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The CEO of an American online retailer, Zappos.com estimated that a wrong leadership hire could cost well over $100 million.  Have you ever wondered what the cost of a wrong leadership hire looks like in your business?

You've got to consider final paychecks, company time, costs of interim solutions, loss in production, negative impact on team morale, financial loss and more.

Is it something you can afford to get wrong?

If you're recruiting a senior leader, specifically one within HR, People, or Culture teams, it is a critical decision that can, and will, impact your business.

The right candidate can bring new ideas, drive innovation and lead your team to achieve strategic HR goals. However, this is not always easy. It can be time-consuming and challenging and any mistakes can be costly in terms of productivity, morale, and that bottom line.

Many organisations tackle this by seeking support from an executive search consultant and are much better off for it.

Here's why you could be too.

1.    Access to a wider talent pool

One of the biggest advantages of using an Executive Search Consultant when hiring senior HR leaders is reaching ideal candidates who may not have seen you're even hiring!

Consider engaging with an independent recruiter or search agency with a vast network of contacts in the HR and Recruitment industries who can tap into passive candidates who may not be actively seeking new opportunities. They can reach out to professionals who aren't actively looking for a new role but could be persuaded by the right opportunity.

Not to mention, ensuring that your company's diversity, equality and inclusion objectives are reflected within the hiring process– especially in HR!  They will tailor your search, to ensure the pool of candidates to select from is experienced, skilled, and diverse in their backgrounds.

With access to job boards, professional networks, and reliable assessment tools, they will be best placed to make the process smoother and relevant to the role, leading to better quality candidates coming through the door – your options won't be limited by applications and referrals.

2.   Specialised expertise

It's quite possible that if you're hiring an HR, People or Recruitment leader, they'd be the one to get the job done – but what do you do when you don't have them yet? Engaging with a Recruitment Consultant with experience in Senior and Executive Search, to hire for these roles is often the most sensible solution.

An experienced consultant will have in-depth knowledge of the industry, and the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities. This allows them to understand the specific skills, experience, and qualifications required for senior-level HR positions. They can help you define your requirements and create compelling and inclusive adverts that attract the right candidates.

They also have a trained eye for talent and can identify candidates who may not meet all the job requirements but have the potential to succeed in the role. An experienced consultant will work with you to design an inclusive hiring process that works for everyone by ensuring candidate experience is at the heart of it.

3.   Save time and resources

Recruitment is a time-consuming process that can distract you from other critical business activities and is something you can easily delegate to a consultant.

An executive consultant will dedicate their time to sourcing candidates, screening applications, conducting interviews, providing feedback, and negotiating job offers on your behalf.

They can identify the best candidates for you to select at the final interview stage, saving you hours and even days of sifting through applications and conducting interviews.

By the time you've calculated your own time or your team's time recruiting, and advertising the position – it's highly likely hiring an experienced consultant would have cost you the same or less in time and money.

4.   Reduce risk

The biggest risk for recruiting a new position, particularly at an executive level, and even more so within HR and People teams, is making a 'bad hire'.

When we say 'bad hire', we're talking about going through the whole process of recruitment, paying the costs associated, and onboarding a new team member – to realise they're not the right fit, or, have them decide the role isn't right for them.

What a waste!

Executive Recruitment Consultants can't ensure this does not happen, but we reduce that risk!

They will work with you to understand your requirements, your culture and values to design a robust and inclusive hiring process. Their process will provide you with valuable insights so you can make your final hiring decision with confidence. They will also ensure your candidates get a good feel for what the role will involve through their briefs and the selection process which they will co-create with you.

We recommend working with a consultant with experience in assessing people not just sourcing the candidates. This will ensure your candidates at the senior level, experience a selection process that is reflective of your values and culture.  A consultant with experience in assessments will be confident to recommend the use of legally defensible, reliable and valid assessments ensuring the hiring process works for everyone by avoiding the overreliance on interviews alone.

Finally, we know that confidentiality and discretion are important in all recruitment processes, but this can be particularly the case for executive-level positions. To protect your company's reputation and sensitive information, check that the Executive Search provider upholds the strictest processes to ensure confidentiality when working with potential candidates. Alongside this, and the ability to handle sensitive negotiations and discussions on your behalf – your company's interests are protected at all times.

In conclusion, seeking advice and consultancy from a recruitment specialist can provide numerous benefits for you, your team, and the whole organisation.

Renu Gundala, is the Director of Talent Grader, an Executive Search provider for HR. Renu has a wealth of experience in recruiting senior and C-Suite leaders by identifying, engaging and assessing talent that enhances the values and culture of your organisation. She advocates the use of inclusive recruitment and selection process that works for everyone, be it executive or entry-level recruitment.

Looking for your next HR leader? Get in touch with Renu for a chat.

What do our clients say about us? Read our testimonials.

1. The right test for the right purpose

2. Unintended Consequences

3. The Candidate Experience

4. Data Protection

5. Pick a Reliable and Valid Psychometric Test

Find the Right Test with Talent Grader

Why use online assessment tools for recruitment? 

Browse Online Assessment Tools For Recruitment

Why are psychometric tests used for recruitment? 

