HealthCare Voice

Recruiting by Videoconference Saves Money, But at What Cost?

Editor's Note:  As of Friday, HealthCare Voice will end publication with Typepad and move exclusively to JohnGSelf.Com.  To continue to subscribe, you must go to the web site, click the BLOG link in the navigation bar and resubmit your email or RSS subscription. My speaker's blog, JohnGSelf, will remain a featured blog with Typepad.

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As anyone who has lost data in a hard drive crash can attest, technology can be our friend as well as our enemy. Healthcare has been accused of playing catch-up to the technology bandwagon, and losing out on a lot of efficiencies as a result. But for some processes, the old-fashioned way is still the best way. Hiring is one of those processes.

I’m not saying that technology in recruiting is all bad. My smartphone is my constant companion, and the ability to research organizations, locate potential candidates, build networks, and receive a resume or reference list in an instant makes the process infinitely faster than  in the past. That’s a win for everyone involved. But when we start to rely on technologies such as videoconferencing to replace face-to-face interaction, we as recruiters have gone astray.

At first glance, recruiters’ clients may like the idea of videoconferencing because it’s much cheaper than flying in a recruiter to meet with candidates or clients. But what’s gained in money is lost in quality.

For example, while it may be acceptable to use videoconferencing for some business meetings, the technology just isn’t good enough for those “getting to know you” meetings in which recruiters meet with boards of directors and the executive team to find out what they need in a new leader. The clients can run through their list of operational and financial targets on camera, but the recruiter won’t experience the interpersonal interaction in the halls or the tension around the coffeemaker in the break room. These are the things that make up an organization’s culture, and a new hire’s cultural fit is just as important as his or her ability to improve patient care or boost the bottom line.

A good recruiter’s position prospectus runs 25 pages or more for C-level positions. To ensure that the right person lands the job, that document should reveal both the face the client shows the public and the not-so-positive things going on behind the scenes. It’s impossible for a recruiter to draw out an honest assessment of a job’s potential negatives with a group of strangers through a wi-fi connection.

For the same reasons, videoconferencing is a weak way to interview candidates. Those who conduct interviews this way are missing out on the subtle cues that human beings naturally rely on to evaluate another person. They don’t connect with the candidate in a real way. It’s like trying to view someone through a layer of gauze: You get a general impression, but it’s frustratingly difficult to get the complete picture of who they really are.

Some executive search firms never actually meet their candidates in person until they present them to the client, and by then, it’s too late. Some firms’ early screening interviews consist of a videotape of a candidate reading his or her answers to a list of questions. That’s the epitome of lazy recruiting, and it’s unfair to both the client and the candidates, who aren’t given an opportunity to put their best face forward.

The typical videoconference delay of just seconds is enough to create awkwardness that can cast an otherwise confident candidate in a bad light, and the short length of a typical videoconferencing session doesn’t allow for the in-depth conversations needed to make a good judgment call about a person. There is just no substitute for shaking hands and sitting down to really talk with someone to learn about their passions, emotions and values, and to see how they respond under pressure.

Sure, videoconferencing can save the client some money. But is it really worth the price of misunderstanding the job, the candidate or both, and hiring the wrong person? When you compare the cost of a few plane tickets to that of replacing a senior-level executive with a six-figure salary, it seems pretty simple. In the end, cutting this particular corner is just not worth it.

© 2012 John Gregory Self

Executive Search: The Model Is Broken

Editor's Note:  HealthCare Voice, John Self's  healthcare blog, will be moving to the web site, JohnGSelf.Com in two weeks. The blog will run on the web and here  for a couple of weeks and then the content will be exclusively on WWW.JohnGSelf.Com.

John G Self is a frequent speaker and lecturer.  He has a new blog,  John G Self.  It features stories of hope, redemption, and humor of every day life.  His latest blog, URBAN SNAPSHOT: We Assume, We Are Surprised posted on Monday.

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Candidates complain about recruiters – how they do not communicate effectively, how they do not provide real transparency, how they gloss over critical cultural, political and operational issues because to acknowledge them would complicate the search, or because the search consultant simply did not take the time to understand the underlying challenges.

The statistics tend to support candidate concerns.  According to several industry studies, more than 50 percent of candidates recruited from outside an organization quit, are pushed out, or are fired within 24 months when you look at all sectors and all management levels. Heidrick & Struggles, the industry’s second largest executive search consultancy, admitted in 2009 that in an internal study of 20,000 assignments, 40 percent of their senior leadership placements were out the door within 18 months. 

The record of internal recruiters is not much better.  Apparently, the weaknesses that afflict search firms also infect the leadership talent acquisition function of many large corporations, health systems and not-for-profit organizations. 

Aside from these periodic studies and an occasional blog or article, the search industry is strangely silent on this dirty little subject. 

At the core of this industry failing is a broken business and process model which has existed for nearly 50 years. There are precious few industries in the world that have not undergone multiple transformations over the same period.  But not executive search.   Yes, there have been technological advances – the faxmachine, computerized databases, the Internet and email, but these developments have not changed the fundamental structure of this industry.

When you look at this problem, which has significant implications for a client's profitability or, in some cases, their actual survival, you have to consolidate the processes and results of both internal recruiters and outside search consultants.

Here is what the candidate’s are saying and have been saying for quite some time:

• There is a lack of transparency.  Search consultants rarely tell you the whole truth.

• Recruiters place the burden on the candidate to sort out things like corporate culture, how decisions are made, how success will be defined, and the hurdles to success.  The recruiters either were not perceptive and failed to ascertain this information or they made a financial calculation that to know and to tell would only delay the search and erode profitability of the engagement. Internal recruiters, like their external cousins, did not want to ask the tough questions regarding the search or share unflattering (but truthful) information for fear of rocking the boat. 

• There is poor communication between the candidate and the firm once a resume has been submitted.  That is perhaps the most common complaint and virtually everyone who practices in this profession is guilty as charged.  Weekly email updates should be the norm, candidates say.

• There is a lack of accountability for the quality of the service provided by the recruiters and for the outcome of their work, and candidates believe this contributes significantly to the problems they encounter in the recruiting process.  Here, corporate clients join the chorus of criticisms.  There are rarely any fee concessions if the client is unhappy with the quality of the panel of recommended candidates.  The placement guarantee -- the industry standard is 12 months at the executive level -- is really no guarantee since the vast majority of candidates do not leave an organization until the 18 to 24-month period, an insufficient length of time for the client to regain their investment.  Candidates and clients say the problem seems to be a focus on the process and filling a job order, rather than spending the time it should take to produce the right outcome. 

Now the good news:  These are problems that can be fixed.  These are not rocket science issues.  The real challenge will come in changing the culture of how talent acquisition -- external and internal recruiting -- works.  There is resistance to change, especially in the large firms where partners earn substantial six or seven figure incomes.  The people who should lead the change have a vested interest in protecting a business model that works well for them.  You can almost hear it now:  If it is not broken, don't fix it.

But the system is broken and in this period of business transformation spurred by prolonged financial uncertainty owing to world economic conditions and the debt crisis, corporations, especially healthcare providers, cannot afford business as usual.

© 2011 John Gregory Self

Video Summaries of Candidate Interviews Leads To Greater Success

Video Summaries of your search firm’s recommended candidates can help organizations avoid a costly leadership miss-hire; not video conferencing, which is widely overused in executive search, but edited video summaries of your recruiter’s in-depth face-to-face interview with the candidate.

Using videoconference technology to conduct the defining interviews that will be used to select their recommended candidates is a big mistake, the purported cost expense savings notwithstanding.  Reviewing an edited version of the interview allows the client to make an informed decision as to which of the four or five candidates on the panel should be invited for a site interview.

The proof is in the record of success.  Clients who have used search firms that incorporate video summaries as part of their candidate presentation say that it is “incredibly helpful” in selecting the right candidates .  “In the past, we had to rely solely on the recruiter’s judgment, and in many larger firms, the partner has only limited exposure to the candidate in the screening process,” one CEO said who asked that I not use his name out of concern that there might be negative repercussions.  Anyone who understands how most large consultancies work -- and search firms are consultancies -- knows that the partner is a rainmaker first, a client relationship manager second, and a working consultant a distant third. 

Providing clients video summaries is a game changer in the client-search firm relationship.

The CEO continued that over a seven-year period and 12 searches, “having the videos helped us avoid some big mistakes.  Over that period of time we only had one candidate who did not work out and that individual left after two years and the search firm provided a replacement.”  He is not alone in his assessment.

The cost of a miss-hire at the executive level is extraordinarily costly, from 50 to 500 times the failed executive’s annual base compensation, depending on the size of the company and the that individual’s scope of responsibility.

Using videoconference interviews between the recruiter and candidates for the final panel is penny wise and pound foolish.

© 2011 John Gregory Self

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Annual Performance Reviews: The End of an Entitlement

Employees cherish a gross sense of entitlement in the form of their annual performance review and the almost certain yearly raise.  In many organizations, this “right” extends to  the very job itself, regardless of performance or economic conditions.

 The irony in the odd conceptual evolution of annual  performance reviews and obligatory raises, is that we are not talking about a unionized workforce. 

 In good economic times, this sense of entitlement in the workforce grows.  In bad times, it is the source of enormous friction and decline in employee morale, both of which create a distraction from the organization’s mission.

In many U.S. Hospitals, the system has been in place so long that employees cannot imagine any other alternative.  As long as hospitals are doing well -- defined as having ample days of cash on hand -- there is no sense of urgency to change.  In this misaligned employer-employee relationship, the business principle that cash covers a multitude of sins could not be more accurate. 

