2008 CRL Journal - July_August

Focus: DiversityDiversity happens when the board holds the CEO andpresident accountable (page 3).

Achieve Diversity: Put Some Skin in the Game! 3

Leslie Stevens-Huffman interviews Sodexo and Scotiabank

A Diversity Drive in Seattle 8

Changing the face of Microsoft

Also in this issue:

The Importance of a Service Level Agreement in an

RPO Engagement 9Ravi Subramanian, Management Consultant

What You Do Know Can Hurt You 16By Ron Chapman Jr. and Michael H. Bell of Ogletree Deakins

Bringing Executive Search In-house 19James Seetoo of Invitrogen Corporation

DASHBOARD 23

What’s Important to Employees • Disney’s Image

published by

Volume 3 • Issue 8 • July/August 2008

Among those hiring now: Barb Miller,VP of human resources for CellularSouth. “We have a lot of opportunities for those individuals looking for achange.” Or, she says, laughing, “even those not looking for a change.We’re astrong, growing company and we need more talent than we have in-house rightnow.”

With more than 700,000 customers in Mississippi, Alabama,Tennessee, andFlorida, Cellular South is one of the largest privately held wireless companies in the U.S.

Miller’s approach to filling a job is strategic. Everyone throws that word around, but she seemsto mean it. “Each job is a project,” she says. A recruiter sits down with a hiring managerwith the following questions in the recruiter’s mind:

•What are our plans in the future? How will this job be affected?

•Will we fill this job the way we’ve done it in the past?

•What hotspots in the country would be appropriate for finding someone to fill this job?

•Will the same skill-sets needed for this job be needed in the future, or will those skills change?

Miller’s team, with help from Bernard Hodes, recently completed a redesign of its career site,aimed at attracting people who fit the culture: competitive and fast-paced. “If you’re notmoving forward, you’re probably moving backward,” Miller says. “We need employees whowill be inspired by this type of culture.”

Success will be judged according to: site traffic; quality of hire (as per retention andperformance reviews); capture rate (do they visit the site and then bolt?); and employeeproductivity (how many employees it takes to handle how many customers).

One challenge, Miller says, is location. “We like our talent to have a tie to the Southeast.Somebody coming from New York City to Mississippi—sometimes that’s a bit of anadjustment for their family.”

Todd Raphael, Editor in [email protected]

2 Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership | crljournal.com | July/August 2008

Editorial Advisory Board

Jeremy EskenaziManaging PrincipalRiviera Advisors

Engin CrosbyChief, Workforce Analysis& Forecasting OfficeCivilian HR AgencyDepartment of theU.S. Army

Kent KirchGlobal Director ofRecruitingDeloitte

John SullivanProfessor and Adviserto ManagementSan Francisco StateUniversity

Rupert BaderDirector, GlobalWorkforce PlanningMicrosoft

Catherine KeownDirector ofCorporate and FieldRecruitingLowe’s

Rodney MosesVice PresidentGlobal Talent AcquisitionCoca-Cola Enterprises Inc.

Ron Chapman Jr.,ShareholderOgletree Deakins

Michael KannistoGlobal Staffing DirectorBausch & Lomb

Thomas E. McGuireDirector, Global TalentAcquisitionThe Coca-ColaCompany

Kevin WheelerPresidentGlobal LearningResources

Danielle MonaghanDirector of HRMicrosoft China R&D

Dear Recruiting Leader,

EDITORIAL OFFICE

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tel. (1) 212-671-1181

Email: [email protected]

www.crljournal.com

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Todd Raphael

[email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Elaine Rigoli

[email protected]

Kate Bruener

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Madeline Tarquinio

[email protected]

SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER

Danielle Zittel

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tel. (1) 804-262-0189

MARKETING DIRECTOR

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PUBLISHER

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CRLJOURNAL.COM WEBSITE

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EDITING & CREATIVE

Barbara Hodge

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Judy Gouldthorpe

[email protected]

DIVERSITY

©2008 ERE Media, Inc. Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership | crljournal.com | July/August 2008 3

I f your company’s goal is to achieve workforce diversity,

with an inclusive senior leadership team, don’t expect

to reach the finish line by merely encouraging people to

change their behavior. Diversity and inclusion training,

hiring initiatives, and targeted advertising campaigns all

invite cultural change by encouraging unbiased hiring, but

like anything else in business, leadership, accountability, and

incentives drive results, not soft persuasion.

