Acquisition of Top Executives – 15 Steps to Build Trust in the Search Process

To create a relationship between the organization seeking top talent and the company for executive search and selection, gaining trust is crucial as it is the only and most important prerequisite for achieving additional value for the client and ensuring that the promises made at the time of agreement will be fulfilled.

What are the main signs and foundations of trust? How can those seeking top talent and those searching for them move away from transactional exchange – characterized by contracts, costs, and profit – towards a transformational relationship based on mutual understanding, respect, joint investment, and benefit? What activities and attitudes must be built to lay the foundations of trust?
To bring you closer to the idea, we will go through fifteen points important for building trust in the search and selection process, from the beginning to the offer, keeping in mind the old saying: Trust comes on foot and leaves on horseback.

1. Together in Business

Seek a level of excellence and personal investment. It is not particularly difficult to recognize an organization for executive search and selection whose partners base their work on first-class resumes and extensive networks of top talent. It is also easy to find entrepreneurial companies whose founders or partners are diligent and interested in the future of projects. Certainly, it is harder to find talent search companies whose partners combine all these qualities with personal investment of effort, time, and dedication to the job. Therefore, it will be worthwhile to establish cooperation with any partner in the search and selection company if trust, which they will personally invest in building a relationship with you, is important to you.

2. Eggs in One Basket

Consider the benefit of each partner’s loyalty in the process. Many companies seeking top talent are constantly looking for new suppliers. Some have many in the chain. What is missing is a productive and trustworthy relationship. A long-term relationship with a good firm brings us great benefits. A better understanding of your company and key players deepens strategic thinking and proposals, encourages the desire to take on tasks in important but less lucrative businesses, or delivers in-depth analyses of the company’s market position, rather than just searching for and finding candidates, with both good and bad news clearly presented to the client. It is important that the partner for search and selection is honest and businesslike enough to prefer recommending an internal candidate over one they found who is more profitable for the partner. Expect the partner to invest time in building a mutual relationship, even when there are no signs of new business.

3. Unbilled Hours

If you only talk to your partner for executive search and selection when you are looking for a new person, you are not getting the right level of service from them. Your true partners must know your company and be constantly updated on changes, as well as all market changes that are important to you. Frequent contact or a brief conversation with an impartial, trustworthy external observer (partner) can bring you unexpected insights and information. This means that ongoing contacts are mutually valuable and cost nothing but your time. As a manager, you likely meet with your financial advisor from time to time – so why not do the same with your partner/advisor in executive search and selection? It will be worthwhile to establish cooperation with any partner in the search and selection company if trust, which they will personally invest in building a relationship with you, is important to you.

4. Elasticity of Boundaries?

Insist on transparency that shows which candidates and competitors are off-limits. There is always a fear that the partner who delivered your global marketing director today will ‘steal’ your financial director tomorrow. Therefore, before engaging that partner, ensure that your trust in their integrity is backed by a promise that your people are untouchable. It would also be good to find out who else is untouchable for you. Some consultants in this business want to conceal their conflict of interest as often more than half of potential candidates are ‘off-limits’. So be assertive and ask which of your competitors is off-limits.

5. Low-Hanging Fruit

Expect strategic objectivity and commercial self-control from your search partner. A good free position is better than a bad appointment. The search and selection of senior managers is not just about filling an empty chair, especially if that chair is in management. An effective and trustworthy search and selection partner will first strive to assess and evaluate all elements of that position and job. They must understand your business well enough to take a strategic view and advise you on whether the position is sufficient to achieve goals or if additional personnel should be considered. Filling a function and position is good, but filling strategic needs is even better. Expect the partner to raise an alarm, even if it temporarily disrupts momentum.

6. The Power of a Raised Hand

Clients often fail to realize that it is possible to change the direction of a project after we have started. The first steps we take can always be valuable as they allow for a quick change of plan. Is the appointment feasible? Is there such a person? Do we need a marketing director with a doctorate or is an internal candidate a better choice? A good search and selection consultant must have sources to find this out and knowledge about it. And, of course, a good trusted consultant will emphasize this and seek to change the plan if necessary.

7. Let’s Throw the Maps in the Air

Explore unexplored areas together with your search partner. According to our experiences, organizations that need top talent often believe they need candidates whose current job closely resembles the job on offer. Some partners often push for research in the same industry as it narrows and simplifies analytics and research. In fact, especially at the management level, key management skills can be transferable across industries and sectors, often even functions.
If your primary goal is to find someone who will drive change, accelerate work, and motivate your own team, why limit the candidate pool to your own sector? Especially if you are interested in new ideas or support for changing strategies. Moving away from familiar areas means trusting your search partner to lead the process in areas that lie beyond the narrow scope of our work.

