the client goes silent, the candidate starts writing the story themselves.

Companies spend enormous amounts of money building their brands. They carefully manage what customers see and experience. They develop websites, marketing materials, mission statements and value propositions. They talk about responsiveness, innovation, customer service, culture and being easy to do business with. Your hiring process is part of that brand whether you recognize it or not. The candidate is experiencing your company firsthand, and unlike the carefully written language on your website, the hiring process shows them how the organization behaves when something requires communication, coordination and a decision.

That matters even more in the electrical industry because this is a much smaller world than people sometimes realize. Power distribution, lighting, automation, wire and cable, renewables, and cybersecurity are interconnected markets. People know each other. Careers cross manufacturers, distributors, rep agencies, contractors, integrators and utilities. Candidates talk. A poor hiring experience does not necessarily stay between you and one candidate, and neither does a great one. We have seen candidates who did not get the job walk away with tremendous respect for a company because the process was professional, timely and transparent. We have also seen candidates lose interest in companies they were genuinely excited about because the interview process felt disorganized. That is completely avoidable.

There is another mistake companies sometimes make. They recruit aggressively until the candidate agrees to interview and then suddenly switch completely into evaluation mode. We think that misses an important part of the process. Of course you are evaluating the candidate, but you are still recruiting them. You are recruiting them during the first interview and when you schedule the second. You are recruiting them when you answer their questions, when you provide feedback and when you explain why the opportunity is worth considering. You are recruiting them when you make the offer, and you are still recruiting them while they are deciding whether to resign from a company where they may have spent the last five, ten or fifteen years. Never assume interest simply because someone agreed to interview. Interest still must be earned.

We hear constantly about shortages of experienced engineers, sales leaders manufacturing leadership and people who understand the increasingly complicated demands being created by data centers, electrification and grid modernization. Companies tell us these people are difficult to find, and they are right. So when you finally find one, why would you make it difficult for them to join you?

You cannot control everything about the talent market. You cannot control whether a competitor calls your candidate tomorrow, whether their current employer makes a counter offer or whether another company is willing to pay more. You can control your process. You can communicate. You can respect people’s time. You can get the right people involved early. You can make decisions and do what you said you were going to do. Most importantly, you can remember that the interview process works both ways. While you are deciding whether someone is good enough to work for your company, they are deciding whether your company is good enough for them to leave a successful career to join.

The companies that understand that will continue to win talent. The ones that do not may continue wondering why the best candidate went in another direction.

Sometimes they did not go in another direction because the opportunity was better.

Sometimes you simply took too long to give them one.