EXECUTIVE SEARCH AND YOUR CAREER

HOW TO WORK WITH, AND WHAT TO EXPECT FROM, AN EXECUTIVE SEARCH CONSULTANT – Serge Lamielle, CEO, Neumann International.

Give your professional skills the career they deserve!

In a fast changing world no Executive would leave his asset management to chance. It is even truer when it comes to your most important asset: your professional skills. When looking at real estate or managing your personal finances you can rely on a consultant of some kind.

What about your career management?

Among other professionals like Personal Agents for the top earners of the world or Corporate Coaches paid by you or your firm, Executive Search consultants can be a real asset to help you to manage your career. In addition they are free!

Know how Executive Consultants work!

Executive Search Consultants work for, and are paid by, corporations and not candidates but they need candidates - you!

Executive Search is about helping companies identify, attract, select and retain the best available talented professionals. The scope of the search research can be local, regional or global. In order to be successful it is in the interest of each Executive Search Consultant to specialize by industry sector, technical function or both and to maintain up to date and in depth knowledge of these areas. To achieve this Executive Search Consultants must keep in contact with key players in a given industry, market or function such as clients, prospects, sources, referees and potential candidates. You can be one of them if you play it right!

Gain access to Executive Consultants by helping them and their process!

To complete a search Executive Search Consultants contact many potential candidates, identifying them through various means and tools. A typical Executive Search Consultant is directly or indirectly in contact with more than 200 Executives at a time for the project he or she is working on. No wonder that little time is left for “off-project” marketing and sales activities. Nevertheless Neumann International believes that it is important that Consultants, in addition to candidates they are meeting for specific projects, spend additional time every week meeting unsolicited candidates to deepen their knowledge of sectors and provide career advice.

The best way for you to build a relationship with an Executive Search Consultant is to respond positively when you are contacted as a source, a referee or a potential candidate and spend a little of your precious time taking the Executive Search Consultant’s call! To take their call is the best opportunity to start what may turn into a mutually profitable relationship for your career.

Be Visible!

Instead of writing long resumes on rainy weekends, create opportunities to be featured frequently in the media in order to position yourself as an expert in your profession or industry so that an Executive Search Consultant views you as a valuable source. If you graduated from an educational institution which edits an alumni book, be present in it. Even if it costs you some of your hard earned money it will be money well invested. You will get calls!

Chinese Medicine vs. Galenic Medicine!

Executive Search consultants are like Chinese doctors. They are to be visited when your career is in good health! They are not emergency doctors to call when you are about to lose your position, or when you have already lost it. Especially if they have never heard of you before, or if the last time they heard from you was when you lost your job three or five years ago. Put yourself in their shoes: like any other human, part of an Executive Search Consultant’s judgement is based on emotions and impressions. You want to create a positive impression with them of being successful and in control and able to help them as well as be “helped”. The best time to progress your career and contact an Executive Search Consultant is when everything is going well and you are a “rising star”!