How to Select A Search Firm
I recently pitched The K12 Search Group to a board looking to hire a new CEO for its small charter management organization. The questions they asked weren’t discerning, and most could be quickly answered in the proposal I had sent previously. Selecting a new leader is the most critical role of a board, and the stakes are incredibly high. I wondered why the committee didn’t push me harder on the things that matter.
When I started my business 17+ years ago, I had almost no competition. This didn’t automatically result in me getting searches, though. Most charter school boards were unfamiliar with executive search and how it worked. I was a bit of an evangelist about the importance of using a firm to hire C-level executives. Now, I have a lot of competition (shout out to those who share this space with me!), and charter schools are prolific. Thus, it’s critical to have a framework for selecting a search firm.
At the point when a firm meets the search committee (usually a subset of the board), the committee has already issued an RFP and solicited proposals. A good RFP should ask for the following information from the search firm:
Relevant Engagements. What similar searches has the firm recently conducted for organizations comparable in size and geography? You want a firm that is passionate about and knows the charter sector and has a cache of fresh, high-quality candidates.
Track Record. What percentage of engagements do they complete successfully? What is their success in placing females and people of color? How long, on average, do their placements stay in the role? You want a firm that gets results.
Process. How do they approach the engagement? Is it inclusive? Do they meet with stakeholders to scope the role and get alignment on the profile? Will they create the job description, scorecards/rubrics, and interview guides? You want a full-service firm.
Search Strategy. How do they source candidates? Do they rely mostly on job postings, or are they proactively reaching out to people who fit the profile? Do they have a strong network of sources who can refer candidates? You want a firm that can reach the best candidates.
Most firms will also include the fee structure and a proposed timeline.
I suspect our proposal does not differ significantly from our competitors. Retained executive search firms have similar approaches and fees.
So, how do you differentiate between firms? Digging deeper during the face-to-face conversation is essential to selecting the best firm for your engagement.
Here are some questions search committees could ask:
1. Tell us what the CEOs you’ve placed have accomplished for kids.
You want a firm passionate about improving public school options and advancing educational equity. We stay in touch with our placements and track their outcomes to hold ourselves accountable. It’s also rewarding to hear that our placements are getting outstanding results.
2. What percentage of your placements were actively looking for jobs vs. not?
This will reveal how much the firm relies on job postings. If I’ve learned anything over the last 25 years as an executive recruiter, the best C-level executives don’t spend time scrolling LinkedIn and Indeed. They’re busy doing their jobs and doing them well. We don’t broadly post the job description because, in our experience, we end up with hundreds of low-quality applicants that we have to sift through. We value quality over quantity.
3. Tell us about a placement that didn’t work out.
Every firm, including mine, has a placement that flamed out. It’s not necessarily the firm’s fault. Sometimes, the boards are to blame if they’re dysfunctional and challenging to work for. (We try to identify those boards in advance to opt out or be transparent with the candidates.) I’d want to know what the firm learned, what ownership they take, and what guarantee they offer to conduct a replacement search (they should provide a guarantee for the first year!)
4. Who will lead the search and be the primary point of contact?
Like many professional services firms, there is a bit of bait-and-switch. The Partner sells the work and then delegates execution to a lower-level employee. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you should know who the day-to-day point of contact is and their experience working with boards compared to the firm as a whole. Guiding a nonprofit board through a CEO search is tricky. Experience equals wisdom, and wisdom can be the difference between a great partnership and a messy one.
5. What additional support will you provide after our CEO is hired?
In the private sector, firms offer plenty of support for an additional fee. However, resources are scarce in the charter sector, and some firms offer additional services as part of the package. In our case, we regularly write press releases. We have a 90-day onboarding plan that can be adapted to most charter schools and CMOs. We also offer a discounted fee to our placements who retain us to help them build their leadership teams.
One savvy board asked me why they shouldn’t hire me, which I thought was clever. I now volunteer that information in all our business development calls (you’ll have to ask me yourself if you want the answer!)
The bad news is that I didn’t get the search—it went to another excellent firm that does work in the sector. The good news is that the charter movement is big enough to support multiple search firms, which is something I couldn’t have imagined 17 years ago! And they’re good firms, which is why, as a board, you need a way to figure out which one is right for you.