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Shared Risk

Oxford provided a survey in 2008 which asked employers if they believed they would get a better candidate from utilizing 5 contingency search firms or one retained firm, or contingency firm, with an exclusive arrangement. 91% stated a preference for contingency. Oxford spent the next year educating these employers with facts and statistics to show that utilizing more search firms was a fallacy.

Here’s why:

Contingency search is a race. Recruiters search for qualified candidates and will send a candidate that is a 50% fit just to log in the name. They look for the low-hanging fruit. The recruiters are not looking for the top 10% in the marketplace because they do not have the time to locate the top 10%. Quality control rests in the hands of the client.

Since speed is the number one criteria, recruiters are sending low- to mid-quality talent, and the hiring manager is in charge of quality control – making his decision from the pool of lower-quality candidates. The problem for the employer is that if he or she has interviewed a line of people who have the appropriate criteria in their resume, it is likely that the first one who can walk and chew gum at the same time will be hired. The client is, in most cases, interviewing B- and C-caliber candidates instead of the desired A-caliber candidates.

In a kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king. The client has a high propensity for a mis-hire with B and C players because it is likely that the candidate will need to be replaced or will not have achieved their results within 3-6 months. In his book entitled Straight from the Gut, Jack Welch, CEO of IBM introduces the concept of Topgrading, where he hires only A players and lets the C players go. Brad Smart, PhD, who helped him with the A, B, and C players assisted with the following approach: the A players were promoted; the next 40% percent were B players, or workabees. The C players were let go. Welch explained how to hire and interview A players. By understanding talent management, you have a common denominator: A players are the only level Welch would hire, as they helped an organization to excel. Jack Welch was the first person who said he is hired A players and let go of C players.

At Oxford we believe in a shared-risk search approach. We consistently send in 90-95% fits working with the shared risk model. You receive one to two candidates to make sure we are on target. It is not a race with other recruiters, so we have the time to find the A players. These high-ranking candidates are not on the job boards, and they are not looking at LinkedIn postings. In plain English, locating and recruiting an A candidate is like trying to have a molar extracted from the back of your jaw. The search is not a race and there is not a misfire. The difference is that you are now making a decision to hire from the best talent that is available – versus making a decision from the top of the bottom of the barrel. Quality control now rests with the search firm. We define hiring the wrong person as a misfire because your sights were aimed in the wrong area. Research shows that, on average, one of every two hires is a misfire when hiring B and C candidates.

Additionally, there are two ways to look at the marketplace: 1) there is a job opening on the street with a line of recruiters working it; or 2) the proper message – it is one message to the marketplace with a value proposition to the marketplace from one source.

When you have multiple recruiters on the same assignment, the check goes to the recruiter who logs the candidate first primarily by looking at low-hanging fruit on the job boards and ads. They are not finding the hidden players. Employers are making the best decision they can from the worst in the marketplace.

The cost to the company for a misfire is 15 to 24 times the salary.

How to proceed.

We would like to change the process by helping you make the best decision from the best talent. We would like to change your paradigm to only working with A players which will make your job easier, increase productivity, and increase your bonuses.

  • Give us 3-4 weeks to find these individuals.
  • We will develop an employer value proposition with you.
  • We will take them through a winning hiring process that will keep them fired up – allowing you to get the information you need.
  • We take this process and make it a higher quality process with us being the quality control.

We ask you to share the risk for this search by advancing a very small deposit. We give you a performance guarantee that we will return the deposit if we do not deliver three quality candidates in 30 days. We have always succeeded with each search and have never had to return the advance.

The question now before you is this: Is your current approach working? Or would you rather build your company, taking it to the top, with this new innovative approach?

For more information call 214 360 4000 or  email us at info@theoxfordgroup.net.

To book an appointment with Oxford click on this link https://theoxfordgroup.youcanbook.me/.

Partnering

The Oxford Group will partner with your company primarily on outcomes that are based on revenue or agreed-upon milestones (if it is operations related). A minimal monthly charge covers the costs of executing the mission.

The recruitment effort begins once the client and Oxford agree on the strategy. Oxford places a team to either build a VAR network or recruit an entire sales team from selected competitors that have a 12-month pipeline of revenue in the $3,000,000-$80,000,000 range that the salesman can bring with them to be pursued and closed by our client.

The team will source the name of every salesperson working for competitors, which are selected by the client. Then, using our scientific process and script, we uncover from the salespeople:

  • Their frustrations
  • Likes and dislikes regarding their current employer
  • The one last move they will make in their career
  • The accounts they currently have
  • Their 12 month pipeline of prospects
  • Confidential product development
  • New releases of product or services
  • Their company’s marketing plansfor the next 12 months
  • Rankings of all the sales people in the org chart by both industry or customer size, vertical sector and product line

Oxford recruits the candidates who can make the biggest impact based on several factors, including the client’s budget. We receive our compensation on a monthly basis based on the results of the team.