As healthcare providers we know, or should know, that we are on the verge of a tsunami of change that will, sooner than later, force an overhaul in our business model, a variation of which we have used since the arrival of Medicare in the mid-1960s, with a course correction in the mid-1980s with the implementation of DRGs.  Congress and regulators have tweaked the model so many times that we now operate business systems that are so complex that our patient bills are almost indecipherable.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which in theory is designed to reduce healthcare spending, may or may not be fully implemented.  In the end, that will be up to the 12 wise men on the Supreme Court, but that is not the big game changer that will blow up the current system of how we deliver care and how much we are paid.  The bomb is the inevitable sharp and ongoing reductions in Medicare and Medicaid payments that will be necessary to control the annual deficit and long-term debt which are, previous Congressional cuts in spending notwithstanding, still very much out of control.

So the day of entitlements as evidenced by so many current dysfunctional performance review and annual merit pay programs, will require a shift in the traditional top-down, command-and-control relationship  that we “enjoy” with our employees today. 

When the next round of federal reimbursement reductions, that will be steady in their frequency and painful in their impact, begin, it will be too late to recover if you are not prepared. 

The smartest guys in the room, those CEOs who understand that this inevitable storm is building on the horizon, are already beginning to think about what the next generation of health system will look like, how it will be organized, and what all of this will mean to their employees, increasing numbers of whom will be physicians. 

On Friday I will outline an essential first-stage employee strategy.  Until then, I would like to hear what you think.  How do you see the deficit/debt crisis affecting our existing business model and what would you do to prepare for a challenging future?

© 2011 John Gregory Self

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EXECUTIVE RECRUITMENT: Can You Afford Average?

It is a recurring question -- how can I be sure that I am hiring the right executive and that once they join will they stay?

In all honesty, when dealing with people, there are no absolutes.  But with the right search consultant -- internal or with a firm -- and a gold-plated recruiting/candidate screening process, you can substantially mitigate the risks. However, let the buyer beware:  if your executive search firm uses terms like “job order”, “hiring authority” or “fill rate”, more than likely they are a placement agency or staffing company trying to move up the financial ladder.  

The real secret to success in executive search is to select a partner or search consultant who possesses some important skills.  First and foremost, success in executive search is not tied to the number of years of experience.  That is helpful, but if the consultant lacks a particular set of skills necessary for success, years of experience will ensure only that you are buying experienced mediocrity.  Nor is the size of the firm of any consequence unless your organization is a multinational operator and geographic reach is important.  No, the secret lies in the search consultant who will be doing the majority of the work.  Does this person possess a deep understanding of the culture of the organization -- the values, the rules governing interpersonal relationships, and how decisions are made?  Do they require complete transparency regarding performance expectations, details regarding the hurdles that must be overcome to achieve success, and identification of the always dangerous sacred cows?  The consultant must insist that the client lose their natural desire to put their best foot forward while obscuring important problems or challenges that will become the organizational equivalent of an IED - improvised explosive device -- with career-limiting consequences.

Is the consultant who will do most of the work on your search, save perhaps the candidate's final interview with the engagement partner, present for the all important site work, or are they closeted away in the Firm’s office working on other projects?  (That is the most common model in the search industry.)

If your consultant does not force you to deal with the tough issues, do not be surprised if the outcome is only average.  Executive search is like dating and marriage -- decisions are made after four or five dates.   If the search does not force the client to deal with always-present nasty little details in advance of the marriage, there is a good possibility that it will not be a long and productive relationship and the divorce will be messy and costly.  

The truth is that far too many executive recruiters practice what I call “don’t ask, don’t tell”  recruiting. The partner signs the engagement, a consultant who may, or may not have been present for the site work, prepares a superficial job description and if the candidate doesn’t ask about the culture or potential problems that could affect their success, the search firm does not tell.  Oh, the big firms deny that is the case, but I have interviewed far too many candidates who say otherwise.

How confident is the search firm in their ability to find a candidate who will deliver value to the organization?  To test a search firm's true mettle, ask the partner in charge if they will guarantee their work for an extended period of time and listen for the reasons they do not.  Most firms offer a 12-month placement guarantee.  That is average.  There are one or two firms competing in the healthcare provider segment who will offer an extended placement guarantee, but they are the exception.

So the answer to the question is, in the end, really this:  Given the cost of an executive search -- professional fees plus an overhead assessment and travel costs:  Can you afford average?

© 2011 John Gregory Self

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A Few Thoughts on Professional Compensation, Misnomers and Healthcare Reform

The other day I was asked about healthcare compensation -- CEOs, physicians and insurance company executives -- and how we could address the seeming imbalance.

Physicians, who understandably are frustrated with the constant pressure of cuts in their payments, have become angry because they realize the deal is stacked against them. Most of their glaring and finger pointing is in the direction of hospital system CEOs, and, no surprise here, insurance company executives, some of whom earn remarkably large salaries. Senior executives in the health insurance industry where generous base salaries, bonuses, delayed compensation and stock options can drive up annual compensation in excess of $10 million fairly quickly, have become a lightning rod for physician frustration and anger.  The pay for health system and hospital CEOs also has risen but not as much, and besides, hospitals do not deny physician payments.  

The imbalance in executive and professional compensation is not an issue that will go away in the estimable future, especially in the healthcare sector.  As lawmakers wrestle with issues, and one another, over how to cut the deficit and the long-term debt, healthcare executives, physicians and other healthcare professionals will find themselves at the nexus of tough debates and policy decisions regarding funding, compensation, quality and increased accountability.  

Although the cost of healthcare -- specifically Medicare -- is one of the biggest problems in the deficit crisis and any solution to reducing the debt, healthcare providers do not live in a compensation vacuum. Hospital CEOs who see leaders in other industries making far more for managing less complexity in operations, want their fair share.  Indeed, over the past 20 years, executive compensation for health system and hospital senior executives has gradually improved.  Physicians, citing their years of education, sacrifice, the demands of a busy practice and the ever -present pressures of accountability, oppose any cuts. In fact, they want more.  For a professional group that was once at the top of the healthcare compensation food chain, they are frustrated with the fact that they are being left behind. This is only natural.  

Here are three thoughts that hopefully will help us begin the long, and perhaps impossible, journey to regaining balance in executive and professional compensation. 

1.  Executive, professional and sports figure compensation is hopelessly screwed up.  They are so far out of whack that we may never recover.  The phrases common sense and executive compensation should not be used in the same sentence.  Common sense is such a misnomer.  It is pretty uncommon when it comes to comp issues in all of these fields. I point the finger at professional sports as one of the most visible and biggest contributors to what has become a ridiculous imbalance between pay, performance and any hope of reasonable balance.  Those of us who follow baseball need to remind ourselves that there are very few jobs in life where one can fail 7 times out of 10 and still be a star and make a huge salary.  In a society that frequently relies on lawsuits to adjudicate a clinical outcome that did not meet a patient's expectation, however silly or unreasonable, the skyrocketing pay for many professional athletes must drive physicians nuts.  

2. While I am sympathetic to the complaints of physicians regarding compensation, I know this will not be an issue that is never successfully resolved.   As we amble through healthcare reform, whether it is with PPACA or the result of the debt reduction crisis, everyone in the healthcare industry will end up with less, unless they can demonstrate exceptional, measurable, verifiable value, and even then, they will probably still get less, just more than those who fail to meet tougher standards. Accountability, performance and results will be key for physicians and professionals who want to hold the line on what they charge or will accept. Our deficit/debt issues are so big, so potentially cataclysmic, that anyone in healthcare who does not believe that we will take a hit is just not in touch with the math.  I wish there was way to avoid compensation pain, but I doubt there will be.  Part of the problem is that hospitals, doctors and other healthcare professionals sit on the sidelines waiting for the change.  We NEVER lead change.  That is why we can be compared to the country dog that came to town: “if you run you get screwed, if you stand still you get screwed. “  We have become adept adapters, not leaders of structural change.

3.  Mohamed A. El-Erian and his colleagues at PIMCO refer to our current economic mess as the "New Normal."  PIMCO is the largest bond fund in the world and they just announced they are not buying any US Treasuries for a while. The rating agency, Standard and Poors, has now fired another shot across the bow of our government hoping to generate action on deficit and debt reduction.  As I survey this economic jumble, our "New Normal," I am reminded of Winston Churchill's great line about the US:  that we will do the right thing AFTER we have tried everything else.   He may have been referring to our involvement in World War II, but his statement was prescient of the path to resolving problems that America tends to follow.  Well, we have just about tried everything else and the options for cleaning the nation's financial disarray will be painful.  Unfortunately, the coming economic reset for physicians and other healthcare professionals will be frustrating and unfair.

I thought about incorporating the theme of shared sacrifice as one of my three points, but that would only have earned me the tag of "insufferable idealist." 

© 2011 John Gregory Self

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Common Resume Problems Frustrate Recruiters, Employers

What many executives and managers do not know about producing a credible and effective resume is frequently startling.

I spend a good part of each day reviewing resumes, and frequently complete my work with varying degrees of frustration. Many of my colleagues share this feeling.  It is not a frustration born of ridicule but the realization that these good men and women are hurting their career brand.

There seems to be an intellectual disconnect between the common knowledge that the resume is actually the first interview in the recruitment process, and the lack of clarity and specificity regarding a candidate's past jobs, their scope of responsibility and value contribution. That candidates are initially included or excluded in the search process based on their resume seems to escape comprehension by far too many executives in the job market.  

Depth and range of experience and value contribution are two of the most important facets of the resume. Lack of clarity or obfuscation --unintentional or on purpose -- are two of the most common reasons potentially qualified candidates are eliminated in this first round of candidate screening.

With the continuing high unemployment and shrinkage in the number of leadership and management positions, candidates cannot afford to submit a resume that does not clearly and concisely detail the depth and scope of experience and extols the value of their accomplishments.  When it comes to your resume, if you do not sell yourself, it is highly unlikely that anyone at the candidate screening table will rush to be your advocate.  

if you would like a free copy of an executive recruiter's resume guide, please email JohnGSelf Associates.  I would be happy to share this with you.

[email protected]

© 2010 John Gregory Self

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Effective Communication Key to Success In Job Interviews

David was a great candidate, at least on paper.  He had the right credentials – more than was required for the position.  He had degrees from good schools.  Most importantly, he had solid experience.