This year’s ERE award recipient for the best diversity

program, Sodexo, and award finalist Scotiabank have two

things in common: First, both have a goal of achieving

diversity at all organizational levels; and second, both

companies have achieved success by keeping score and

holding everyone, including senior leaders and manage-

ment, accountable for results. The Journal spoke with

SherieValderrama, senior director of theTalent Acquisition

Group at Sodexo, and Cory Garlough, vice president,

Global Employment Strategies, at Scotiabank, about how

they’ve successfully executed their company’s diversity

initiatives through regular reporting of performance metrics

and increased accountability.

About Sodexo’s diversity program:Sodexo (formerly Sodexho) is a global outsourced

provider of food and facility services. Its North American

operation covers the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The

company had revenues of $7.3 billion in 2007 and

employed 125,000 people, of whom approximately 20,000

are managers and executives. Sodexo began a formal

diversity program in 2003 and has continually increased its

total representation of minorities and females since the

program’s inception. However, in 2006, the company

reached a new level of success when it began to achieve

greater diversity at senior executive levels, with women

comprising 40% of all new executive hires and 4% of

promotions, and minorities comprising 20% of all new

executive hires and 16% of promotions.

About Scotiabank’s diversity program:Scotiabank is a 175-year-old financial services company

with $449 billion in assets, operating in 50 countries with

60,000 employees. In Canada, where Scotiabank is based,

workforce diversity is a mandated program, and each

company must achieve specific diversity goals that reflect

the composition of the general population.While the bank

has a long-standing formal diversity program, more recent

challenges have included achieving diversity outside its

Canadian operations due to global expansion and achieving

greater representation of women and other minorities in the

bank’s senior management ranks. Through expanded

efforts, representation of women in senior management

increased from 28.4% in 2005 to 31.5% in 2007; the

number of female employees receiving job promotions also

increased in 2007, by 141, and promotions of visible

minorities improved over 2006 by 71 employees.

ERE:How does HR continually engage senior management’s

support by articulating the business case for diversity?

Valderrama: Essentially, compliance with federal regula-tions was the initial impetus behind the design of a company-

wide program back in 2003, because previously, diversity

compliance was left up to each state under the Sodexo

system.But beyond the legal issues, it was going to be difficult

for the company to achieve its long-term growth plan unless

we could recruit and retain managerial talent.The statistics

showed that we were losing people, managers in particular,

at specific stages of tenure and that the new pool of

Achieve Diversity:Put Some Skin in the Game!The successful journey requires executive sponsorship,

accountability, and rewards for achievement.By Leslie Stevens-Huffman

managerial candidates would increasingly reflect

greater diversity. SoHR presented the data to senior

management because we knewwe needed to change

our culture and become compliant with the law.

In addition, our customers and prospects were

asking to see evidence of our diversity commitment

as part of the vendor-selection process. Given the

evidence, our senior leadership recognized the need

and immediately began backing the initiative by

articulating the vision and the phased goals for the

program.We started the journey toward measure-

ment and accountability in HR by tracking the

retention of our 20,000 managers and conducting

diversity and inclusion training in phases, for our

executives andmanagerial team.At every stage of the

journey, we have continued to present and update

the business case for diversity to seniormanagement,

and they have continued to back our goals (see Figure 1).

Garlough:While diversity is regulated in Canada, it’s notimportant just because it’s the right thing to do; it’s also

good for business. In HR we collect all the data to support

the business need for diversity and regularly present the

information to senior management. I think the best way to

get senior management on board with any initiative is to

show them that it’s good for business, and the way to do

that is to support the business case with data.

