How to Configure Talenture RS for Executive Search Process

Overview
Talenture RS includes full functionality for managing executive search process of staffing firms. This article explains differences between executive search and regular recruiting agency processes and how you can use the facilities offered in Talenture RS for implementing your executive search practice.

1. Differences Between Executive Search and Regular Recruiting Agency Process
Executive Search (also called Head hunting) is an important part of recruiting activity for high level positions which is also sometimes used for middle level openings.

This is a specialized type of sourcing wherein the recruiter relies on networks and referrals to find the ideal candidates and not through a database or applicant write-ins.

It is used to recruit candidates for niche/senior level positions as such candidates are passive i.e. do not actively apply for vacancies or upload their resumes on Job Boards.

Headhunting is a research based process involving reading up on the industry, available talent, target companies etc. It typically starts broadly; gradually drilling down to a few.

Some examples of headhunting are:

• High level team recruiting for the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for their organization.

• Executive Search firm working on a mandate for hiring VP of Operations for a client.

2.Talenture RS Facilities for Executive Search
Talenture RS includes full functionality for managing headhunting for external placement as well as internal hiring scenarios. The following features directly support executive search/headhunting processes:

a. Headhunting Candidate Leads
You can use the ‘Headhunting Lead’ option to identify and track candidate leads.

• Such Headhunting Leads are private to the user adding them. This is to maintain confidentiality of candidate leads generated by each headhunter as well as recognizing the lead generation efforts of individual team members.

• Since initial headhunting research phase mainly involves gathering and refining candidate information, even key details such as the name, contact number etc. may not be known and are thus not publicly shown.
  
  

• Convert Headhunting Leads to Full Candidates when core details are updated, becoming part of the active candidate pool. Once converted, the candidate can be shortlisted for jobs and will appear in searches.

b. Private Candidate Pool
Talenture RS provides the Private Candidate Pool to store candidates that need to be maintained as confidential or for exclusive access of a specific user.

• This can be used for managing your headhunting process where you need to source and follow-up with senior level candidates for critical positions.

c. Collections
You can use the Collections feature in Talenture RSsegregate and organize candidates in your database as per organizational/industry mappings etc. to enable easy and efficient access to relevant candidates.

• Use Collections to maintain candidates whom you need to track for current or future Jobs

• Maintain candidates from whom references can be generated for prospects in dedicated Collections

• Segregate candidates into Collections based on seniority, industry, role etc.

d. Candidate/Job Mandate customizability
Talenture RS enables customizing screen and data elements for storing and tracking headhunting details.

• You can create User Defined Fields to track information specific to headhunting leads and Job mandates.
  
  For example, use the Screen Designer to add a block having past roles, reporting managers, number of reportees, role preferences etc. Then capture these details while screening executive level candidates. 

Also, you can customize the Job screen for capturing specific details of the mandate such as competing companies in which to headhunt, research parameters for recruiters etc.

The following screenshot shows an example of a customized Job screen for capturing details related to the executive search process:

e. Unlimited Documents for Recruiting Objects
You can capture rich information for focused and efficient executive search using the extensive document support for key recruitment objects:

• Attach unlimited supporting documents to Jobs, Candidates, Clients objects.

• Add additional document categories of your own to organize documents for each object. So, you can add document categories such as ‘Research Document’, ‘Organogram’, ‘Industry Mapping Document’ etc.

• For example you can capture/track the following types of information:

  • Client company/industry profile

  • Organogram document for companies in important industry segments.

  • Research strategy guidelines for specific types of job mandates

  • Supporting documents for candidates such as background verification.

f. Customizability of Workflow Terminology
You can modify default terms that Talenture RS uses for workflow stages and statuses to align the terminology to match your company’s executive search practices.

• Modify the name of each workflow stage and its related statuses.
  
  For example you can change the name of the ‘Availability Check stage to ‘Organization Fitment’ to better reflect the action performed.

• Once modified, the new terms are reflected across all parts of the system such as in the job activity actions, filter values, report views etc.

g. Multiple Role Workflows & Role Sharing
Talenture RS offers flexible workflows to facilitate efficient allocation of work on critical mandates and also provides sharing of work.

• Role Isolation: You can use the Maxima workflow to isolate work roles among recruiters. So you can assign specialized roles on mandates such as candidate interfacing to experienced recruiters while assigning back-end sourcing roles to junior team members.

• Work Sharing: This feature enables recruiters to collaborate & share roles on job requirements. You can use this to distribute involved processes such as research work, talent mapping etc. among multiple team members.

h. Fine Grained Permissions
Talenture RS allows you to organize user permissions at both module and feature levels enabling flexibility in controlling access to functions and modules as per your recruiting practices.

• You can control access to the Private Candidate Pool module to specific recruiters who need to maintain confidentiality of candidates while allowing other recruiters to share candidate details in the Public Candidate Pool.

• Set permissions to control creation/editing of candidates, job mandates etc. for each team member.

h. Work Management & Tracking
Use the work management and productivity tools included with Talenture RS for supporting and increasing the efficiency of specialized activities for executive search.

• Notes: The Notes feature enables creating memos for maintaining descriptive snippets of information which a user may store and want to refer to periodically.
  
  You can use this for capturing and storing details of your research work on specific industries and mandates. This eliminates using external tools for the same purpose and ensures that all of your work related to job mandates remains easily available for reference within Talenture RS itself.