True, he had moved around a bit, something that causes recruiters concern, but he had plausible reasons – to be closer to a surviving parent who was terminally ill; a new CEO wanted to bring in his own executive team; there was one mis-hire along the way; and one move was for his wife – she had been promoted and the new position was too good to pass up.

He was clearly the best qualified candidate but David had a problem that he could not overcome – he could not tell his story in an effective way.  Another candidate, with good credentials and experience, though not as extensive as David’s, was selected and David joined the ranks of the “65 percent club”, a statistically constant group of well qualified executives who lose out in a search because they do not interview well – they did not communicate effectively.  Here is what I mean:  they were not specific in answering relatively focused questions.  When asked about their weaknesses, they used the often tried but seldom believed answer, “I worked too much.”  They could not provide specific examples for where they added measurable value for their former employers.    

There are only so many interview questions and there are books upon books of the commonly asked questions.  Yet, very few candidates seem to know these books exist, much less bought one to be better prepared. 

Being an effective communicator should not be confused with being a good public speaker.  Not everyone can stand in front of 500 or 1,000 people and wow them with a Power Point presentation.  However, anyone who aspires to leadership must master the art for group meetings or one-on-one sessions. 

There are three common themes of a job search in today’s hypercompetitive job market.

1.  Rejection.  There are more candidates than there are jobs at every level.  Great candidates are eliminated – are rejected – in every job search.  Rejection hurts.  If you have been rejected enough – and most candidates in today’s market have been rejected multiple times – it can crush your spirit and affect your performance the next time you are interviewed.
2. Preparation.  The best candidates are prepared, with a great resume that demonstrates experience and success, and the confidence that comes with practice – anticipating questions and preparing focused responses then rehearsing them in front of a mirror.  Preparation includes reviewing your career history, knowing dates of tenure, names of co-workers, and information on compensation. Submitting a list of positive, articulate references is important as well.  Many candidates demonstrate a lack of preparation at least three to four times in the average interview.
3. Communication.  Candidates must be able to deliver specific facts and examples of success, or lessons learned from failures, with the calm confidence and focus that comes only from practice. 

Good leadership and effective communication are intrinsically linked.  There are examples of great CEOs who were only mediocre public speakers but in small groups and one-on-one meetings, they were the best.

Good preparation and effective communication are the keys to avoiding the pain and despair of rejection.

© John Gregory Self

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Defining Success at Each Stage of Interview Process

What is the definition of success in recruitment?

Hiring the right candidate.  That is a non-starter.  But the question is how do you measure success in each step of your recruitment process that will produce that right candidate?

Before diving into the process metrics, I want to, again, reiterate a strongly held view: that candidates be provided a position description or position prospectus with sufficient detail for them to understand the job, the criteria, experience requirements, performance deliverables and the salary range.  Given that the recruitment process has been described as the equivalent of getting married after four or five dates, I firmly believe that the best way to mitigate the risks that are inherent in this time sensitive process is to provide more, not less, information.  Weaker candidates tend to “de-select” if they know the position is above their pay grade – their experience and current skills.  Moreover, a great deal of time is wasted in the search process, by both internal and external recruiters, because the process is advanced with candidates who frequently are not aware of the salary range.

Virtually every executive or management recruitment process is comprised of two or more interviews. At JohnGSelf Associates, here is how we define success in each phase.

    1. Resume Review -- You finish the round with a panel of candidates with the credentials, skills, and relevant experience who have submitted their resumes and reviewed a position description or a position description outlining the key elements of the opportunity.  Hopefully the resumes will be of sufficient quality that the researcher or recruiter can easily track past accomplishments.  Each resume should be graded and only the top candidates should advance to the next round.  The researcher or recruiter who evaluates the resumes should complete a brief written analysis, preferably online as part of an integrated recruiting information system, highlighting areas of concern or those that will need clarification if the candidate advances.

    2. Telephone Interview – When you have completed the telephone interview round of the search, you should have a group of candidates, any of whom you could invite for a face-to-face interview.  They know the salary range; they understand the scope of responsibility and the performance expectations.  Most importantly, they have been told about the culture of the organization, how decisions are made, and what challenges they must overcome in order to achieve success.  You will know that these candidates have the relevant experience and a record of success in a similar situation.  From this group, subject to background checks, you will select the highest rated candidates for site interviews.  Some organizations will check three or four references prior to the face-to-face interview, but in a “high volume” internal recruiting environment, this may not be practical.  If you use a behavior and values tool like DiSC^© we recommend that you have the candidates who will be invited for site interviews to complete this  so that it can be available for that phase. Recruiters who lack the experience in using one of these tools should seek counsel from someone who understands the tool to ensure that it is used appropriately in framing questions to be asked during the site interview. Success at this stage is having seven to 10 candidates from which you can select three or four for a site interview. Time is now of the essence.  The best candidates are in demand.  You do not want to have a search in which you have only one remaining candidate because the other candidates have withdrawn for whatever reason.  Competition among the candidates is important.

    3. Face-to-Face/Site Interview – This interview should explore, clarify and confirm key elements of the candidates prior accomplishments, their style and how their “presence/chemistry will fit with the organization’s existing culture.  Measuring a candidate’s commitment and passion for success is a very important component of this interview.  The interviewer(s) must fully engage in what is known as “active listening” – suspending other tasks, focusing on the candidate, listening not merely to the words, but the feeling content, and asking for clarification of candidate comments. 

At this stage, success is defined as having two or three candidates, any of whom could successfully do the job and deliver long-term value for the organization.

^© 2010 John Gregory Self

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Interviewing Skills: The Telephone Interview

The telephone interview is a killer.

More potentially good candidates are eliminated from consideration based on their performance at this stage of the recruitment process than at any other time.

Everyone is blind.  You cannot see the candidate.  They cannot see you.  This gives the interviewer the advantage.  But badly executed, the telephone interview can lead to premature elimination.  

Game Plan:  The interviewer must be prepared.  Not only should they have carefully studied the resume, but an interview game plan is critical: What am I trying to accomplish?  What do I need to know about this candidate to make a decision for continued consideration or elimination?  

Selling-Recruiting: I believe that in the telephone interview stage, you are still very much in the selling-recruiting mode.  Be sure to give the candidate a chance to ask questions. I prefer to do this at the outset to avoid wasting time if in the Q&A time it is determined that the job is not a fit.  Remember, the candidate may be superbly qualified, but if you do not sell them, this interview could be a waste of time.

Provide the salary range:  This is of critical importance.  Be sure you provide the candidate with the base salary range. If there is flexibility, say so.  If there is not, make that clear as well.   I cannot tell you how much time is wasted qualifying candidates who would never accept a position with the established salary range.  This is far too common even with contingency recruiters. Never assume that the candidate knows this critical piece of information.  If there are other potential "deal breaker issues," this is the least embarasing time to disclose those as well.

Interview agenda:  I am not a big fan of overly long telephone interviews.  You will reach a point of diminishing return around the 90-minute mark.  Most telephone interviews are much shorter -- between 30 and 60 minutes in length. With time constraints, you need to have what I call an interview agenda.  When you start, tell the candidate what to expect in terms of the subjects that will be covered and in what order.

Interview forms:  After interviewing five or six candidates for the same position, they all begin to run together.  Having a complete, accurate record of the interview is important.  It is also important to ask the same types of questions of each candidate.  We develop a telephone questionnaire for each search.  The telephone questionnaire is computerized.  It is comprised of a chronological "walk me through your resume" section as well as questions that relate to specific job challenges.  The questionnaire has protected form fields which allow the interviewers to tab through as they  type notes of the candidate's responses. 

Candidate screening process:  You cannot be effective in recruiting without a defined processes.  At JohnGSelf Associates, our candidate screening process is based on Dr. Brad Smart's Topgrading^©, an exceptionally effective, but in-depth interviewing system.  We break it down into a three-stage interview process. The resume review is the first interview.  In the telephone interview, the second stage,  we focus on prior employment, selected behavior and values questions and several questions designed to measure whether the candidates can actually do the job for which they are being recruited.  The final stage, is a 3.5 hour in-depth face-to-face interview, a portion of which is videotaped for presentation to the client when they are selecting which of the recommended panel of candidates they want to invite for a site interview.  I will address that interview in my next blog.

Grading the candidate:  We grade candidate performance at each stage of the recruiting/interview process. That is why it is so important to have defined recruiting and screening systems.  The grading process is linked to the selection criteria, prior experience and accomplishments and the performance deliverables.   In a highly competitive search, this grade will determine which candidates are selected for continued consideration.  

Respect the candidate:  Finding a job is about dealing with rejection. Unless the position is super specialized, there will always be more candidates than positions.  Treat the candidates with respect from the moment they submit their resume to the moment they are rejected or employed. How you treat your candidates is a very important component of your organization's recruiting brand.  If you have a reputation for not responding to candidates and of not regularly communicating with them regarding the status of the search, you will find over time your recruiting brand will suffer. 

There is no excuse for not treating candidates with respect. 

© 2010 John Gregory Self

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Improving, Repairing Recruiting Brand Can Yield Big Returns

Most things in the world of healthcare process improvement are difficult to fix. Not your Recruiting Brand.

It can be honed and refined easily and cost effectively. Yet companies frequently ignore it or push it down to the “when we get to it” category.

Enhancing your company’s recruiting brand does not necessarily mean you will get and keep the best talent. But it is the ticket to get in the game. Liken it to a graduate management degree which can become the key to achieving an executive level career. A well-defined brand also boosts the ability to address a costly and chronic problem when recruiting candidates from outside the organization: tenure.

Poor tenure is a perennial recruitment problem and a significant hidden cost. Recent studies show that the candidates recruited from outside an organization on average, about 18 months. This includes professional staff, department managers, and directors, to the executive office. The best way to mitigate this risk when recruiting externally is to create a best-in-industry recruiting process that is integrated with your enterprise-wide onboarding program.