For example, Scotiabank operates globally, and it’s good

for business when our customers are able to connect with

our employees when visiting one of our branches. So our

senior leaders understand that the branch staff must reflect

the community it serves.Also, the demographics in many of

our operating areas reflect an aging population, and statistics

show that more people, as many as one in five, will become

disabled as they age. If you are disabled and you apply for a

mortgage, you feel like another person with a disability

understands your needs and unique situation better. Our

senior management also believes that having greater

employee diversity will elicit a broader range of solutions for

business challenges and will also encourage innovation.

ERE:How have you used scorecards to drive results?

Valderrama:The Sodexo scorecard really serves two main

DIVERSITY

BEST PRACTICES

4 Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership | crljournal.com | July/August 2008 ©2008 ERE Media, Inc.

purposes:One, it keeps everyone in the organization focused

on the same goals; and two, when you’re trying to move a

large organization, not only is it important to have a vision,

but you also have to align performance with the vision, and

that’s what the scorecard achieves. Our scorecards measure

both qualitative and quantitative results from our recruiting

efforts. The quantitative metrics we track are: hiring,

promotion, and retention of women and minorities,

especially in our pool of 20,000 managerial candidates.

The subsets of those major metric areas include

measuring the number of minority candidates who apply,

interview, and are hired. In addition we track qualitative

measures like our recruitment teams’ diversity-recruiting

activities, such as attending job fairs and making contacts

with diverse recruiting sources.We also measure the quality

of the candidates presented.We have a goal of presenting a

balanced slate of candidates to our hiringmanagers for every

opening, and we track our ability to deliver on that goal.

From there, we can measure the quality of the candidates

presented by tracking the interview and hire ratios in

relation to the number of female and minority candidates

presented, and we also survey our hiring managers twice

each year as to their view of the quality of presented

candidates.We blend the two data sources together to come

up with a qualitative score.The recruitment team meets

on a weekly basis to review the numbers; we also review the

entire scorecard each month, and senior management

Figure 1

GlobalInclusionTraining

Awareness& SkillsBuildingfor Clients

BuildingInternalCapacityIntegration

SkillsBuildingAwareness

BuildingComplianceTraining

ClarifyingBusinessCase and

Gaining Buy-in from

Executivesand SeniorLeadership


DIVERSITY

BEST PRACTICES

But to achieve results, you truly have to triangulate the

data.You have to review the goal, the supporting data, and

the information taken from surveys and exit interviews,

because unless you remove the systemic barriers, you won’t

be able to sustain diversity long term. We have seven

questions in our annual employee viewpoint survey about

diversity and inclusion, and that diversity index tracks how

our employees think we’re doing in meeting our diversity

initiatives. It’s not enough to merely say your company is

committed to diversity and inclusion; unless you can

actually show improved numbers, it’s just talk.You need

something to back it up.

ERE:How have you used accountability and incentives at all

levels of the organization to achieve diversity goals?

Valderrama: Our diversity goals begin at the top of thecompany with the CEO, and those goals cascade down to

the rest of the executive team and then to the managers

through their annual performance plans. Annual increases

are tied to successful completion of the performance goals,

but in addition, our CEO has tied variable compensation to

diversity performance. Ten to 15% of our managers’

bonuses are linked to diversity-scorecard outcomes, and

25% of each executive’s bonus is derived from achieving

diversity outcomes (see Figure 2).

We’ve brought the financial incentives down to the

recruiter level as well; they are “incented” to present

managers with a diverse slate of candidates. We also

encourage increased diversity at Sodexo through coaching.

We treat our hiring managers as business partners, and the

recruiters encourage them to select the most qualified

candidate from the slate. I’ll call the business manager and

have a conversation with them about a particular candidate’s

strengths, tomake certain they are interviewed and to shorten

the process.

Shortening our hiring process has helped us achieve

greater diversity, so sometimes holding people accountable

for the basics also helps you achieve the larger goal.

