All of us want The BEST candidate in our team, BoD members, executive managers, HR personnel, executive consultants but in order to have this, we should all be aligned and work together coherently as a team. Very often, especially in the Balkans, employers decide to take shortcuts, to do things their way by raising the magical wand which often lead to catastrophic misplacements and costs.
Often pitfalls made by foreign employers in the Balkans that should be avoided:
- Waving proudly with a company flag and a big brand company name expecting the candidates to crawl for the job position is a fairy tale! Hello, wake up! It’s long ago D CANDIDATES WORLD everywhere, so you better accept this as your first step to get things started!
- Copy pasting culture and experience from home market into the abroad market. Cultures cannot be copy pasted with a finger click, experiences are different and each market operates in a specific way. That’s why you need a proven executive search consultant with local competences and experience to find the common denominator between what you require and what market has to offer
- Sticking to candidates’ competences and being blind to cultural fit and interpersonal values is a road with blind end. Interpersonal values and cultural fit are the key to any job. Competences can be taught and trained and in the meantime, employee should be supported with a mentor.
- FIAT budget for a MERCEDES performance, sounds interesting. Try it with Matchbox toys and you’ll see that it doesn’t work even there. Remember, what you seed is what you harvest! I suggest you get your salary research report with your trusted consulting partner and be secured with your salary package according to the market level.
- Mismatch between JOB TITLE and JOB REQUIREMENTS. This is same as solving the math exercise with a wrong formula. Call your executive search consultant and make a brief, you will eventually get on the wright track!
- Due to the limited budget, you choose a mass employment agency over an executive search company to fill in a C-level job position. This is same as choosing a sumo wrestler to run a 100 meter sprint race. Remember, if you have a limited budget and you are going for the cheapest service, take an executive search consultant as cheapest service comes with THE best candidate!
- It is less likely that you will use executive search services if you look at it as a cost. Try looking at it as an investment, it will pay off multiple times!
- Executive Search Consultants are not your competitors, especially not if you are an HR person. We are your allies and we work together with you to reach the same goals and to outperform.
- Many things can be done remotely but not ALL, so use your global executive search partners for the local operations to achieve the results that last
During my 20 years of executive search career, I have worked with spectacular business owners, C-Level managers, HR personnel and we have completed successfully very important and demanding executive search assignments smoothly but not easily. If you asked me what would be the KEY to a successful search placement I would summarize it into three conditions:
- Use the resources you TRUST
- Make sure that your executive search consultant has the COMPETENCES in your industry field and in the designated region
- Act as PARTNERS
All other is magic, it will work itself out for THE best candidate experience and performance!
Article written by Rašo Pazarkić, CFR Global Executive Search Serbia.
Photo source: Freepik