For more information call 214 360 4000 or  email us at info@theoxfordgroup.net.

To book an appointment with Oxford click on this link https://theoxfordgroup.youcanbook.me/.

Retained Search

We take satisfaction from being our clients’ most trusted advisor. We offer The Oxford Group Insider Track which gives you the horsepower, speed, and up-to-date information to make the best decision for your new executive hire.

The Oxford Group Retained Search allows you the competitive edge of allowing us to work methodically and systematically while leaving no stone unturned.

We have teams that will handle:

Preliminary Preparation

  • Target lists will be prepared and cross referenced to identify areas where special consideration is required such as partner companies or sensitive personal relationships with previous co-workers.
  • We will work with you to identify the challenges for the position and the goals and objectives.
  • Marketing and presentation materials will be compiled by our research teams and presented to the client for review before any candidates are approached.

Research and Identification

The research team will begin the process of identifying the candidates in what we term our “long list” through industry mapping, leveraging the Oxford Group’s extensive database and Insider Track Network. The team will also assist the client if they wish to use paid advertising.

Interviewing and Screening

The interview and screening process will run simultaneously after the identification of candidates. Our goal is to identify a short list of qualified executives that are capable of accomplishing the goals and objectives. Our candidates will only be introduced if they meet the critical requirements of the position.

Reference Checks

Reference checks on the finalist candidate(s) will be conducted either by us or by you depending on your preferred method.

Offer Letter Negotiation

The Oxford Group does not extend offers that will not be accepted. We will work with you to ensure a successful outcome to any offer you would like to present. We will mediate between the candidate and you where necessary to ensure acceptance of the offer letter negotiations.

Resignation and Delivery

We take all executives through our resignation program to ensure that counter offers will not be accepted. We will maintain communications before, during, and after the start date with the candidate, to resolve any outstanding issues during the on-boarding process.

For more information call 214 360 4000 or  email us at info@theoxfordgroup.net.

To book an appointment with Oxford click on this link https://theoxfordgroup.youcanbook.me/.

Contingency Search

Pay only for performance. The Oxford Group can deliver results with our Contingency Hybrid Approach!

There are times when it only makes sense to pay when the process is complete and your new hire is on board. Contingency recruiting is particularly appropriate for companies looking to fill sales, technical and mid- to upper-level management positions on a non-confidential basis.

Under the contingency model, the recruiter’s compensation is typically commission-based. This approach drives the recruiter’s behavior in some or all of the following ways:

  • Contingency forces recruiters to concentrate their efforts on the searches they can fill with minimal effort. The more difficult searches tend to get very little, if any, attention because the probability of filling them is slim.
  • Recruiters on contingency are required to collect as many client assignments as possible in order to have a sufficient pool of mandates against which they can promote their candidates.
  • Recruiters are also under pressure to collect multiple searches of a similar nature from different clients to increase the odds of placing a candidate that is recruited. Obviously as more clients are have interest in a candidate, a bidding war starts that could drive up the starting salary, and hence the placement fee. Contingency also makes it very difficult for the recruiting firm to be loyal to any one Client.

Deep Dive (Exclusive Contingency) or Shallow Dive (Open Contingency0? Open Contingency results in a horse race in which all the recruiters are in competition to present the candidates they locate first. This inevitably leads to the client handling the culling process rather than the recruiter. Exclusive Contingency or The Oxford Group Hybrid Approach will keep this to a minimum.

A deep dive search can only be accomplished if we have the time to put a research team on identifying all the candidates in a certain company sector and talking to each one of them individually. Fifty percent of the executives in the technology sector have no visible presence and can only be found by referral or by a research team probing into a company. The average number of calls required to locate candidates on an exclusive contingency is 117.

Open contingency is basically allowing for a shallow dive locating executives that are easily found. They are usually located through Linked-In, competitors, and the Internet. Open Contingency forces a recruiter to work multiple accounts to secure one placement because there is no guarantee that the recruiter will make a placement even if they locate the right candidate. The average number of calls on an open contingency is 36.

Based on your requirements, The Oxford Group will advise you as to whether our contingency, or our hybrid, will be the best approach. Oxford’s hybrid of a blended Contingency and Retained will assist you in enjoying the best of both worlds. Oxford will accept a $5,000 deposit on the search to go toward the placement fee and will return the $5,000 if we have not provided three acceptable candidates within thirty days.

For more information call 214 360 4000 or  email us at info@theoxfordgroup.net.

To book an appointment with Oxford click on this link https://theoxfordgroup.youcanbook.me/.