Even though the recruiting process is not terribly complex, there are multiple levels and steps, and there are multiple chances for defects to develop and to miss opportunities.

There are key questions that I ask a CEO to determine whether he can recruit and retain the best people in a talent war. These questions are just one part of our three-day human capital assessment. Our questions include:

1. Do you have a written Recruitment Brand Statement? Does your team know what it is? More importantly, do your in-house recruiters know what it is?
2. How many candidate inquiries are generated by the organization’s web site, newspapers, internal recruiter telephone sourcing, contingent recruiters, etc.?
3. Do all candidates receive acknowledgement of their interest in the organization?
4. Do all candidates receive an email, telephone call, or letter if they are not selected?
5. Do you have established candidate screening and interview processes and schedules for each step and each position/category?
6. Do your recruiters report process or exception defects?
7. Do you have written profiles for each position that you provide to qualified candidates? Do the profiles include mission, vision and values statements, performance expectations, cultural profile, compliance statements, reporting relationships, etc?
8. Does your web site provide for on-line applications, automated candidate responses, access for search engine sweeps (to distribute job postings to a larger pool of candidates)
9. Do your recruiters know who the names of local or regional candidates they would target when vacancies occur in mission critical positions? Do you track ideal candidates in your recruiting database?
10. Do you have an onboarding program versus employee orientation? Does your onboarding program begin before your recruitment program is launched? Are your onboarding and your recruiting programs fully integrated?

The overarching question is this: Do you want to eliminate one of the largest hidden costs on your hospital’s financial statement?

Develop and implement a measurable recruiting program that includes an effective onboarding process. In turn, you’ll have less reliance on external recruiters, higher quality candidates, and a lower turnover rate.

If you have questions, don’t hesitate to call on me. We can help you improve your recruiting brand and reduce your costs.

John G. Self is Chairman and Senior Client Advisor of JohnMarch Partners. He is a Co-Founder of the Firm.

A former investigative reporter and crime writer with more than 30-years of healthcare leadership experience in public relations, national marketing, business development and as Chief Executive Officer of hospitals and consulting firms, Mr. Self is highly regarded for his keen insight into operations, business culture and for his ability to consistently select the right leaders.

John is a highly rated speaker on inspirational leadership, career brand management and the future of healthcare in America. To contact Mr. Self regarding a speaking date, contact him at JohnMarch Partners.

You can contact Mr. Self at 214.220.1234 or [email protected]. He is an active member of LinkedIn and a frequent editorial contributor. You can also connect with John through his Facebook profile.

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Take A Breath, Sen. Grassley

DALLAS, Texas (March 11, 2009) -- I have ignored several of the stories concerning hospital CEO compensation. Then I ran across the following:

Compensation for hospital executives stirs debate, scrutiny
CHIME's Healthcare CIO SmartBrief | 03/10/2009

"An Internal Revenue Service poll that involved 485 hospitals found that hospital presidents on average received almost $500,000 a year in compensation, while some CEOs earned salaries worth $1.4 million. Such benefits have spurred debate from different sectors and scrutiny from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who said he hopes to push legislation aimed at keeping executive salaries in line. Surveys on staff satisfaction could include questions on what CEOs make, and this data could help leaders of health care organizations determine the state of management-employee ties and other factors." HealthLeaders Media (03/06)
_____________________________

This is a combination of old fashioned political populism and a failure by many large not-for-profit health systems to tell their charity care/community benefit story effectively. Some CEOs refuse to talk about it, thinking that it will open the flood gates of uncompensated care. But others see this as a high-ground issue, a strong story that connects their hospital to the community.

With respect to compensation, a health system or hospital CEO who runs a system with revenues in excess of $1 billion and is paid $1.4 million is NOT overpaid. There are many successful CEOs who earn much less to guide their community hospitals in an environment where the medical staff can be your customer and your competitor, many times within the same day, and reimbursement trails the costs of providing the service. Peter Drucker once said hospitals are among the most challenging of businesses to run. As a general rule Main Street in America receives more community benefit from the hospital CEO than many of the Wall Street bankers that the taxpayers are bailing out.

Personally, I think Sen Grassley should take a breath -- a deep breath -- and focus on the economy.

What are your thoughts?

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

Come Out of the Closet

DALLAS, Texas (March 4, 2009) – It was 2 AM Saturday morning. Suddenly I was wide awake. Why? I listened for strange noises, a hint of something bad that had just occurred on the streets below me, or in the hallways outside my loft. All was quiet. I settled back and drifted off to sleep.

4 AM! Awake again. Suddenly it dawned on me. There was no impending doom in the hallway or on the streets below. It was stress, 2009 style. I was thinking about projects that have been delayed or postponed. I was thinking about my employees, rent, the mortgage payment, and all the bad news from the week, including the loss of another 651,000 jobs in February.

This is stupid. This preoccupation is nonsense.

Hours later, as I groggily browsed through the Saturday morning edition of the Dallas Morning News, I found this interesting article.

Barrage of bad news can get in your head, affect judgment

By ERIC TORBENSON and BRENDAN CASE / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]; [email protected]

"If you managed to avoid Friday's statistical contribution to the economic apocalypse by hiding in a closet, here it is: The nation's unemployment rate shot up to 8.1 percent last month and we lost 651,000 more jobs.

"Chances are you heard it on the radio, television or our Web site, maybe through a Facebook update or a Twitter tweet. The conga line of bruising news blankets consumers in a headline bombardment that's probably making things worse.

"The play-by-play of this downturn accelerates what some call the psychology of recession: how bad news makes people feel worse and spend less, resulting in more bad economic news."
----------------------------------------

Recipe for Bad Decisions

The article went on to say that people who become obsessed with the daily data dump of increasingly bad economic news, are more likely to make mistakes in critical business situations.

I am a former newspaper reporter and editor, probably the only former investigative reporter working in the search industry today. One of my early newspaper jobs was as the Telegraph Editor, the person who edits copy from the wire services. So I come by my addiction to monitoring news developments quite honestly. However, after my restless night, I am going to swear off the bad news habit and focus on what is really important – my wonderful clients and competing for the business that is still there.

Times are tough but, in fact, the number of CEOs and other senior executives who are leaving their jobs – or are being forced out – continues unabated. Thus the demand for executive search consultants continues as well. Yes, we have had a couple of projects postponed, but the end of the world has not arrived. Yes, these are worrisome times, but I am not going to make it uncomfortably worse by focusing on developments over which I have no control.

This is not the time to hide in the closet. There will be big winners and some spectacular losers in these tumultuous times. You can let the bad news set your strategy or you can plot a course to take advantage of new opportunities that will certainly present themselves while everyone else is watching the doom and gloom on the 24/7 cable news shows.

Come out of the closet. With all due respect to my colleagues in the news business, it is time to stop listening to the endless bad news.

My Suggestion

For those who still have jobs, and that is the vast majority of Americans, do not fall victim to the trap of becoming so busy trying to keep your job that you forget to do your job.

If, like me, you are an equity partner or if you own your own business, now is the time to focus on strategies that will allow you to thrive, not just survive. Stay focused. Let your competition listen to the drumbeat of bad news. Let your competitor make the bad decisions.

Recognize that clients will appreciate a value proposition that emphasizes top-tier service at reasonable prices. Customers will value companies that are willing to share risks and own the quality of their work in a true spirit of partnership.

There will always be potential customers who feel they must pay the biggest firm the highest fees. After all, that is the safe strategy – pay the big fees and hope for the best. But big firms, with high fees and big overhead, are like a battleship trying to turn around in a narrow channel. They cannot turn quickly. They are not flexible. In the bad times, their high overhead, expensive fees and costly project expense budgets are not so popular. Regardless of your industry, there are smart clients will be looking for a better answer. Think clearly. Stay focused. Give them the solution they need.

Quality service, exemplary results and reasonable fees – as the Chairman of an executive search firm that is exactly where I want to be. That is the value proposition that I want to own.

Besides, being safe and hoping for the best are lousy business strategies.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

On Reference Checks, Background Investigations and Telling the Truth

This is the last in a three-part series on the resume. I hope some of these hints will be helpful to you in your next career search. Please let me know what you think.

References, Credential Verification, Background Investigations

These are important issues for candidates entering the job market. Managing this part of your job search is critical to your success. Before discussing the guidelines for these issues, it is important to establish some context concerning the job search process.

First, most jobs are not filled by outside recruiters. That is why establishing and maintaining a robust network of contacts is so important.

Second, when a recruiter contacts you, it is important to understand the type of recruiter you are dealing with – Retained or Contingency. Retained firms are client centered. This means that they are engaged by the client to fill a specific position or number of positions. The vast majority of the time, retained recruiters hold the exclusive rights for the position(s). They are paid for the work they perform regardless of whether the position is filled by the firm. Contingent recruiters, however, are paid only if their candidate accepts the offer. It is more common for clients to use several contingent recruiters for the same position. When this happens, it is possible to be contacted by different recruiting companies for the same position. Contingent recruiters who do not have an exclusive for a specific position are reluctant to share too many details about a job posting until they have your resume. The problem is that if two recruiters have your resume, and submit it for the same job, there is a chance that a disagreement over “ownership” may result if the client does not keep accurate records concerning who submitted the resume first. Clients do not want to find themselves in the middle of a fight between recruiting agencies over candidate ownership. If this does occur, the candidate may discover that they have been eliminated from further consideration. If a recruiter calls and offers an opportunity that sounds similar to a position for which your resume has already been submitted by another recruiter, ask the recruiter to name the city. Candidates do not want to give the second recruiter too much information because they may attempt to obtain the rights as a competing recruiter to work on the same assignment, thus creating more competition for the position. Use discretion.

When giving your resume to a contingent recruiter, always specify that your resume cannot be distributed to other clients without your prior verbal or written approval. Include that directive in your email when sending the resume. The vast majority of contingent recruiters are ethical professionals. However, there are numerous examples of situations where recruiters have used resumes, sometimes with all contact information, as a “tease” to capture an assignment.

