Talent Acquisition Strategy
Talent acquisition is an initiative — an expansion of your overall talent capability mix, with specific goals and objectives.
Design firms build value through people and leadership. Our goal is to clarify the roles that you need, and then identify the right candidates for them. Your firm should be a place where the candidate can thrive, fitting into a culture with shared values, goals, and objectives. This will enable you to build your competitive advantage with dynamic teams that meet the changing needs of your business.
Step 01 – Discovery
As a first step, we like to spend some time with you in your offices, to learn more about all of you, the projects that you have completed, and the projects currently underway. To be effective with this assignment, it’s important for us to know who you are, what you do, how you approach your work, and how you measure success within your practice and with your clients and alliance partners.
Step 02 – Search Initiation
Search Criteria
During the Discovery process, we gather information that will allow us to fine-tune the position description and criteria, as well as role and responsibilities.
We will also define parameters for geographic location, hybrid or remote work options, willingness to travel, and relevant work status (eg, citizenship or work permit), as well as salary range (for publication), total compensation, and benefits.
Marketing for Talent
We will work with you to develop an “advertorial” approach to the profile and its scope of responsibility (job description or JD), as well as the proposed compensation range for the position (to be included in any job posts or ads).
We will want to work with your Marketing/Communications team to develop a ‘snapshot’ that we can provide to key resources, as well as prospective candidates.In addition to an advertorial JD, the snapshot might include information on key leaders and information about your organizational ecosystem, as well as your purpose, vision, and culture.
We can discuss whether you have the capability to assemble the snapshot, or whether we should take the lead.
Step 03 – Research + Outreach
We will develop a target list of potential prospects and key resources, sharing the advertorial JD and snapshot with individuals who may become candidates or lead us to the right people.
Generating Buzz
We will work with you to use social platforms to raise awareness about the opportunity, coordinating with you (and your clients, if necessary) when using project images.
We will also assist you in posting the position on specific sites or with relevant professional associations, to take advantage of the audience they can reach.
Covert Searches
It’s challenging to conduct covert searches, without revealing that you are our client. Despite the best of intentions, people always want to know who they would be working with, and after an initial conversation, they are likely to put the puzzle pieces together on their own.
We are sometimes able to frame our inquiries as organizational expansion, rather than an employment search. This is more effective than attempting to keep searches covert.
STEP 04 – Qualification + Selection
Our goal is to identify a minimum of 3 to 5 prospective candidates in whom you will be interested.
Qualification
During our search process, we will filter, vet, and qualify potential candidates and make recommendations regarding next steps in the process. We typically conduct initial interviews via video and then make consult with you regarding in-person interviews.
In addition to candidate interviews, we also conduct background reconnaissance, reaching out to available resources to learn more about the individuals, including critical success factors related to their experience and performance. Note that this information can be developed not only by speaking with employers, but also the “C-Suite” of collaborators that are involved with the design process, such as clients, consultants, contractors, and other decision-makers.
As consultants, we can frame the reconnaissance to be an aspect of our strategic services; eg, information for a professional alliance or project pursuit.
We will also ask candidates for professional references; although most candidates prefer that this happens only after the client has made a commitment to move forward.
Internal Candidates
Although we are not responsible for vetting internal candidates, we would welcome an opportunity to compare notes with you regarding their potential for the position.
You may also want us to interview your internal candidates so we can compare them to external candidates.
Either way, this experience would help us gain more clarity about the criteria that you are using to qualify candidates, as well as the depth of talent within the firm.
Compensation for Talent Acquisition Services
Basic Services
Unlike most recruiters, with fees based on each placement, we consider talent acquisition to be a consulting service — an expansion of your talent capability mix and leadership ecosystem. For each assignment, you may hire as many candidates (or other referrals) as you’d like, without placement-based fees.
For each specific role, we recommend that you budget a fee range equivalent to 30% of the anticipated salary/compensation.
However, our compensation is based on professional billing rates for the time we invest in representing you in the search effort. Once we define the search parameters, we will develop a milestone fee based on our anticipated workflow. Note that our fees are exclusive of reimbursable expenses, including the costs of ads and job postings, as required.
We track our billable time, but most of our clients prefer to have monthly progress invoices (similar to a monthly retainer) so they can plan their cash flow. At the end of the Discovery Phase, we will confirm the milestone fee range, and will develop a roadmap and distribution of estimated progress invoices.
Additional Services
In the course of our work with you, we may discuss additional scope items for implementation. Although some of them might become the responsibility of members of your staff, those that are assigned to the Talentstar team would be billed on the basis of professional billing rates, as outlined in our Standard Terms of Engagement.
In addition, our Basic Services for Talent Acquisition are separate from other consulting services, such as go-to-market strategy, leadership and organizational development, merger and acquisition, or ownership transition.
We would be happy to discuss specific additional services and provide estimated fee ranges for that work.