Sanford Rose Associates is a franchise network of over 65 offices, located in the US and internationally. Business owners in the system come from a wide variety of professional environments but typically share successful management backgrounds. An office would focus on the placement of mid-level managers, Senior Vice Presidents and C-level positions, including CEO's.
The Huntersville office opened in 2002 and, as was typical at that time, started with a contingency search model. Our market focus was food manufacturing and other manufacturing companies that met specific criteria. In 2005 a business decision was made to move to a retained search model. In doing so we lost some existing clients but maintained and grew a client base with those who clearly recognized the value we provided.
What counts is our performance. Sanford Rose Associates - Huntersville has a completion rate of 96% for its retained searches compared to the industry average of 82% (according to the last statistics published by the IACPR).
We would be happy to answer your questions regarding what this performance means to your organization.
Case Study #1. Wearing Multiple Hats: the Challenge of Small Firms
Two companies are highlighted in this case study. These are privately held companies with annual sales under $50 million. With both, we worked with the senior executive, one was the owner of a US-based business and the other was the North American CEO of an Asian-based company.
The US company was looking for a CFO and the Asian company wanted someone to lead both product development and business development. Aside from the title or generic job description, what did these companies really want from their new hires?
To determine what was needed for these positions a Job Accountabilities Matrix was developed. This is a technique whereby key accountabilities for the role and success factors for the new hire are determined and clearly documented. Using this knowledge to understand the requirements of the position and what the candidate needed to accomplish to succeed, enabled us to successfully fill the 2 positions.
Case Study #2. A Favorite Client: Now Hiring for the Future
This long term client, the global leader in their food ingredient niche, has worked with our office for the last 8 years.
In our early placements with this company we had a laser-like focus on the must-haves for the position. This produced excellent ‘hit-the-ground-running’ performance that all companies desire. However, it became apparent that more was needed. Our client needed candidates that had the ability to contribute in the long term and be a force for income growth and continuous improvement.
Since early 2007 we have shown our client the type of candidate who may require some additional education or skill development for a particular role, but who offers a much greater ability to anticipate or adapt to future needs of the company.
They continue to be a most satisfied client.
Case Study #3. A Giant Looking in all the Wrong Places
We were approached by a large food and agribusiness company to help them find Audit Consultants. We learned that they were not satisfied with their own internal efforts or those of outside recruiting firms.
When we began this assignment our first task was to understand why others had failed. We concluded that the client’s internal efforts failed primarily due to their inability to find highly qualified individuals. Their external providers seemed to focus on the financial skill element only and ignored the practical hands-on business experience required for success in this role.
In a nutshell, these positions required someone with good financial skills but more importantly individuals with a strong working knowledge of how business is conducted in one of the markets they serve. This requirement could be as diverse as grocery retail, food manufacturing, energy or agricultural commodities.
Based on this analysis, we were able to satisfy all their external requirements for this role over a 3-year period.