Excelling at HR Search: The On-going Journey

It may come as a surprise, but ChapmanCG never planned to be a global HR search firm. What was always important was looking after HR Leaders and keeping them happy, both in their careers and in building their teams. As the popularity of the firm increased, so did the complexity of our HR searches. It became necessary to quickly grow our HR network pan-regionally, and then pan-globally, to expand the depth and breadth and ensure we could fulfil increasingly demanding search obligations. In this short article, we reflect on five key priorities that we feel have been vital to our development, and our business success, as ChapmanCG has expanded.

1) Taking a Long Term View

With every introduction that the ChapmanCG team has to an HR person, we take a long-term view. If someone contacts us for HR career advice, we ensure they get it. If someone writes in about a job, they get a response. If we’re working with an organisation on a search, it’s not only about filling the HR search, or the HR appointment extending beyond the guarantee period: it’s about how happy all parties (us, the company we did the HR search for, and the person put into the role) are long term.

2) Believing in Total Transparency

No one likes getting rejected for a role. But equally, no one likes a vague explanation as to why. ChapmanCG believes in a “talking straight” philosophy. People don’t always like to hear it, but I believe in the long run it’s better knowing the truth, and gives more constructive room for self-improvement. Similarly, if we are working on a search for an organisation, the best value the ChapmanCG team can give is consulting back to them on obstacles to fill the search, better ways to position the company or opportunity, and other ways we can save time. We are now smarter at side stepping the “cookie-cutter” HR searches where little value can be added.

3) Knowledge Earns Respect

We like nothing more than being asked to give a viewpoint on an HR issue; to be asked to present to a regional or global HR team on HR trends; to meet a Global HR Head who is travelling through town, at their request, to update them on market trends; or to write a white paper on an emerging HR issue. I always say, “ChapmanCG is not a consulting firm: we are an HR search firm,” in that we don’t charge for our market advice. However, one of the privileges of doing what we do is that we speak with hundreds of HR practitioners per week – what better way to accumulate knowledge on new trends?

4) Connectivity is Critical

Technology has dramatically changed the way we communicate. The ChapmanCG team receives work related messages now via phone and voicemail, text message, WhatsApp, email, LinkedIn, website, Facebook and Twitter. Keeping up with this message flow has been vital to our being viewed as organised and responsive to HR Leaders. Similarly, 24/7 connectivity has become more commonplace, especially as ChapmanCG has globalised. The answer has not been to sit on email 24/7, of course, but it does change the way we work. Many of us tend to find ourselves working early and working late, but often taking breaks during the working day to fit in our personal lives. This has created the flexible work culture that ChapmanCG has today.

5) Putting Together the Jigsaw

Knowing who’s who in the HR team within a country, region or at the global headquarter level, has been vital as we have gone about putting together the global HR jigsaw. Our team has a thirst for knowing what it is we do not know. We collect HR market intelligence continuously (we add more than 300 HR people to our global network each week), so we become smarter with each search. The pieces of the jigsaw are constantly moving within our HR network and each week more than 50 of our 50,000-strong HR global network will switch jobs. We push ourselves to keep up with continuously monitoring these changes.

Conclusion

As we move into 2014, the focus within ChapmanCG continues to be on engaging our HR audience as intimately as possible. Expansion is not moving forward if it compromises what we have already created. We are aspirational when it comes to being the world’s most admired HR focused search firm, but we recognise that this label doesn’t come easily. It is the team’s mission to be involved in the most complex Global CHRO, Regional HR Head and Country HR Head searches around the world. At the same time, we remain ambitious in terms of being at the front of innovative HR thought leadership in key world markets.