Garlough: Our board holds our CEO and president

accountable for achieving the scorecard objectives, and those

objectives are published in our annual report and distributed

to all our shareholders.The board also gets a snapshot of how


reviews the results each quarter. If we see we’re slipping in

an area, we don’t hesitate to step in and ask why, learn from

the experience, and make adjustments.

Garlough: At Scotiabank we use a balanced scorecard thatmeasures four key quadrants of bank performance: financial,

customers, operational, and people. Within the people

section, achieving workforce diversity is one of the stated

goals.To support our scorecard goal, HR issues a quarterly

people report that tracks the key analytics around human

capital,which includes specific diversitymetrics.For example,

we track the representation of women in seniormanagement

roles or the number of company employees with disabilities.

We also include information from our employee engagement

surveys, focus groups, and exit interviews, because data

analysis and feedback are what help us formulate policy and

reduce barriers to achieving our diversity goals.

For example, we wanted to hire more people with

disabilities in our real estate group, and the numbers on the

people report indicated that we weren’t reaching our

objective. Feedback from our managers’ surveys indicated

that our accommodation policy was making the hiring

process too lengthy, so we were losing qualified candidates

to the competition. Sure enough, when we investigated, we

found that the policy was the problem. So we changed the

policy and the process for accommodation approvals, and

now our numbers have improved. The people report

measures the how, in other words, the specific ‘how to’ goals

that support the main scorecard objective.

Figure 2


DIVERSITY

BEST PRACTICES

our executives are performing by looking at the quarterly

people report. In addition,here inCanada,our board reviews

how Scotiabank is performing against its competitors,

because the diversity numbers for all banks are published

annually.We cascade the bank’s annual executive scorecard

goals down to the individual scorecards at theVP level using

the four performance quadrants, then those same objectives

are transferred into each manager’s performance plan.

Eachmanager’s performance plan customizes the specific

goals that they must achieve in order for theVP and the

bank to achieve the major scorecard

objective. Customization of the individual

scorecards and performance plans allows us

to keep the same major diversity goal each

year, then place focus on achieving a specific

objective like increasing the number of

women and minorities who receive

promotions.

But the bottom line is this: you can’t

change the culture or achieve results by

making diversity optional—it’s one of those

non-negotiable items. We hold every

manager accountable in their performance

plans, and their compensation is determined

by how well they perform.

ERE: What’s your plan to achieve greater

diversity within senior leadership?

Valderrama: I think one of the things that will help usachieve inclusive senior leadership is that we’ve been revising

our promotional review and our annual performance review

processes since 2004; the goal is to have those processes

attain the same consistency and transparency as our

recruitment and selection process. As of 2008, we’re using

the same competency-based model for all our evaluations.

Each time a person applies for a position internally, they’ll

be evaluated the same way. We’ve also looked at our

succession-planning process and identified the risk factors

we face in retaining top talent, and we’ve built focus groups

around every job to help us identify what we need to do to

achieve greater retention, and some of that includes

providing support and development for women and

minorities.

Here at Sodexo, we’ve developed a number of mentoring

programs to help us develop more females and minorities

for management positions. One program formally matches

mentors and mentees. It includes training for the partic-

ipants. The other program is a less formal peer-to-peer

mentoring program. Right now we’re in the process of

developing a bridge mentoring program that will pair hourly

employees who want to move up in the organization with

other successful employees.

In addition, Sodexo has 55 women involved in the

Women’s Food Service Forum, which is a group strictly

Figure 3

Figure 4

DIVERSITY

BEST PRACTICES


focused on developing women for management roles within

the food industry.However, out of all the steps we’ve taken,

I think hiring a more diverse pool of employees and then

using an unbiased methodology for evaluations might be

the best solution to help us achieve greater diversity within

the management ranks in the future, because our clear

preference is to promote from within.We’ve also worked on

achieving cultural change by conducting diversity training

for all our managers, and when we began focusing on

making a cultural shift in 2004, I think we really started to

make strides that eventually led to more promotions for

women and minorities.

