By: Maddie Calloway & Mckenna Tarcson

Ever wonder about the process for permanent placement/direct hire searches?  Most people do not understand the extensiveness of a search, and how much time, energy, labor and focus that our team puts into finding an exceptional candidate for each role.  

On average our senior level relationships who are not allowed to utilize external recruiting when they have multiple roles to hire, are saying they spend 50% of their working time on locating, interviewing/vetting, and recruiting candidates.  Which is why our clients outsource their recruiting process to Kester Search Group. We help free up their leadership team to focus their time on driving revenue and coaching & developing their current team.  

To provide a deeper look into how we go about recruiting, we have detailed our step by step process for executing a search, so you can get a true sense for the thoroughness and attention that our team gives to a specific project.

Process of a permanent placement / direct hire search from start to finish:

Pre-Search Planning

1. Kick off meeting w/ client/hiring manager to discuss:
   • Ideal hiring profile
   • Budget/compensation package
   • Context regarding open position
   • Job responsibilities
   • Big picture talking points about the company/position
   • Sizzle points to share w/ candidates
   • Interview process
   • Timeline to hire
   • Any other relevant information 
2. Internal meeting with KSG support team to discuss sourcing strategies to build out a talent pipeline with an average of 100-150 candidate leads.
3. Marketing team creates a unique client presentation to send to qualified candidates.

Outbound Recruiting

4. Recruiting team begins heavy outbound communication to candidates via multiple touches: 
   • InMail
   • Phone calls
   • Voicemails
   • Texting
   • Emails
5. Recruiting team conducts phone interviews to quickly qualify/disqualify candidates for the specific role. If qualified, we will pitch the client company, the opportunity & walk through compensation expectations to ensure this role is in alignment with their personal career goals.
6. If the candidate wants to learn more, we will send them marketing materials outlining everything discussed live. The candidate will then follow up with us after 24 hours of researching to let us know if they would like to move forward or not. 
7. If they want to move forward, we conduct a second phone interview to discuss why they are interested, what info they’ve learned since we released the client name, and to go over any questions they may have. 

Submission of Candidates to Client

8. Once we feel like the candidate is seriously considering the role & has clearly done research on their own, we will pull together a few bullet points on their relevant experience & a clearly formatted resume for the client’s consideration. 
9. We strive to submit at least 5 qualified and interested candidates to the client in order to feel like the search is placeable. 

Candidate Interview Process

10. Once the hiring manager has had time to review the submitted candidates, we will help schedule and coordinate interviews.
11. Throughout the interview process, our recruiters and account managers stay close to the candidates & hiring managers – debriefing from the candidate’s perspective and gauging their interest level. From the client’s side, we work to receive feedback after each candidate interview to see where we are in alignment, where we fell short, if the hiring profile needs to be adjusted, etc. 

Offer Stage

12. Once a finalist is determined & we are approaching the offer stage, both the recruiter & account manager work hand in hand to ensure alignment for the candidate & client on compensation expectations (negotiations, counter offers from current employer, etc.). 
13. After the offer has been successfully accepted by the candidate, we stay close to them to ensure they resign professionally from their current employer, advise against counter offers, & make sure they don’t get cold feet before their start date. 

Continued Candidate Outreach

14. On their start date, we personally call the candidate to ensure they started with our client & to wish them best of luck! 
15. We continually stay in communication with them throughout the first 90 days & beyond.