sales management

Differentiated Client Services

Beefed up internal recruiting, heavily invested in social media, working online professional networks and tapping employee networks… these are the new realities of corporate recruiting. Yet mid-large companies struggle to find the right people to help them grow. Why? Most corporate recruiters work too many files, over too broad a spectrum of roles and don’t have the training or business experience to dialogue with senior business or smart, successful sales professionals. Extended searches + unhappy internal clients + unimpressed candidates = negative employer brand.

The key to identifying high potential, high performance is to understand what constitutes an “A” player based on your company’s employer brand, market position and value proposition. Using Gartner’s Magic Quadrant as an example, a bottom left employer is unlikely to attract and retain a top right candidate. Mindspan helps our clients hire exceptional performers using a rigorous five step model which combines performance-based hiring and evidence-based interviewing strategies.

Did You Know…

Over one-half of hiring managers change their hiring criteria during the search process. We help our clients define and maintain focus on the right candidate attributes.

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Executive search Recruiting

Most search assignments begin and end with a job description, yet approximately 75% of the content in a job description is identical for the same role across different companies and industries. A candidate profile is more than a description of duties. The profile should help position the client in it’s industry segment, describe their growth story, the DNA of what the star candidate will look like and tell us how performance and success will be measured. Clarity at this stage improves the odds of success.

Mindspan’s recruiting model begins with definition and developing a performance-based Role Profile.

A successful search is about the effective use of time, not speed. It is not about scanning a rolodex or contact database and making a few phone calls. It is definitely not about using LinkedIn InMail’s for indiscriminate blasts or asking someone you’ve never met to be your friend. Using the Role Profile as a baseline, our search encompasses personal and referral networks, targeted recruiting and the use of social/peer networks. It focuses on passive candidates not actively looking but who will listen to a compelling, interesting story. An average search includes about 85 candidate “touches”.

Mindspan adds quality, thoroughness and credibility. We make the pitch as part of your team.

A good resume is table stakes today. Many candidates provide a list of key business skills Warren Buffet would envy. The filtering process that occurs at this stage combines personal or industry references, reviewing candidate resumes and an initial telephone screen. If there is no depth to back up their story, we move on. We look for continuity and good personal stories.

Mindspan establishes tight linkage between the candidate’s skills, experience and the Role Profile.

Evaluating the candidate pool concludes with face-to-face interviews. While resumes describe what a candidate did in the past, we look for more. We check for consistency and continuity. If a candidate says he took an underperforming territory and built it into a quota-busting super nova, we want to learn how. We look for proof points and examples. We’ll deliver a Candidate Evaluation Profile for each short-listed candidate. To improve objectivity, we evaluate all candidates across five distinct competencies. In many searches, we’ll have 5+ hours invested in each candidate before turning them over to the client.

The evaluation links to the Role Profile. It helps the hiring manager conduct a better first interview.

Managing the offer process is critical to a successful search. Mindspan plays a key role in ensuring that the hiring manager and candidate communicate effectively at this stage. We act as a sounding board for ideas and counter-proposals. If we have done our job, we will have developed a good relationship with both sides and conclude with a win/win decision that forms the basis of a successful future.

Reference checking is based on the same five competencies that we measured earlier in the Evaluate stage, another reference point to validate what we have observed about the candidate.