In a recent survey of C-level and other senior level executives organized by the C-Suite Career Catalysts (http://c-suitecareercatalysts.com), several interesting facts emerged regarding the experience that executives have when in a job search, and working with executive recruiters in particular.
Of those polled, 62% were C-level executives and 38% senior executives at other levels.
Two of the questions touched on the number of recruiters, and the size of search firm, that an executive in transition would typically partner with to uncover job opportunities.
Here are the findings, broken out by C-level executives and senior executives at other levels, with a summary of what the answers to these questions may be revealing, at the end.
As you can see from the chart below, when asked “In a job search, how many trusted recruiters do you usually work with?” 57% of the C-level executives answering this question said that they work with 1-2 executive recruiters, while 24% typically use 3-4 executive recruiters to help in their search. Less than 12% require the services of 5 or more. And 7% do not require the services of executive recruiters.
Of the executives at other levels, 52% said that they partner with only 1-2 recruiters, 35% with 3-4 recruiters, close to 9% reach out to 5 or more, and less than 5% use none.
Interestingly, when asked whether the size of the recruiting company made a difference to them, 43% of the C-level executives stated that they prefer smaller size, or boutique, recruiting firms; only 2% had a distinct preference for larger recruiting companies, and the other half (55%) had no preference.
In the chart below, senior executives also indicated a preference (62%) for smaller boutique recruiting firms, just 4% prefer larger search firms, while 35% had no preference.
What does this tell us?
Executives of all levels show a strong preference to partnering with recruiters in smaller, or boutique, environments and more than half (almost 60% at the C-level) work with only one or two recruiters at a time during transition. So, why is this?
The key can possibly be found in their answers to another survey question, “What do you value most in a recruiter relationship?”, when they said that accessibility, responsiveness, and confidentiality were highly important to them. It appears that the perception is, whether correct or not, that they will receive more personalized service from one or two trusted recruiters and smaller, or boutique, search firms.
If you are a recruiter, what do you say to these findings? What can large search firms do to overcome these perceptions?
If you are an executive, do you partner with recruiters when in transition? If so, how many, typically? Do you have a preference on the size of recruiting company you work with, and, just as importantly, why?
We’d love to hear your thoughts!
Kim Batson, The CIO Coach, http://C-SuiteCareerCatalysts.com http://cio-coach.com
That was a good survey and it reminds me of executive research in Finland which they give business a lot of potential employee that now a days in part of Helsinki they are the leading company on providing executive research.
Posted by: Susanna Hossi | December 2012 at 12:12 AM