During our discussions with various CEOs, founders and business leaders (over these last four weeks) we’ve heard one consistent message: strategic hires are going to happen in 2020 despite Covid-19.

In light of this encouraging news, we thought it best to provide three reasons why a business leader in a post-Covid climate should engage a Toronto recruitment firm to lead the search of their next strategic hire - the reasons might surprise you.

Let’s Face It: You Don’t Know Everyone

Our experience has shown us when start-ups decide to make a critical leadership hire, it’s because they need to either solve a problem hindering growth or to realize an opportunity to drive growth. 

Our experience has also shown us that most business leaders will require skills and experience that exist in candidates outside of their personal or professional networks.  

The role of a search partner is to identify and engage with potential candidates who meet your company’s specific search requirements. Your search partner’s goal of a successful placement is not limited to a pool of candidates they know or are currently representing. The service a recruitment partner provides is to go out into the market to find, qualify, engage and deliver the right-fit talent FOR YOU. 

The Best Candidates Often Aren’t Looking

As we write this article, the tech industry is experiencing an unprecedented number of company downsizings, layoffs and furloughs. We know from the large number of candidates reaching out to us, while some of the available talent is very accomplished, others are not. 

When an employer’s hiring decision is restricted to only candidates who are immediately available or who are applying directly to their public job posting, then they will be limiting themselves.  

The role of a search partner includes engaging proactively with candidates who are considered “passive candidates.” These are the people who meet your search requirements but who are also currently employed, active in their businesses and not flagged as “open to opportunities.”  

The opportunity for you to include targeted passive candidates, who meet your search requirements, provides you the opportunity to truly make the best decision possible on your next strategic hire.

Leverage a Market Master

Our clients often point out that the reason they choose our Toronto recruitment firm to engage in their search is because of the number of times we’ve done similar searches. In the search industry this is called Market Mastery.

Market Mastery is the practice of providing search services in a scalable repeatable manner over many years, concentrating on a specific function until one becomes an “expert”, or a Market Master.

There are many benefits of engaging a Market Master to recruit for your next strategic hire, but the two most impactful benefits are interconnected: market knowledge and speed of execution.

The service your search partner will be able to provide to you about salaries, trends, market conditions and data concerning the talent pool will increase when you engage a search firm who is a Market Master. 

For example, our firm is considered a Market Master in the functions of Sales, Marketing, Product Management and Customer Success. As a result, we frequently engage with Founders and CEOs in their pre-search planning to help them architect the search strategy.

Market knowledge is tied directly to speed of execution. As mentioned previously, a true search partner is not merely someone representing people they know or those candidates who are unemployed; a true search partner applies their market knowledge to the specific requirements of your search, fills in the blanks with research, and executes swiftly.

If you are ready to engage in a discussion about your next critical hire, reach out to book a complimentary call with us to learn more about the work we’ve done and how we’ve helped other tech companies like yours with their critical hires.