Hiring talent is an intensive and costly process.
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost of hiring a new employee was $4,425 in 2017. That amount is backed up by the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California at Berkeley, which pegged the cost of replacing an employee for all categories of workers at $4,000
More than 80 percent of employee turnover can be traced back to poor hiring choices, according to the Harvard Business Review. Indeed, most experts agree that a bad hire can cost the company significantly more than the cost of that employee’s salary. So, taking steps to avoid these costly hiring faux pas from the outset is important.
But no matter the cost, every company will need to hire an employee at some point, whether because of a recent vacancy or to fill an entirely new position. The ability to hire good talent is key to success. Fortunately, there are many resources for finding new employees and there is rarely a shortage of people looking for work.
However, certain types of positions are more difficult to fill – especially those positions at the top of the company. In situations like this, it often makes more sense to reach out to an executive search firm.
You don’t need to look far for success stories from executive search firms. Chartwell Partners helped NexBank hire its new CFO, for example.
Companies need to find the perfect fit for whatever role they’re trying to fill. And adequate simply isn’t good enough. You need to find someone great. Hiring top-performing talent is what executive search firms specialize in.
Additionally, the need to commit internal resources toward finding a high profile candidate can hold that company back from growing in other ways. Time is money and lost opportunities. An executive search firm can handle the job search while business leaders concentrate on day-to-day operations, building partnerships, and managing existing employee relations.
You won’t always be able to fill an important role from inside the current company ranks. Executive roles are often beyond internal expertise. It may be a matter of all of your very capable employees being too important to move out of their current positions. Or your internal team may not be able to define the parameters of the job and recruit the appropriate talent. If that’s the case, it’s time to look outside of the company.
Many companies are competing to hire the most talented professionals. By devoting capital, resources, and time on finding the right fit, you may end up costing your company more than you need to. For many companies, it may make sense to hire someone to dig through the talent pool and find the exact right fit for the position and the company as a whole. If that’s the case, consider hiring an executive search firm.