8. You Get What You Give

Be clear in expressing your preferences. When the search and selection process for senior managers fails, mutual attacks follow due to mistakes. For example, in the interview, you thought you found the ideal candidate. Six months later, you are dissatisfied and somehow at odds with the new employee. They simply did not fit into your company culture (or personal style). And this is not uncommon. Professional search and selection companies need to prevent this. They need to understand the company culture, its business strategies, and clearly communicate them to candidates. In this case, the confidential relationship built between the client and the search and selection partner makes the situation more open and creates opportunities for easier overcoming such risks.

9. Welcome to Our Kitchen!

Beware of those who conduct research in secrecy. Your appearance and composition of the management office likely depend on the composition and team of your partner in this process. The success of your next search is not only in the hands of the consultant you are working with but also in the hands of people you will likely never meet – the research team. You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince, which is why we say that searching and selecting is the job of kissing frogs. Therefore, the candidate search process must be very thorough and professional. It is not just about sophisticated data management. It is crucial to analyze the necessary skills and talk to an observer who knows those skills. Good research will always provide clear data on other aspects of your process, your business, company, and operations, from the candidate’s perspective and how they perceive them. If your relationships with the partner in this process are open and their team has professionally done their job, they must be capable and interested in sharing with you other information they have learned in the process.

10. There Must Be News

Expect weekly reports from your partner – even when there are no major updates. Trust is also a result of communication, and it is natural to feel the need for constant confirmation of progress in the process. You are paying a not insignificant amount for these services, yet often during the research phase, silence prevails. This is not good. You need to seek and expect your partner to regularly report to you, even when in the initial phase we are just going through the list of candidates and building it.

11. Understanding Frustration

Check whether the candidate is participating for positive or negative reasons. Their frustrations are often a valid reason for changing jobs. Blocked career development, inability to participate in decision-making, stifled communication… these are all clear signs. Your search and selection partner must carefully listen to candidates and their opinions about the job they are doing, remain focused on the main messages, and build an atmosphere of trust in which candidates feel secure enough to openly share their views and thoughts. It is also important that in such an atmosphere they take responsibility for identifying the attractiveness of the new position – emotional and rational.
Additionally, there is your employer who can lose a lot with your departure. Your offer may be contested. If you are slow at this stage, candidates may conclude that your intention is not serious, and existing employers may preemptively protect the candidate. The burden is on you (and your search partner, if you have one) to build trust at an acceptable pace in negotiations, clearly showing that your desire is serious, protecting the candidate with all good reasons that suit them from other offers.

12. Maintaining Momentum

As the stakes rise, keep the candidate. Discovering candidates is often just part or half of the battle. The other half can often be much more demanding than the first. By now, most candidates will perceive your attention and communication as a form of flattery, and it becomes increasingly clear that the process at this stage is becoming more serious as it relates to the candidate’s future, often the future of their entire family. Choosing between the devil they know and the devil they have yet to discover involves emotional and rational factors, so it can be a very stressful process.

13. Gross High, Net Scary

Build a complete approach to the candidate’s financial interests. At high management levels, money will not buy someone’s love if half of what is offered goes to the tax authorities. An offer of a salary increase of 25 to 30 percent can transform into a fairly invisible incentive after all taxes and costs are deducted, even for those who are dissatisfied with their current position. Therefore, think about other models of legal payments that you can implement through long-term taxation or add packages with capital long-term income. It is certain that this alone will not help you prepare the right offer, but it will show the attention you pay to the candidate and care beyond standard schemes – all of which builds faith that your intentions are sincere and professional.

14. Distance in Approach

Give your search and selection partner space for experimentation. Never give a candidate an offer before discussing it with your partner for that process. If your offer is rejected, the whole atmosphere will become somewhat sour. Remember that your partners in this business are experienced and you need to trust them in giving ideas before formalizing the offer. They can explore which parts of the package will attract the candidate, they may discover that a certain candidate will not come to that position as long as manager A is there. In short, they can experiment and explore (you cannot) without ruining your credibility. This is part of the services you are paying for, so fulfill it completely. Such work, we will mention again, depends on the level of trust. The more we trust the partner, the more we will allow them to experiment.

15. From Trust to Economics

Correctly assess the real stake. The actual commission you pay for the search and selection process is the smallest of all costs you incur in bringing a new person into the organization. We invite you to consider costs such as relocation, adjustment time, the possibility of success or failure, team morale, and penalties for mistakes. You must also account for other costs that are often overlooked, e.g., quantitative – managerial hours you must invest in this process, or qualitative – loss of credibility.
If you do this and calculate all indirect costs of a process, you can conclude that using external services in the search and selection of candidates is not so expensive and is worth the investment. Additionally, you are investing in building a trusting relationship with a partner who brings you many benefits beyond success in the project. It is normal for those of us in this business to believe in this, but years of success in building long-term relationships with demanding clients show us that we are right.