Garlough:We’ve done several things at Scotiabank to helpus achieve greater inclusion at the managerial levels. First,

we include a diversity review as part of our workforce-

planning process. Incorporating diversity at the planning

level helps us set long-term objectives and look at the

changing demographics of each area and what our future

management composition should be.We also involve our

key stakeholders in helping us remove internal barriers

through a steering committee, which is comprised of 16

women who help set and guide the bank’s vision and

strategy for advancing women. Feedback from that group,

along with an annual review of employee feedback, helps

HR discern why we don’t have more representation at

various levels in the organization and implement change.

We identified the need to promote more women as a

critical area a few years ago, so we relaunched the bank’s

advancement of women initiative in 2003. It includes a

formal mentorship program along with professional and

personal development through a group called Scotia-

Women’s Connection. The group features speakers on

professional topics, and HR also hosts career information

sessions about management opportunities here at the bank.

In addition, ScotiaWomen’s Connection is supported by a

dedicated intranet site that facilitates networking and

mentoring activities within the group.

The bank also supports the external involvement of our

female employees in organizations that promote the

advancement of women such as Women’s Executive

Network, which is a strong organization here in Canada. Of

course, throughout the process of building a more inclusive

management team, we’ve worked to adapt and change our

culture, but I think the public accountability by our

leadership for achieving this goal has really been one of the

major turning points.When seniormanagement went on the

record and stated that they wanted to increase the number of

women (see Figure 5) and minorities in leadership roles,

achieving the goal was clearly no longer an option.

About Cory GarloughCory Garlough is vice president, Global

Employment Strategies,at Scotiabank.He has been

responsible for the bank’s diversity program for 18

months and is also responsible for workforce

analytics. Prior to his present role,Garlough was responsible for

learning and performance management at the bank.

About Sherie ValderramaSherieValderrama is senior director of the Talent

Acquisition Group at Sodexo.She joined Sodexo in

2003 and became involved with the diversity

initiative in 2004, when the company began

developing a new selection process for candidates.

Figure 5

Another company working on diversity is the one in the news

over its flirtationswithYahoo. Its diversity director,KellyChapman,

came up (during a dream) with the idea of calling her group the

“DriveTeam:” Diversity Recruiting Initiatives via Excellence.

Chapman reports to Scott Pitasky, the company’s talent-acquisition

leader, and heads up a dream-team of six. She views herself as an

“intrapreneur” who’s bringing entrepreneurial skills to an

established organization. She comes from a background in sales

and in search. “I’m not one of those diversity theorists,” she says.

Chapman’s team has a five-point program to address diversity

challenges at the company:

1) Education. “Ensuring all recruiters and employees are

equipped to fish,” she says.This involves such things as including

the business case for diversity in new recruiter orientation prog-

rams and offering a diversity toolkit on the company’s intranet.

2) Requisition-based prospecting. “We try and spend time

where diverse candidates live, work, and play,” she says. It offers

up candidates to hiring managers when a job is open. It has, at

times, produced names of white males. “If we meet somebody

who’s top talent, we’re not going to not submit them because

they’re not diverse.”

3) A consulting piece. Chapman works with Microsoft leaders

to help them understand what the company’s competitors are

doing, going over EEO reports, and other longer-range/strategic

work.

4)The candidate experience.Chapman wants to make sure all

applicants have a good experience in the hiring process, whether

they’re hired or not. She says the organization wants to have “all

hands on deck when they have candidates flowing through.” If a

candidate wants a tour of Seattle, they get it. “People do have

concerns about what it is like beingAfrican-American orHispanic

in a place like Seattle.What is it like being single and African-

American in a place like Seattle?We want to make sure people

are fully aware of how great it is to live,work, and play [in Seattle].”

5) Diversity marketing.This kicked off with a May 29 webinar

as well as launch of a new site, www.youatmicrosoft.com.