References

There are no standards on the number of references a candidate should have. At a minimum, it is four or five. JohnMarch Partners requires eight: two superiors, two peers, two subordinates, and two personal references. Recruiters for certain positions may require additional resumes from former bosses.

The timing of the submission of references depends on the process used by the employer or the recruiter. Our Firm requires four references during the vetting process. Confidentiality – and possible negative repercussions from a current employer – is always a concern for candidates who are currently employed. This is understandable. In our case, we wait to check current employer references until an offer has been extended and the candidate has notified their current employer. However, as a rule, these offers are contingent on final background and reference verification.

Candidates should be very clear that the current employer or related parties should not be called. You should only provide initial reference information from colleagues who will respect your confidentiality. Recruiters will try to accommodate candidates who express concern that their interest in a new opportunity will compromise their existing employment relationship. However, candidates need to understand that few recruiters will submit a candidate without vetting their previous performance, which is why candidates should always be candid and forthright when asked about prior performance and professional employment relationships.

Secondary References

Ninety plus percent of the time, references provided by the candidates are favorable. Clearly, candidates are not inclined to provide the names of former employers or colleagues unless they know what will be said. That is why recruiters and the best employers will attempt to collect additional names to verify this information. These are commonly referred to as secondary references.

When asked to name others you have worked with in the past, candidates should be aware that these individuals might be contacted to verify certain information concerning your scope of responsibility, performance and even reporting relationships. A rule of thumb is to only mention names in your interviews that you know will be supportive if they are contacted.

Recruiters increasingly require candidates to sign release of information forms before they check references. This typically allows them to talk with anyone excluding those references that you exempt to protect confidentiality of your interest. If you mention a name that may have a connection with your current employer, specifically tell the recruiter not to contact that individual based on those ties.

Credentials

After several highly publicized events where candidates misrepresented credentials, employers and recruiters now routinely verify this information.

Remarkably, recruiters or employers will need your social security number and date of graduation in order to verify degrees. Most colleges and universities now use a national database company to process these inquiries. A valid social security number is essential in order to obtain that information. This raises the fear among some candidates of identity theft. That is why it is important to verify your recruiter, especially if you are dealing with a contingent fee firm about which little is known. There have been examples of people posing as recruiters asking candidates for social security information and even driver’s license information in order to conduct a preliminary background check. If this occurs, candidates should take steps to verify the authenticity of the recruiter and the assignment before complying with this type of request.

A common candidate mistake is to list a credential related to a professional association whose membership renewal was forgotten or allowed to lapse. It points to a candidate’s lack of attention to detail.

Background Checks

With increasing regularity, recruiters are now conducting background checks of their candidates. Fifteen years ago, recruiters who drilled down to this level were the exception. Eight years a recruiter with one of the largest healthcare search firms even asked me why I went to the trouble since the clients did not seem to care and were not requesting that service. Hopefully, times have changed for that firm.

Background investigation firms report continued incidents where candidates fail to disclose material issues: undisclosed arrests,material problems with personal finances, problems with credentials or unreported employment that is relevant to the search.

Contingent recruiters rarely go to this level of detail because of time and financial constraints. They have to move quickly to submit the resume in order to get the credit —and to be paid --if the candidate is hired. More often than not, employers are left with the responsibility for more in-depth candidate screening as well as the all important background checks.

At JohnMarch Partners, we complete a background review prior to the candidate’s face-to-face interview with the Engagement Partner. We routinely verify previous employment, academic and professional credentials, civil and criminal court filings, driving record, and credit history. Because we use outside investigators to conduct this work, our Firm falls under the rules of the Fair Credit Reporting Act of 1998. That law specifies the language of the release of information form. It also establishes rules concerning what information can be shown to the client. For example, credit reports may not be duplicated and can be seen only by the company making the request. At JohnMarch we report to the client only if there are any material findings related to employment, and we are precluded by law from providing the client with a copy of the actual credit history report.

Disclosing a prior mistake is not necessarily fatal to a candidate’s chances of landing the job. Failure to disclose usually is a deal killer. We view disclosure as a positive sign of the candidate’s integrity. However, there are certain types of issues that will disqualify a candidate, depending on the job. This will vary based on the ownership of the company, the job title, and/or scope of responsibility.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

Constructing A Resume

Last week, I posted some general comments on developing a good resume, and its importance in defining one's career brand. Today, I want to provide some specific suggestions.

There are a ton of so-called resume experts or resume doctors peddling their services. Some are good and some are worse than terrible. Everyone has an opinion on this subject so take what you read or hear with a grain or two of salt. These are my thoughts.

Use of templates

As a rule, candidates should avoid using templates that come loaded with the computer. Most of these tend to be dated or are inappropriate for a senior level executive. Most professional associations have career centers with on-line resume tools. There are a number of relatively inexpensive software programs for resume creation for those who are not part of an organization that offers this type of career support.

Formatting the resume

Rule number one: make it easy to read! White space is good. Judicious use of boldface and italicized type can help make the document more readable. The operative word is judicious.

In selecting a typeface, be cautious. This document was created using Verdana. The font size for this guide is 10 point because that is the default of this particular blog format. If you prefer a more traditional appearance, Times New Roman and Georgia are two excellent choices for traditional fonts. It is important to note, however, that Times New Roman is more difficult to read when using the 10-point size that many candidates select in order to squeeze their career into two pages. After you have read 30 resumes, the smaller the type, the bigger the chance that the researcher who is screening the document will miss something of importance.

Candidates should never use script or any of the stylized typefaces. Frankly, those typefaces scream, “Do not take me seriously!”

Length of Resume

There are no hard and fast rules for the length of the resume other than it should be proportional to your years of experience and accomplishments. Far too many candidates find themselves eliminated from consideration because they submitted a resume that did not provide sufficient information concerning experience or accomplishments. Remember, the resume is your first interview.

Use of Key Words

Some larger companies and recruiting agencies use computer screening tools for staff and entry level management jobs. That is why some resume experts recommend the use of keywords. However, resumes for executive positions typically are personally reviewed by a researcher or recruiter. Loading your resume with “keywords” in an attempt to grab the attention of a software screening program diminishes the brand of a seasoned executive.

Use of Career Objective Statement

I advise against including an “Objective” description at the top of the resume. Recruiter Larry Tyler once said that objectives are either too general to serve any useful purpose or too specific and will lead to elimination from further consideration.

Career Summary

I am not opposed to the use of the career summary. However, there is reasonable debate on both sides of this issue. I come down in favor of the summary if the summary provides an accurate and relevant description of a candidate’s experience and career progression. In other words, the summary is beneficial if it helps the recruiter quickly gain a sense of the candidate’s experience and accomplishments.

Contact Information

Candidate identification information – name with professional credentials, address, telephone number and email address – also known as the stack, should be constructed in a simple format. Candidates who attempt to be creative in hopes of attracting attention should remember that formatting which might elicit a negative impression is not worth the effort. Less is more.

John G. Self
325 North St. Paul, Suite 3910
Dallas, Texas 75201
(214) 220-1234 (o)
(214) 577-5540 (c)
[email protected]

Education and Credentials

Unless you are a new graduate, education credentials should be listed at the end of the resume. A master’s degree is NOT a professional credential and should not be used after the name. Only doctoral degrees should be used after the candidate’s name.

Fellowship in a professional organization like the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE) or Healthcare Finance Management Association (FHFMA), or certification as a public accountant, or clinical qualification such as RN, for example, should be placed after the name.

Employment

Again, make it easy for the recruiter and/or employer. I prefer a listing format that includes the organization, title and a brief italicized description of the business and scope of responsibility. It is important to include key metrics.

Clarity is very important. If you held more than one title (job) with a company, you should list the tenure with that company and then separately list each job with the dates you held that position. Listing multiple positions in one company – versus individually accounting for each job separately – will help avoid the appearance of job hopping.

Dot Pointing Accomplishments

One of the most common resume mistakes is to mix scope of responsibility with achievements in the dot points.

While candidates should list their jobs chronologically – from most recent to the first employment – a candidate’s accomplishments for each position should follow an old journalistic rule -- inverted pyramid. A candidate should always list their most significant accomplishment for each position first, not chronologically.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

Your Resume, Your Brand

GAINVESVILLE, Florida (Jan. 30, 2009) -- Today I spoke to graduate healthcare management students at the University of Florida. The seminar room was located not far from “The Swamp” – Ben Hill Griffith Stadium, home of the University of Florida Gators, our current national champions of college football. These are bright, motivated students, the future leaders of the U.S. healthcare system.

The topic of my talk was Career Management – Your Brand, Your Success, Your Life. At first, I sensed they were not really connecting with part of my title – the Your Life, Your Success part. After all they are young, attractive/handsome, energetic and bullet proof. What’s up with this talk on success? Isn’t success for a well educated graduate student a foregone conclusion? Not really, and I said so. They smiled, most nodded, but few were buying! I continued to try to make the connection, however, a certain sinking feeling led me to believe that I was sounding like someone’s father, a deadly comparison. They were polite. I plowed on and they begin to engage.

I spent a lot of time talking about the resume, that document which I describe as the core element of an individual’s brand statement. As senior executives we continually add to our brand through books published, articles written, blogs posted, and speeches presented, as we move through life. But the resume will forever be the root document of an individual’s professional brand.

Since the resume is so important, and given the vast amount of misinformation floating on the Internet and through so-called resume doctor consultants, I have decided that over the next several blog posts to offer my perspective on the resume – that of a partner in an executive search firm.

Let’s begin with an overview:

The resume is the candidate’s first interview.

OK, I have said this already, but let me blast this into your psyche one more time: the resume is the core document in clearly defining a candidate’s professional brand.

