If you are looking for new members in your organization to fill executive positions, there are several options available for you: you can recruit internally, promoting one of your employees from a lower-level position; you can advertise the job opening the same way as you would advertise your other positions or you can turn to an executive recruitment agency. Unfortunately, internal recruiting is not an option for every company and finding your next executive can also be problematic as most great executives either do not seek a new job actively or, if they do, they find a new position in a matter of minutes, so turning to a recruiting expert might just be the right solution for your organization, too. Here are some tips how to pick the best recruitment agency from all the great, specialized companies available in your area.

Identify the Exact Criteria that You Need Your Candidates to Fulfill

Determining the exact parameters for your candidates is essential for finding not only the new talent you need, but also the recruiters who will find that new talent for you. Make up your mind about what you want, identify the key tasks and responsibilities that come with the position as well as the personality traits, experience and qualification that you need your candidates to have.

Identify the Agencies that Have Experience in Recruiting for Your Industry Segment

Each industry segment is different, so the best executive recruitment agencies to turn to are companies that have experience in working for clients in your segment. One of the most efficient ways to identify such industries is to tap into your network of industry colleagues to ask them to provide you recommendations and opinions about the agencies that they have used. You can also talk to your top-level executives to find out whether they have ever been recruited by such an agency.

Other methods to identify suitable agencies is to use online resources. There are many recruiter directories that you can access for free or for a small fee, you can search for suitable companies on employment-oriented platforms or you can carry out your own research on your preferred search engines to carry out a local search for the company websites of recruiters.

Interview Agencies

When you have a list with three or four agencies that seem suitable based on your preliminary research, contact the agencies and schedule a meeting. During the meeting, ask questions about how long the company has been in the business, about their experience in recruiting top talent for your niche, about the recruitment processes that they use to identify, to approach and to evaluate candidates, about their fee structure as well as about how they handle the interviewing processes. Take notes during each meeting and compare your notes before you make the final decision. Try to think about the impressions that the agency’s representative has made on you and only hire a company that inspires you trust and that you can imagine turning to with your future executive openings as well.