That diversity marketing campaign began a year ago, when

Microsoft—working with the ad agencyWorktank—conducted

focus groups of both internal and external employees to

understandwhat was important particularly toNativeAmericans,

females,Hispanics, andAfrican-Americans. It learned,Chapman

DIVERSITY

BEST PRACTICES


says, that people wanted authenticity first and foremost. “They

didn’t want a lot of corporate speak,” she says. “They didn’t want

a song and dance.”Three diversity-marketing campaigns were

tested in focus groups.The winning campaign includes amessage

about the “changing face of Microsoft.”

In search of authenticity, the campaign is featuring a lot of rank-

and-file employees, rather thanMicrosoft execs or an emphasis on

Microsoft HR people. “It’s featuring authentic voices of real

people,” she says. “We even show their baby pictures on the site.”

Among the employees featured prominently: one of the top-20

females in gaming in the country, as well as anAfrican-American

general manager who handles a 79-country region in the Middle

East and Africa.

“Kids think [technology is] geeks with pocket protectors, that

it’s boring,” Chapman says, “but it’s actually fun. One moment

you can be delivering software and technology to some of the

poorest places, and the nextmoment you can be riding on a camel

in Dubai or visiting the pyramids in Egypt.They’re making a

difference in a continent, in people’s lives. People who have never

seen a computer in their life.”

As part of what Chapman calls a “huge PR campaign,”

Microsoft will be working to get coverage on CNN, MSNBC,

CNBC, radio, and elsewhere.While it’ll spend less than $1million

on the campaign, it hopes the youatmicrosoft.com site proves viral,

and will spread the work through such things as new auto-

signatures for employee emails.

Chapman admits that she’s up against long-standing percep-

tions of the tech field.According to the National Science Found-

ation, “African-American women and men represent 1.1 percent

and 2.2 percent, respectively, of all scientists and engineers.”

“The industry has not been viewed as the most diverse in the

past,” she says. “It’s a valid concern because the availability of

diverse talent is not there. It starts in high school, where kids are

looking at leaders, and quite frankly, they don’t see people who are

like themselves in the tech field.”To try to change that,Microsoft

is targeting high school and college kids through programs such

as the DigiGirlz high-tech camp for high school girls.

Still, when Chapman talks to a roomful of minority students

about how cool the work at Microsoft is, many haven’t heard of

Zune, the digital media player. Of those who have heard of it,

many don’t know that Microsoft is the company that makes it.

Todd Raphael

A Diversity Drive in Seattle


OUTSOURCING

I n this article (with a partial SLA at the end), I will explore

some of the reasons why outsourced engagements fail,

and discuss one of these reasons in greater detail.

Let us start by understanding why companies

outsource, and identify areas where things could fall apart.

Why do companies outsource recruiting?1. An urgent need to fill critical positions that the

internal recruiting department is unable to fill.

2. An urgent need for temporary help on account of a

business acquisition.

3. New projects that they need to staff.

4. Difficulty finding quality talent.

5. Increased time-to-fill.

6. Retention.

7. Inefficient internal staffing processes.

8. Lack of proper communication between hiring

manager and recruiter.

9. Lack of metrics and accountability.

10. Lack of recruitment marketing/branding.

11. To lower costs.

12. To leverage best practices.

13. A directive of leadership.

14. To make the HR and recruiting functions more

strategic.

Why Engagements FailIn executing several large- and medium-scale RPO

engagements, I have learned several lessons on why they

fail. Listed below are a few that have been validated by

industry analysts as well:

• Improper analysis of the current state of the recruiting

function, leading to the creation and usage of an

improper delivery model.

• Inconsistent quality of services rendered by the RPO

provider—service level delivered does not match the

service level agreed to.

• Lack of support from the leadership to drive the

outsourcing initiative.

• Improper implementation—project goes live too soon.

• Us vs. them mentality between the client and the

service provider.

• Lack of improvement in candidate quantity and

quality.

• No sign of improvement in process efficiencies.

• Lack of cost savings.

• Inefficient staff.

• Metrics being tracked and reported against the wrong

baseline data.