That is why the resume must be constructed with clarity and accuracy while emphasizing the candidate’s progressive scope of responsibility and record of accomplishment. The ideal resume should detail the career progression and accomplishments, beginning with the most recent position. The resume should include all positions of employment. It is critical that the resume be accurate concerning title, dates of employment, scope of responsibility and accomplishments. The standard of honesty and clarity applies to the listing of academic and professional credentials and affiliations as well. Statements that are cleverly (ambiguously) worded – designed to allow the employer or recruiter to make their own assumptions concerning degrees earned or credentials held, are in today’s market easily vetted and almost a certain guarantee of elimination from future consideration.

It is imperative, when sending a resume to a recruiter or potential employer, that the resume be current as of the date it is transmitted. One of the most common mistakes is to send a resume indicating current employment even though tenure with that organization has ended. This speaks to integrity and/or lack of attention to detail.

There are no hard and fast rules concerning the length of a candidate’s resume. It should be proportional to the years of experience, number of positions held and accomplishments. It is silly to suggest that a 30-year executive with a successful record of accomplishment can incorporate all relevant information into a two-page resume.

One final comment today: Always keep your resume up to date. You never know when that dream job will come along or, in this economy, when you get word that your job is being eliminated.

On Tuesday: Organizing the Resume
John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry

Wouldn't It Be Nice....

DALLAS, Texas (Jan. 12, 2009) Wouldn’t it be nice to use a search firm that provides you with video summaries of their interviews with the recommended candidates?

Wouldn’t it be beneficial to your organization if your search firm was willing to share the risks of the recruitment – financially speaking – and guarantee that you will be satisfied with the quality of their work product and the candidates they recommend?

Wouldn’t it be reassuring to work with recruiters whose candidate screening process is among the most in-depth in the industry and, accordingly, were willing to guarantee their C-suite placements for 36 months? Wouldn't a search firm that was willing to put a portion of their fee at risk, based on the success of their recommended candidate be a breath of fresh air in industry where many firms get paid whether they produce value or not?

Don’t you wish your search firm was so focused on your success that they constantly were looking for ways to improve service and to help you build a team that enhances your competitive position in the market?

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

The A,B,Cs of Human Capital...

New York,NY [November 23, 2008] – So the price I paid for chatting up an unsuspecting healthcare consultant at Chicago’s O’Hare airport while awaiting the departure of a flight was to write an essay on what a search consultant should tell a hospital CEO who wants to transform his or her annual report language on human capital into action. It seemed such a small price to pay for the insights he shared regarding his biggest regrets as a hospital CEO.

By way of a reminder, this former hospital CEO said that his biggest disappointment was his failure to come to grips – to understand – the real importance of human capital issues, and how they directly related to his success or failure as a hospital leader. The number of hospital senior executives who focus on human capital issues with sufficient depth of understanding and passion as to make their employees a meaningful part of their market differentiation strategy, is miniscule, he believes. Now a Managing Director for a global consulting firm's human capital practice, this former hospital executive spends most of his time trying to convert healthcare leaders to the reality that having the best, most engaged workforce is one of the single most important pillars for achieving sustainable success.

As I started to write, I realized that my essay, save my first recommendation, was really a series of questions I would ask a hospital CEO, beginning with whether human capital is addressed in the organization’s long-range plan, and operationalized in the annual business strategy.

1. How many A, B, and C rated employees do you have? To get to this critical benchmark, complete a top down assessment of your workforce. Bring in a consultant – either an executive recruiter that you trust or a Topgrading© specialist – to collaborate with your team to complete this work.

2. If you have an abundance of C players, then it is time to ask why your employment team is spending dollars to recruit mediocrity. Is the problem the strategies your in-house recruiters use to source candidates, or the processes they use to screen them? Do you believe you are getting A candidates but far too many turn out to be Cs?

3. If you have too many Cs -- the employees who foul up service excellence, kill your productivity gains, or directly or indirectly contribute to an environment that jeopardizes patient safety -- why hasn’t your annual performance evaluation process caught this? Is anyone looking at the results on an enterprise-wide basis, or, are they more focused on the total financial impact of the raises each employee will receive?

4. If the majority of your employees are A and B players, with a small percentage of Cs, then look at other critical human capital metrics: rate of turnover, vacancies, and your orientation program.

5. Do you consider leadership development an expense or an investment? How much are you investing in your leadership/management development programs as well as employee education? Do you tie the effectiveness of your leadership and other education programs to performance improvement benchmarks?

6. Do you conduct a strategic assessment of your human capital – deciding who is ready for more responsibility or promotion, who needs additional attention and who should leave the organization? Or, is this performed on a division-by-division, department basis? If the latter is the case, how are you able to look at the human capital big picture?

7. How high is your organization’s accountability score? An 8 to 10 indicates that employees know that exceptional performance and accountability are critical to their survival; that there are consequences for everyone in the organization.

8. How often do you personally make rounds on all shifts? Do you require your senior leaders to make rounds? Your department managers? Is someone from your management team seeing every patient during his or her admission to monitor your human capital performance?

My O’Hare conversation just reconfirms what I have been trying to promote for years. The key to an organization’s success is its human capital. You cannot recruit and retain the best people without a comprehensive soup-to-nuts evaluation human capital development and assessment process that is constantly measuring where your organization stands.
This will not happen through best effort.

John G. Self, Chairman of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. He is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

A Hospital CEO's Tough Lesson Learned

Dallas, Texas (November 16, 2008) -- The great thing about my job is that I get to meet and talk with a wide range of current and former health system and hospital executives.

Most of the time these encounters occur at ACHE events or other conferences. Occasionally they are chance meetings in hotel lobbies or airports. I am struck by how often these serendipitous encounters occur even though our industry is modest in size. However, in the interest of fairness and full disclosure, I have the ability, I am told, to chat up a brick wall. About that I am certain that my colleagues, my friends and, most assuredly, my family will agree.

The latest case in point was yesterday in Chicago. This unsuspecting "encounter" (read: victim) is a former hospital CEO who moved from the “daily grind” of running a hospital to the weekly travel grind of healthcare consulting, advising hospital executives on “tough lessons learned,” a term he used more than once.

OK, I bit. I am a former newspaper reporter who morphed over 15 years into the founder of a boutique search consultancy. You simply cannot drop a statement like that and not expect me to pounce. So, I asked, tell me, what was your toughest lesson learned?

“My biggest disappointment,” he explained, “was my failure to come to grips – to really understand – the real importance of human capital issues and how those directly related to my success or failure as a hospital leader. So many CEOs talk in platitudes, or business-speak, about how important their employees are, but the number of hospital senior executives who really get it, with sufficient depth of understanding and passion as to make their employees a meaningful part of their market differentiation strategy, is miniscule.

“They talk a good game but their actions do not support the words in their mission statements, strategic plans, or annual reports,” he lamented. “I guess you can say that I am recovering from a dangerous malady from which far too many CEOs suffer: Do as I say, not as I do. I talked but I did not really understand. I always found more traditional or convenient reasons for my successes and failures.”

Today, as a Managing Director for a global consulting firm's human capital practice, he spends most of his time trying to convert healthcare leaders to the reality that having the best, most engaged workforce is one of the single most important pillars for achieving sustainable success.

When I mentioned that I would like to use his comments in my blog, he asked that I not use his name to avoid any issues with his firm.

This healthcare leader said that he is continually amazed at CEOs who do not know how many of their hundreds or thousands of employees are A players, the best available talent for their respective positions. Or how many employees are Bs, those solid workers who are the heart and soul of any organization. Most alarming, he said, is the number of CEOs who do not have a clue how many of their employees are C players, those with whom you spend 80 percent of your time for a 20 percent return. These C employees, he maintains, crush productivity, foul up service and, in healthcare, contribute to an unsafe environment wherare patients are placed at risk.

“Listen, I think we are heading for some tough economic times... I am so busy and I hope that means that healthcare leaders are beginning to understand the importance of this issue. I really hope so because the upside is so great...This is truly not rocket science.

“You simply cannot be successful without focusing on the people, day in and day out,” this battle-tested former CEO said. "You may have gotten away with it in the past, but not anymore. If you are not zeroed in on your human capital issues, you cannot be the best in the market, and if you are number one, you will not stay as the market leader without an uncompromising focus on recruiting, training and retaining the best available senior leaders, managers, physicians, nurses and clinical support personnel – everyone, from the people who greet and register patients to the housekeeper polishing floors or cleaning patient rooms.

“For the sake of patient safety and to achieve enhanced operating performance, you have to elevate the performance of your workforce.”

I was amazed at his passion. I was impressed with his clarity of success. Before I realized it, my 90-minute wait for a flight to Dallas had passed. I was almost tempted to take a later flight to continue the conversation. As is the case with the best of leaders, he was so willing to share hard-earned insight.

Now, believe it or not, I have a homework assignment. He wants an essay outlining what a search consultant should tell a hospital CEO how to transform his or her annual report language on human capital into meaningful action.

Well maybe he was not serious about the essay, but I think I will give it a whirl. I think I will begin with the thesis that you do not have to be smartest or best paid CEO to embrace this maxim.

John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper, Mr. Self has been leading high profile executive search engagements for more than 15 years. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

Videoconference Interviews and Marriage

JOHN G. SELF | Founder
& Chairman | JohnMarch Partners, Inc.

CHICAGO, November 5, 2008 -- Would you get engaged to marry a person who you met only through one or two video conference sessions?

You would be crazy.

That is exactly what an increasing number of top-tier executive search firms are asking their clients to accept. With increasing frequency, some name brand recruiters are relying on videoconference interviews – and in some cases only telephone calls – to make a critical decision concerning which candidates they plan to submit for client consideration.

I find this alarming.

The central problem with the executive search process is that it requires a client – and the candidate – to make life-changing, career-changing decisions based on three or four face-to-face meetings. Historically, this meant a face-to-face interview with the firm’s engagement partner following several telephone screening interviews with search associates and then one or two site interviews with the client.