• Tasks: When interacting with senior level candidates for critical positions professional and proactive interactions are a must. Use Task items with reminders to ensure timely follow ups for each candidate/client touch point such as mandate discussions/clarifications, screening follow ups etc.

3 Data Elements to Configure/Customize for Executive Search
In order to implement an executive search process in Talenture RS you need to identify all data elements to be tracked for different objects such as candidates, jobs etc. 

a. Data Customization
List the additional details you want to track for objects related to executive search apart from the pre-defined fields already available. Then create User Defined Fields for these so that complete details for each object can be stored. These objects would include:

• Candidate

• Candidate Leads

• Jobs

• Clients

• Contacts
  

b. Customize Screens/Views
Decide on the key data points to be stored for recruitment objects and process to be followed. Then customize the structure of the detail/list views for maximum efficiency in capturing and referring to details. 

• Use the Screen Designer to customize the screen to align with your process.
  
  For e.g. you can add a separate section in the Candidate screen for ‘Organizational Fitment’ which groups fields related to this to enable more focused screening. You can also hide fields that are not relevant to your process.

• Similarly, you can customize specific list views such as Added/Refreshed Candidates, Shortlisted Candidates etc. to hide/display columns as per your requirements.
  
  The following screenshot shows an example of a customized Shortlisted Candidates list view having user defined columns as per the executive search process:
  
  

4. Recruiting Process Elements to Configure/Customiz
Apart from data elements you also need to finalize the process elements to facilitate your executive search process. 

a. Recruiting Workflow
Talenture RS offers multiple workflows to cater to varied team sizes, processes & styles.  

• Flexi/Strict Workflows: Since executive search process requires a high degree of adherence to a laid down process select the Strict version of workflows. This will enforce a fixed sequence of workflow steps mandatory to follow by recruiters when working on positions.

• Basic/Maxima Workflows:

  • Select the Maxima workflow category since typically in executive search different roles on a job mandate are isolated from each other. For example, candidate interaction is done by specialized/senior level recruiters while sourcing/research is done by junior recruiters.

b. Workflow Terminology

• List the terms used within your organization for key stages of the recruitment process such as candidate screening, fitment, offer discussion etc. and map these to Talenture RS’s recruitment Stage and Status names.
  

• Modify Talenture RS’s Stage & Status names as per your mapped list of terms.

c. Candidate Submission Elements
Finalize the elements to be included in your candidate submissions to clients for job mandates and create templates/formats for these in Talenture RS. These elements include:

• Format for Submission: Executive search agencies always need to submit resumes to clients in PDF format. So select 'PDF' as 'Format to Forward' for clients.
  

• Facesheets: This is the format for the candidate covering sheet/assessment sheet to be included in submissions. It is suggested to select an 'Advanced Face Sheet' format which supports sections/sub-sections, rich formatting etc. for the highest quality of submissions.
  

• Candidate Trackers: Format for Excel summary sheets of candidates to be included in submissions.
  

• Resume Naming Formats: Formats for automatic renaming of candidate resume file names in submittals. You should select a suffiently descriptive naming format e.g. "<candidate name>_<current role>_<years of experience>_<notice period>" to ensure professional submissions. 

d. Frequently Used Files/Documents
You can upload document files and formats that are commonly used as part of your recruitment work in the Files module so that they can be quickly used when required. Such documents may include:

• Research strategies for common positions

• Spreadsheet files containing offer break-ups for commonly worked upon positions

• Reference document containing guidelines for sourcing and screening processes in your organization

• Whitepapers on industries for which you do recruitment

5. Security Configurations
You need to setup user permissions, team organization and communication related options in Talenture RS to support your executive search process.

a. User Groups
Create User Groups to reflect level of usage rights as per each hierarchical level in the organization.

• For e.g. you can create the following types of groups:

  • Researchers: This group can have permissions for sourcing of candidates and adding/updating candidate leads and performing research work.
    

  • Senior Recruiters: This group can be assigned all permissions of Junior Recruiters group plus rights for rights for using the Private Candidate Pool, acting as Lead Recruiter, creating /modifying jobs, clients and contacts, granting approval for candidate submission.
    
    This User Group can be used for Team Leads managing specific recruiters.

• Administrative: Assign all permissions in previous groups as well as those for deletion of data, financial roles and administrative privileges. Add the director, head of recruiting to this group.

b. Teams
You can organize your recruiters into Functional Teams to enable more efficient and focused work assignment and management as per your recruitment focus.

You can create teams based on such the industries you cater to such as IT, Finance, Telecom etc. 

c. Communications
Ensure consistent and professional email communications from within the team using the following elements:

• Create email templates for the team related to common scenarios such as mandate clarifications with clients, candidate submission, candidate screening/questionnaire, followup discussions etc.
  
  Since email communication is done with senior level candidates make sure all email templates are verified before use.
  

• Configure and assign separate email accounts for client and candidate communication to avoid mishandling of candidate and client interactions. 

6. System Configuration Settings
You can set/configure the following for your executive search process via a login having administrative privileges: 

a. Document Categories
Add additional document categories via the Recruiting Objects->File Categories view in the System Configuration module. These will then be available for tracking documents related to Jobs, Candidates, Clients etc. 

For example you can add the following File Categories:

• Research Strategy

• Organization Map

• Verification Documents

7. Which Product Edition to Use
Talenture RS provides features related to executive search/headhunting in the Enterprise edition of Talenture RS only.

Related Resources

• Candidate Leads
• Private Candidates
• File Categories
• Data Customization
• Workflow Customization
• View Customization