Everyone is most certainly not a candidate. A candidate is an individual who is being considered for a specific job by the organisation in which the job is. In other words they are on the shortlist. Otherwise they are either a potential candidate, an applicant, a job-seeker or a target (search). Understanding which they are is important to ensure the appropriate approach is taken. A target should never know they are a target. In other words the search consultant should never directly ask them if they are interested, as it should not be inferred that the consultant is endorsing their candidacy. Rather, the target needs to become an applicant. So the search consultant should ask them if they know of anyone who might be interested. If the target is in fact interested then they can effectively apply. They will only become a candidate if the recommendation to include them on the shortlist is accepted by the hiring organisation.

By and large, our 30 year experience in executive search and advertised recruitment indicates that the best people for the job are unlikely to be looking for a change. Regardless of the type of position, whether by search or well placed advertising, a comprehensive assignment by a professional, client focused consultant, ensuring discretion and confidentiality, is likely to produce the best possible shortlist.

In the end, we negotiated for the middle ground as the candidate was in an insecure position and didn’t want to jeopardise his opportunity as much as anything else, though walking away was the only real alternative if this was unacceptable to the client, which is a real grind given the work has been done….the balance, we attributed to a “learning experience”

Learning can be expensive.

I agree with your sentiments and would also like to offer a cautionary tale about Twitter/LinkedIn updates.

When I joined Twitter, I intended to use it as a social media tool for my professional persona and consequently linked my Twitter account with LinkedIn. Subsequently, however, due to private contacts/interest, my tweets started ‘crossing over’ and I no longer wanted my tweets to appear in LinkedIn updates. Accordingly, I made appropriate changes to my Twitter settings in order to decouple these two SM tools.

Unfortunately, however, my settings mysteriously reversed and – unbeknown to me – LinkedIn continued to broadcast my tweets!
I reset my settings, only for it to reverse again! My settings were accurate, however my contacts rcontinued to eceive my updates.

This turned into a ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle and was more than a little irritating as you may imagine.

Long story short, it seems to be fine now. However, I have lost a great deal of faith in cross-platorm settings and I frequently wonder how many other people are unwittingly subjecting their LinkedIn contacts with updates that were intended for a different audience?

Agency takes in job and has track record with client at an acceptable informally agreed rate, rates are attempted to be discussed at the outset and client (who is a new employee with company) says not to worry we’ll sort them out later, (remember, we have a decent relationship with the business here) we’re under pressure to get someone on board and don’t want to waste time negotiating for something irrelevant if you fail to deliver.

Agency fills the job (obviously) and client offers a fee at around 7.5%, take it or leave it, that’s all we can offer you due to our budget constraint.

Do you a) Take the money, lose credibility and learn that you should have nailed the rate at the outset accepting that you have misjudged your relationship with the business b) Walk away from the work you’ve already done and get paid nothing c) Grudgingly negotiate for the middle ground or d) something else?

Shaun

A well written blog and very very true, this is similar the way I operate, as people buy into people and the first step in a any business transaction is ” Make friends first” then build rapport and find common ground.

Great blog.