At its best, the executive search process is a somewhat risky business when you consider the myriad of professional/organizational, and personality issues, as well as the enormous financial risks, that surround the selection process. It is about cramming a massive exchange of information into a relatively short, defined process and, in the end, coming up with a correct assessment.

Executive search is anything but a scientific process. Oh yes, there are firms with a boatload of tests they ask you to take, psychologists they ask you to meet, impressive and comparative graphs they create. And these can be useful tools. However, at the end of the day, executive search is no more a science than a high stakes poker game. In fact, you could make the argument that executive search is really a black art. Success will always be based on sound, experienced judgment and good information.

As a search partner with more than 10 years of senior level search experience, I have always felt executive search is best described as the process of getting married after four or five dates. Now that is risky. In marriage, as in search, the only way to mitigate the risks is through the exchange of information and the evaluation of leadership style, attitudes, values and a thorough vetting of past performance which is the best predictor of future success.

Let’s focus on the importance of information for a minute. Information about the client – and about the candidate – is at the heart of the process. The quality of the information is critical to a successful search.

Candidates need clients to make full disclosure – the good, the bad and the ugly. Every organization has those charactertistics. Clients need recruiters who will drill deep into a candidate’s background, evaluating credentials, background issues and past performance to provide in-depth dossiers. Without a robust exchange of information, the search process is flawed.

Following several recent HealthCare Voice blogs, I have talked with increasing numbers of candidates who are eager to share their experiences (and frustrations) concerning executive recruiters. There is a recurring theme: candidates say that they get minimal information about the client, their challenges and opportunities, and almost nothing about performance expectations or the cultural DNA of the organization. Let’s be honest, it is hard to describe these issues as well as the community in a 7 to 12 page document which seems to be the average these days.

At JohnMarch Partners, the average length of our Position Prospectus varies from 24 to 60 pages, depending on the complexity of the engagement. We do not want our candidates to be surprised or feel sandbagged.

With an increasing number of horror stories in which the recruiter, the client, or both, withheld important information that was material to the decision to accept an employment offer, candidates are justified with their concerns over this lack of disclosure.

And now the alarming trend: candidates say that more and more, their contact with recruiters is limited to the telephone or one or two videoconference sessions. For senior level executive assignments, this is a very bad practice that will result in an increasing number of bad matches.

The real cost of an executive level mis-hire has been estimated at 100 times the candidate’s annual salary. That can be a staggering financial loss for a client organization. If using videoconference interviews is about saving money, then someone is being penny wise and pound foolish. Or is this trend of videoconferencing candidate interviews more for the convenience of the recruiter? Is the search process becoming more about candidate inventory and filling client orders? Where does judgment fit in that formula?

I am not anti-technology. JohnMarch Partners was one of the first firms to use videoconference technology in the early 1990s when searching for clinical physicians. There is no question that technology is a great thing. It can contribute to the search process. But technology cannot replace the all important face-to-face interview between a well prepared search consultant and a potential recommended candidate. A probing two or three hour interview by the engagement partner is as much about the nuance of a candidate’s responses and reactions as are his or her answers to the questions. You simply cannot achieve that level of insight through videoconferencing.

Make no mistake, the engagement partner’s interview is critical in deciding which candidates should be submitted to the client for their review. Here is a more personal way to look at this practice: using videoconference interviews to select candidates is like seeing your new grandchild for the first time. You are delighted for the picture but there is absolutely no substitute for the experience of holding that grandchild for the first time.

When a client pays the recruiter a fee that is equal to one-third of the successful candidate’s first year cash compensation, they are entitled to every advantage, every bit of value that a search firm can deliver. A convenience for the search consultant should not be a factor.

Videoconferencing the key interviews in lieu of meeting the candidate personally is a poor substitute for good recruiting.

Or for deciding who to marry.

John G. Self, Chairman of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. He is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

It Is Not Snowing in Hell....Yet.

JOHN G. SELF, Founder
& Chairman | JohnMarch Partners, Inc.

Dallas, Texas Saturday, October 25, 2008 – I just returned from an 11-day trip, visiting clients in Indianapolis, Atlanta, Newark, and Buffalo. As I was driving to my client’s office in Buffalo, it began to snow. For a Houston native who knows more about humidity than winter weather, snow in October is a little startling. It must be a portent of things to come, and I am not thinking about a debate on global warming.

In talking to healthcare executives in those cities, there is a consistent theme: the economy that we are worried about today is not half as bad as the economy we will live with in 2009. Forecasts for a deep recession are more common now than three months ago. Given all that has happened in our economy over the past four weeks – all that is seen and a lot that is not – the growing angst in healthcare is not surprising. Hint: it is those economic developments not readily visible today that send a cold chill down the backs of many in the financial industry.

In the near term, the economic slowdown means for hospitals that there will be fewer profitable elective admissions and more bad debt. Anatomical enhancements and the sculpting of other body parts are discretionary expenditures that drop off household budgets when times are tight. Sadly there are essential admissions that many working people cannot afford. Some hospitals are beginning to take steps to prepare for the worst.

Carrie Vaughan, Senior Editor-Leadership, HealthLeaders.Com is doing a great job chronicling these developments and the challenges for healthcare leaders. Here is a snippet from her Friday email alert:

Cuts, Closures, and Bankruptcies

Many healthcare facilities are struggling to keep their doors open and some are losing the battle. Others are taking a close look at operations and cutting staff or services as needed. The sheer volume of stories about healthcare organizations closing, laying off staff, cutting services, or requesting a bailout the past few weeks has been unbelievable. Here's a sampling from this week: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is laying off about 500 employees as part of the health system's ongoing cost savings initiatives. South Carolina-based Providence Hospitals is laying off 30 employees in an effort to stem projected losses of $1 million this year and $7 million next year. Birmingham, AL-based Physicians Medical Center Carraway is closing after 100 years. Chicago's Lincoln Park Hospital is closing in the face of financial troubles. Clayton County, GA's only hospital, Southern Regional Health System, must wait several more weeks to learn if the county's government will move forward with a financial bailout.

If you do not receive her reports, now is a good time to start.

Thin margins at major health systems, including some "name brand" organizations, will trigger some executive changes if those CEOs and CFOs do not act quickly. Hospital boards are comprised of people from all walks of life. These are the same people who are more than a little concerned about the economic mess we find ourselves in. Board members tend to react differently when their hospitals start losing money in good economic times. In bad times, they act with a deep sense of awareness of their own financial loss. CEOs need to be more sensitive and begin to plan ahead rather wait to react.

Hospital financial statements in November and December will show real carnage as healthcare CFOs disclose losses from their institutional investment portfolios. One large east coast organization which reported that 65 percent of their investment holdings were in equities, is preparing for a huge balance sheet adjustment, estimating a $90 million loss in value. That, combined with a profit of less than .75 percent of $700 million in net revenue, is not a pretty picture. No one knows how their bond insurer will react. I am guessing not well.

Hospitals that have consistently relied on investment income to offset poor decisions, bad reimbursement, or both, will face tough scrutiny from boards and bondholders.
One CEO who is skating on the thin ice of very small operating margins remarked that it would be a cold day in hell before he let a "slash and burn" management turnaround team in his organization.

I sense a chill in the air.

John G. Self, Chairman of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. He is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

Lies, Damn Lies and Other Misrepresentations

JOHN G. SELF, Founder
JohnMarch Partners | Advisors in Executive Search

DALLAS, October 9, 2008 -- I have been telling my healthcare colleagues over the past couple of years that at long last, candidates seem to have gotten the message – that career/resume misrepresentation is a bad idea.

After some notable, very public examples – the Notre Dame football coach and the former CEO of Fort-Worth-based Radio Shack to name two in long and distinguished list of career management fraud – I saw a decline in the resume game-playing in the candidates I was reviewing for senior level healthcare positions. I was hopeful, that maybe, just maybe the candidates who were tempted to fabricate credentials or lie about their accomplishments, had gotten religion and/or realized that there was a good chance they would be caught.

Apparently, I was being overly optimistic.

Matt Levine, Vice President of Dallas-based CheckPast, a national firm that JohnMarch Partners uses to verify credentials, employment history and background issues, said this week that resume fraud was steadily increasing and this year was at about 25 percent of all the candidate investigations they conduct. For a firm that conducts about 100,000 background checks each year, an astounding fact is that 25,000 people lied.

Now in fairness to the candidates, the lies concerned not just academic or professional credentials, employment or salary, but also problems in their backgrounds that the candidates failed to disclose during the interview process – events like murder, rape, child molestation, serial sexual harassment, multiple DUI convictions, etc.

My personal favorite example of a colossal background snafu occurred in one of my searches for a public company. An otherwise qualified candidate with an apparent impeccable record of performance was being considered as a CFO. In case you do not know, a corporate officer in a public company cannot have a felony conviction. This guy’s story seemed to check out. His references were stellar. Then came the background report. CheckPast found not one, but four felony convictions. When I initially confronted the candidate, he angrily and arrogantly denied the information. It was not a pleasant telephone call. He finally relented when confronted with overwhelming evidence that he in fact, had been a very bad boy: terroristic threats, aggravated burglary of a residence, assault with a deadly weapon and, the big one, attempted murder. His aggressive string of expletive laced denials gave way to a weak, tiny voice in confession: “It was a bad divorce…”

Here is where healthcare service providers should be alarmed. There are so many other background problems that all too often go undetected. Hospitals, afraid of a lawsuit from former employees, are reluctant to give future employers a heads up about poor performance, bad behavior or even suspicions of homicide. This was the case with an RN on the east coast who was passed from hospital to hospital where he killed more patients because former employers were afraid to share information or their strong suspicions. Some community hospitals, desperate for nurses, pursue what appears to be a don’t ask, please don’t tell me approach in recruitment.

From the drug addicted surgeon with multiple pending disciplinary actions who gets a new job because his former hospital failed to disclose the problems, or the former vice president who was the subject of repeated complaints for sexual harassment, problem employees are the equivalent of a tacky gift – and in some cases a grave threat to patients -- that is passed on to some unsuspecting and undeserving soul.