Best Psychometric Tests For Recruitment 

Numerical Reasoning Tests

Logical Reasoning Tests 

Situational Judgement Tests

Verbal Reasoning Tests

Personality Assessments

The evidence

How organisations can measure cognitive ability

So, where’s the catch?

Concluding thoughts

• Ensuring 'essential' job requirements are absolutely essential
• Encouraging applicants to disclose their disabilities, by including disclosure opportunities at all stages of the recruitment process
• Ensuring in-house designed assessments (if used) are valid and provide all the information necessary to complete the task at hand
• Considering relevant, valid and reliable psychometric or other similar well-designed tests as part of your recruitment process and offering reasonable adjustments where required
• Communicating well in advance what a selection test will assess and its duration, whilst ensuring it is completely relevant to the job
• Offering flexible working and reasonable adjustments and stipulating this within all advertising material; ensuring that this is a sincere, embedded facet of your working culture
• Implementing a Disability Confident Policy (you can find out more about Disability Confident here)
• Actively seeking out applicants who may self-deselect or rule themselves out for opportunities, but who would be an asset to your organisation
• Seeking out organisations that are already Disability Confident such as Activate Learning. Learn more about their project such as Removing Barriers Rebuilding Lives and Skills Support for the Unemployed (SSU).

  A well-designed talent assessment tool gives all the information a candidate needs to complete the task at hand fully and improves their engagement in the selection process. If you are looking for assessments to make reliable hiring decisions and provide your candidates with constructive and objective feedback, we would be delighted to help. Contact us at  support@talentgrader.com.

We are launching a dedicated platform, Talent Grader,  with all the talent assessment tools and technologies on 3rd November 2020.

For thousands of years observations have been made about how people differ from each other. Now firmly a branch of psychology, often referred to as individual differences or differential psychology, the study of variations in thought, feeling and behaviour has its roots in philosophy. Ideas behind many of the most widely used psychometric assessments can therefore be traced back many thousands of years. For example, Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle wrote on the nature of intellect and Hippocrates, often regarded as the founder of modern medicine, attributed differences in personality to the balance of four humors in the body. Modern psychometric assessments may seem a long way from Greek philosophy, but there is a clear path back to differences that were first described thousands of years ago.

Individual differences and recruitment

Originally developed as methods of describing differences between people, recruiters also use psychometrics as predictive instruments. Variations in areas such as personality, cognitive ability, interests and motivation have all been linked to job performance. By using psychometric tests, we can make distinctions between applicants and identify those who are likely to perform effectively in the job, work well in a specific team or align with an organisation’s culture.

Another potential advantage of understanding differences between people, is the role this can play in diversity. Research published by McKinsey a few years ago makes a strong case for diversity. Looking at the make-up of top teams and boards, they found that companies in the top quartile for ethnic diversity were 35 per cent more likely to have financial returns above the national median for their industry. When it came to gender, those in the top quartile for diversity were 15 per cent more likely to have financial returns above their industry medians. If the figures are that compelling, then why, some years later, is recruiting a diverse workforce still such a challenge for many?

The diversity challenge

Recruiters increasingly rely on psychometrics as part of their decision-making process. As mentioned above, psychometric assessments are some of the most effective recruitment tools we have. They are often seen as measure of potential, due to their association with subsequent job performance. The challenge is that performance on psychometric tests is influenced by a range of background factors. Many of these factors are not randomly distributed but vary according to group membership. Such differences between groups are a significant threat to diversity. The very tools that recruiters often rely on, mean that more candidates from certain groups are likely to succeed in the recruitment process.

It is easy to blame tests for limiting diversity but not so easy to fix the problem. Surely the simple answer is to drop tests, but then what do we use in their place? Research into methods such as CVs, application forms and interviews shows that all can be substantially biased, often far more so than psychometric tests. One of the main issues is that interviewers tend to look for people who are like me but there are also many other biases that come into play. Over-reliance on such methods may only worsen the diversity issue. What about educational qualifications? A few years ago, EY, the global accountancy firm, announced it was no longer looking at A-levels or degrees when recruiting, instead relying on its assessment process that included psychometric tests. They argued that, as educational opportunity was not evenly spread across society, their recruitment process would open opportunity to a wider range of talented applicants. This is backed-up by the UK government’s own data, showing that not all groups attain to a similar level.

Revisiting psychometrics as a tool for diversity

So where does this leave psychometrics? First, we know that when tests are carefully matched against job requirements and used sensitively, they are both effective and legally defensible. Score differences are also not the same as bias. If my tape measure tells me that men, on average, are slightly taller than women, I don’t need to get a new measure. Scores may represent real differences or differences that are not due to the test. For example, score differences between groups may reflect social or cultural experiences or, as the EY example illustrates, differences in educational opportunity. The tests simply reflect these differences. Finally, not all tests display differences between groups to the same degree. Measures of cognitive ability, though highly predictive, tend to show some of the largest differences. Other types of assessments, such as personality and motivation, tend to show far lower, if any, group differences.

Psychometric tests are easy targets when needing to find a reason for lack of diversity in a recruitment process. Often, they are scapegoats. When used well, they offer recruiters insight into diversity - diversity in terms of thought, approach, drive and other characteristics that build strong teams and organisations. These insights need to translate into actions that build and support a diverse workforce. Tests may not be perfect, but they have the potential to be a lot fairer than most of the alternatives.