Q: Why do some companies have challenges attracting talent? 

A: The secret is: start with the profile of your organization not with the profile of the candidate. Who is your organization, why is it in business, how does your organization run its business? What is the management style, its culture? What does your organization believe in? Try to answers as much as possible to be able to describe your organization to an outsider. Profits are just the results of the action, never a cause. Products should be used to reinforce, not define, who a company is. Because great companies don't offer us something to buy. Great companies offer us something to buy into*. And that is the starting point for finding good talent.

*Simon Sinek

Q: How to find good talent?

A: When you have a clear sense of where you are going, you are flexible in how to get there. Likewise in recruitment: when you have clear sense of the job tasks, you are much more flexible in the candidate profile. And that will differentiate your from all the others looking for the same talent. You will look at the candidates not from the surface but from all sides: you will no longer be interested if the candidate has done the job before but if she can do the job. Weak companies hire the right experience to do the job. Strong companies hire the right person to join their team*. Steve Jobs would have said: “A Players really like working with each other. They don’t want to work with B or C players. It becomes self policing who they let into their team”.

Q: What does a retainer search reveal versus a success fee based search?

A: There is no free lunch. If an organization is paying a recruitment search on a success fee or contingency base only,  what does this tell us? What would this tell us about the agency – is there no opportunity cost to the agency in taking on a search without a possible payment? If a top candidate asked “is this a retainer based search” and the answer was “no”, why would the candidate enter into discussions already realizing many unknown variables? Why hasn't the client engaged a top search firm and is willing to pay for the search? Is it that the client chose an agency as a supplier  they do not feel confident about? Is that how they select their suppliers and their employees? Or is it because of a lack of validity in the vacancy itself? How many other agencies are out there and have failed in searches with the client? Are they apparently lacking confidence in filling that job?  The co-operation with an agency is always a give and take. And in the end there will be no free lunch.