The accumulated case law on reference reports would suggest that legal fears concerning litigation is just that - a fear.

Perhaps when more healthcare organizations who were unknowingly duped in the reference process turn around and sue the offending party, our industry will be able to do a better job protecting employees and patients from the hundreds of thousands of dishonest applicants.
In the meantime, JohnMarch will continue being aggressive in vetting candidates backgrounds.

Our clients and their patients deserve to know.

John G. Self, Chairman of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. He is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.

Healthcare Boards, CEOs Should Act Now

DALLAS, Saturday, October 4, 2008 -- For hospital boards and chief executive officers, the time to act is now. Waiting and hoping that the nation’s worsening economic ills will not affect health care is simply not a credible business strategy.

The economic news on Friday was not good. We lost another 159,000 jobs in September. More than 760,000 jobs have evaporated this year. Unemployment is currently at 6.1 percent and with deteriorating economic fundamentals, that number may top seven percent.

While Congress finally passed the credit markets rescue plan Friday, no one knows for certain if this will work or whether it will be sustainable.

Now is the time to Topgrade© your leadership team – to identify those executives and managers within your organization, or in the broader market, who are best suited to help you weather what could be a severe economic storm. You must identify those executives with a history of delivering on financial, operational and clinical performance commitments. Best effort performance will not be good enough.

We may be heading for the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression. Consumers and companies are quickly moving to retrench which adds to the negative momentum. Bloomberg reports that the “...sinking labor market and rising borrowing costs raise the odds Federal Reserve policy makers will cut interest rates by their Oct. 29 meeting.” Some economists worry that this toxic combination of economic fundamentals could spark the dreaded “stagflation” which will only prolong what some financial analysts believe will be a fairly deep recession. Japan’s economic stagflation lasted 10 years.

``The financial panic is a body blow to business confidence, and companies are now battening down the hatches,'' said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.Com in West Chester, PA. He was quoted by Bloomberg.Com before Friday’s jobless report was issued.

The healthcare industry, which some still believe is immune to economic swings, is facing serious consequences. Increasing unemployment will drive up the numbers of uninsured patients as workers lose company health benefits or as families dump their personal healthcare coverage to reduce household expenses. Hospitals will see an increase in bad debt. New Medicare rules which preclude reimbursement for the specified “never never” events may add to the financial misery of some marginal hospitals who face clinical quality and financial challenges.

The quality of an organization’s leadership team will determine which hospitals survive and which ones die. Having the best executives, the strongest managers and the most engaged employees is NOT an optional business strategy.

Board members have a fiduciary duty to ensure that their CEO and leadership team take all necessary steps to ensure that their hospital is a survivor. Directors who delegate this critical duty because they do not understand the complexities of healthcare will find that this defense will not assuage irate creditors, including bondholders.

Bond trustees and insurers will be quick to exercise their rights to assume control of a debtor hospital if their financial performance slips. Technical defaults of bond covenants will immediately bring increased scrutiny or intervention. In tight credit markets, the bond insurers have no intention of writing a big check to the bondholders.

CEOs who protect marginally performing colleagues because of long standing relationships may find that this questionable sense of loyalty is really a career ending event.

Tough economic times require leaders to make tough choices, from the executives they keep to the search firms they engage to find the best talent.

Relationships are important, but results are critical.

Accountability, like cash, will be king.

Russian Roulette In Executive Search

A major hospital is ready to make an offer to a prized senior leadership candidate. This is the candidate they want. The other finalist is impressive, but not a spot-on fit.

Then the worst possible thing happens. Problems with the number one candidate’s background check.

Two arrests.

This prized leader was not forthcoming concerning serious issues in his personal background. How could this happen? How could the recruitment process get this far only to find deal killer background issues?

The answer: a national search firm failed to vet their panel of recommended candidates prior to submission.

The most startling revelation is that this type of poor process, search consultant laziness or a combination of both is not that uncommon, hospital CEOs tell me. In three other national searches, candidates confided that their names were submitted to the clients without a personal, face-to-face meeting with the recruiter or having their references or background checked. This is wrong. For the client this is the executive search equivalent of Russian roulette.

Why is this happening in high profile, high stakes searches? What should clients expect from the search firm?

Without mentioning the well-heeled offending firms, here is a list of what clients should expect from executive recruiters, at a minimum:

1. MAXIMIZE VALUE, MINIMIZE THE RISK – Consultants should be willing to guarantee your satisfaction with their recommended candidate panel and offer an extended placement guarantee. With professional fees at most firms approaching 33 percent of the successful candidate’s first-year cash compensation (plus expenses), clients should expect their search advisors to own the quality of their work and the success of the candidate. The common search firm excuse that “We have no control over what happens after the candidate is hired” is simply outdated. If recruiters are thorough in their pre-engagement due diligence, they should know what type of candidate will be successful. As healthcare costs rise, consultants must be willing to share financial risks. After all, you are paying for their professional judgment.

2. REQUIRE CANDIDATES BE VETTED PRIOR TO SUBMISSION - Require that the panel of recommended candidates be vetted prior to submission. Candidate confidentiality is always a concern, but candidate backgrounds and representative primary and secondary references can be completed without compromising the candidate’s rights. Search consultants should check criminal, civil, credit and driving records for all jurisdictions in which the candidate has lived or worked in the past 10-15 years.

3. REQUIRE FACE-TO-FACE INTERVIEWS – There is no substitute for a face-to-face interview. Search consultants who are making candidate selection decisions on the basis of telephone conversations or videoconference interviews only are taking a big chance with the client’s money. At JohnMarch, we spend a minimum of three hours interviewing on the telephone before we meet the candidate in person. Our standard face-to-face interview is a minimum of three hours as well an additional 30 minutes in a video interview, a summary of which is submitted to the client when we present our recommended candidates.

4. VERIFY A CANDIDATE’S PRIOR SUCCESS - Most candidates finally got the memo concerning fabricating credentials. The most accurate predictor of future success is past performance. Taking a candidate at his word is not a successful search strategy. Even famous leaders have been known to lie or misrepresent their record. Just ask Sunbeam Corporation’s former board. A search firm’s candidate screening process should include a vetting of past performance, including checking on all those little dot-points that tout revenue growth, expense reduction, quality enhancement, etc.

5. EXPECT A TRUE PARTNERSHIP – If the only time you hear from your search consultant is when you call with another assignment, you probably are using the wrong firm. A true talent acquisition partnership incorporates shared financial risks and ongoing ownership of the organization’s leaders. A true partnership is more than sales talk in a glossy brochure.

I know this will not sit well with some of my colleagues. But we have entered a new era in healthcare. Quality, safety,and cost control are all big issues. The pressures on health systems and hospitals are immense.

Search consultants need to be more accountable for the thoroughness of their candidate screening and interview processes prior to submitting the recommended panel. The costs of their failures can be staggering for the client.

These are reasonable expectations. Demand change. Or, you can play Russian roulette...

Let The Candidate Beware...

Caveat emptor.

I just finished reviewing a confidential Position Prospectus for a major southern California academic medical center. The search firm leading the assignment is one of the largest in the world.

I was more than a little surprised.

The document was only 11 pages long and that included the cover page! The information and allocated space was balanced between a description of the client organization’s business units, its interrelationship with a medical school and the CEO leadership characteristics deemed important by the client.

What this position prospectus DID NOT address was the cultural DNA of this particular client organization; the real core values – not just the ones promoted in brochures. Nor did the document discuss how decisions are made and implemented or disclose any operational or financial challenges that may exist.

Why? Aren’t these issues important? Isn’t one common reason that successful executives fail in new assignments is that they did not understand the new culture or the hidden agendas? That may be why so many c-suite leaders laugh when they hear my definition of executive search: That it is a process in which the candidate and the client end up getting married after two or three dates.

One of the most common laments I hear from CEOs who take on new jobs is that they had to do much of the client research themselves. They claim that the search firms provide little more than an overview of the opportunity, much less an analysis of current operations or any risks. Those candidates who do not do their own extensive research are, more often than not, horribly surprised. Advertisements and promotional materials extolling a search firm’s ability to drill deep to master a client organization’s cultural DNA is mostly business development exaggeration, these CEOs say.

A colleague accepted a CEO position with a large western U.S. health system. A major Midwest search firm had the assignment. My friend read the position overview. She asked questions about the financials. Yes, the position was a risk, but one of her strengths was repairing distressed properties. Except, in this case, there was one big problem that NO ONE disclosed: that a decision was imminent to declare the hospital a non-producing asset that was to be converted from a 100-bed acute care facility to a Critical Access Hospital, or go on the auction block. She learned about this little oversight when she sat down with her boss to outline her plan to turn the hospital around.

The health system and the search firm were NOT marginal players. The health system is one of the nation's largest. The search firm is one of the top 10 in the country. When my friend called to confront the recruiter, the search consultant refused to talk, saying only: You will have to take that up with …

There are precious few search firms of any size who deliver transparency in the Position Prospectus, and fewer still that are willing to tie a portion of their professional fee to client satisfaction or accountability for their performance through extended placement guarantees.

Why don’t the major firms offer that type of value?

Because they do not have to. Hiring a worldwide executive search firm is a safe and expensive choice. Who among the stakeholders will criticize the board or CEO when they hire a worldwide recruiter? We seem to have returned to the old healthcare axiom: no one ever was fired for buying computers from IBM or telephone systems from AT&T.

At JohnMarch Partners we think clients and candidates deserve better. Our Position Prospectuses are among the most detailed found in any sector. We are a boutique firm which means we can innovate. For example, we provide clients with video summaries of our candidate interviews, and we are willing to share the risks through guarantees concerning client satisfaction and candidate performance.

Larger search firms, with their extensive overhead structure that must be fed each month, are loath to invest in accountability or innovation. Their growing sales volume provides little incentive.

For the clients, that is a real loss in value.

For candidates, let the buyer beware.