Our Insights

Finding the right people for your organization is the most important work that you can do for long-term sustainability and success.  The quality of your people is going to have a direct impact on how your business lives and breathes in competitive marketplaces.

It’s for this reason, of course, that there is an entire industry built around finding the right people.  Across a wide range of use cases, price points, and focus areas – you can work with firms of various types to find, attract, hire, and retain those top performers that can help your company grow and develop.

For leadership and critical roles, executive search firms can be incredibly valuable for some of the following reasons:

• Leverage their networks.  Some companies believe that they can avoid using executive search firms because they can crawl LinkedIn, and all the other online networking and job platforms out there – to access the same people in a more direct way.  This is incredibly far from the truth.  Executive search firms create value for their clients because of the networks that they build in the course of their operations.  

The truth is that top performers aren’t answering job postings on the internet or sending out resumes.  An executive search firm applies a lot of leg-work in finding the right people for your organization, regardless of whether they are actively looking or not.  And that’s just not something that you can achieve on your own.  The leveraging of these networks and the built up relationships already in place, can be the difference between hiring someone good and somebody great.

• Professional Excellence.  The next misconception that some companies hold is that their internal HR department is best suited to finding the right talent, and that it doesn’t make sense to hire an executive search firm.  Again, if you hold this idea under the light a bit, you’ll come to realize that this just isn’t the case.  An executive search firm has one purpose, and one core mission that they have built the entire company around.  This intense focus means that they build the sorts of skills that you just can’t replicate in an HR department that is dealing with a number of different things.  

This is especially true in high-stakes executive recruitment where the decisions really matter.  You want to work with a firm that has sharpened the sword time and time again, because that professional excellence is what will deliver the results that you’re after.  You shouldn’t be skimping here.  Work with professionals and you’ll find that you get much better results.

• Exponential ROI.  One the major criticisms that are sometimes levelled at executive search firms is that their fees are too high.  When you look at the pricing structure in isolation, it can feel like an irresponsible use of resources if you aren’t looking at the bigger picture.  The truth of the matter is that these firms are priced on value.  They understand the compounding impact that a great hire can have on the future success of an organization, and they price their services in a way that allows them to put in the necessary work to find those needles in the haystack.  

While it may look easy from the outside, it’s actually an incredibly difficult business to be in – because of the fine lines that you’re dealing with in every individual case.  But, when you get the right talent on board – the return on that investment can be significant.  Your people are your greatest asset, and if you can bring on board a leader that can transform your organization for the better, you’ll see that investment paid back by orders of magnitude.  

Remember, you’re not just hiring to fill the position.  That person’s influence is going to trickle down through the organization and have an impact on everyone underneath.  When you look at the big picture, it should become clear as to just how important it is to get the right person in the first place.

• Fresh Perspective.  When you’re working in your business day in and day out, you become accustomed to the ways that things are done, and you can begin to fall into a certain groove because of how your company tends to operate.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can close you off to certain people and ways of thinking that might be valuable for you as you navigate the complexities of your competitive landscape.  

An executive search firm will take the time to understand your business and what you’re trying to achieve, but they’ll also give you a fresh perspective that can be extremely valuable.  As an objective third party, they can often find an executive with complementary skills that can augment and improve your organization in ways that you never could have seen.  This is worth its weight in gold.

These are a few of the benefits of working with an executive search firm and they really can make the world of difference to your long-term success.  Not every firm is created equal, of course, but if you work with the right partner, they can become the perfect ally to find and hire top talent that can move the needle for your business.  It’s these hiring decisions that can make or break your organization.

At The Deshpande Group, we have years of experience in doing just this for our clients and we’d love to work with you.  We go above and beyond to scour the market for the right people for your unique needs, which can become important assets on your journey forward.  Every placement is carefully curated with a nuanced understanding of your organization and what its overall mission and culture is.  This way, we can ensure that we help to catalyse the growth and development that you seek, regardless of where you are at present.

Get in touch today and let’s see how we can help.