A recent study conducted by Aberdeen Group indicates

that 53% of the customers that outsourced recruitment

cited inconsistencies in service-level delivery as the prime

reason for switching RPO providers.

This issue stems from the lack of clear understanding

on the priorities and expectations and the lack of clear

communication between the service provider and the client.

A good way to mitigate this is to structure service levels

that ensure operational compliance and success. A

comprehensive Service Level Agreement is one such tool

that will help achieve this goal.

The Salient Features of a Service Level AgreementA good SLA will cover supported services, charges for

services, service provider responsibilities, client responsi-

bilities, service measures, reporting and metrics, penalties

for noncompliance, incident reporting and management,

and change management.

Five parts of an SLA you should keep your eye on.

By Ravi Subramanian, Management Consultant

The Importance of a Service LevelAgreement in an RPO Engagement

Some of the areas to pay special attention to are:

1. The in-scope and out-of-scope elements in the

supported services section.

2. The contracted time-to-fill days and pricing in the

charges section.

3. Timelines in the responsibilities section.

4. Data and metrics to be tracked and reported in the

service measures section.

5. The terms in the rewards and penalties section.

A well-structured SLA will ensure that the hiring

manager, the talent acquisition team, and the candidates

know exactly what is expected of them and how success is

measured.This helps set accountabilities to ensure success.

See the sample SLA for details. Please note that this is

just a template and may not be suitable for all types of

engagements.This will have to be part of a master services

agreement, which should be reviewed by your internal

legal counsel for correctness and compliance.

1. Executive SummaryThis is an operational level document that outlines

the type of services to be performed by the RPO Provider

with the understanding that the Service Level

stakeholders at _______________________. (Client) and

the project team fulfill certain obligations as listed later

in the Agreement.

On a broad scope, RPO Provider will provide

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) services -

consulting, recruiting, and other services (the “Services”)

and as described in the Services provided section below.

The terms of this Service Level Agreement will be

agreed to, accepted and executed by all the stakeholders

listed both at the Client and at _________________. Each

Statement of Work shall reference this Service Level

Agreement which shall specify the nature of the Services

to be performed, including target project commencement,

rates, deliverables and all other pertinent information

regarding the Services to be performed by RPO Provider.

2. General overviewThis Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the

“RPO provider “and <CLIENT NAME> hereinafter

referred to as “client” establishes a commitment for

Recruiting services as detailed in this SLA. This

document clarifies both parties' responsibilities and

procedures to ensure client needs are met in a timely

manner.

This agreement covers all of hiring managers and the

director of recruiting of client and the RPO provider

project team.

Terms

• SLA – Service Level Agreement

• RPO – Recruitment Process Outsourcing

• RPO Provider – <Name of Company>

• Tracker – Document for tracking Candidate flow,

Metrics and Performance

• Dashboard – Document that reports the Performance,

Metrics, Initiatives, Resource changes and Risks and

their Mitigation

• ATS – ApplicantTracking System

OUTSOURCING

SLAS


Service Level Agreements (SLA) for RPO Projects

OUTSOURCING

SLAS


3. Terms and ConditionsAgreement periodThis agreement is valid from the effective date below

and remains in effect throughout the life span of the RPO

services rendered.

Effective date: _________________, 2008

Agreement reviewThe RPO provider’s designee will initiate a review of this

SLA with the client 90 days after the effective date above.

A representative of either partymay submit a written request

for review of the agreement to the RPO provider-delivery

team at any time. The Agreement should be reviewed

annually. In the absence of the completion of a review, the

current Agreement will remain in effect.The RPO provider

will incorporate revisions into theAgreement if both parties

mutually agree to the proposed changes.

New review: <EFFECTIVE DATE> Next review: <FUTURE DATE>

Note:The RPO provider will be responsible for making

any necessary revisions to the internal incident-resolution

escalation process (for example, the individuals or groups

to be notified and the order in which they are notified)

through the change management log. These revisions

could be exempt from client approval.

Days and Hours of coverageThe services under this agreement will be providedMonday

through Friday from ______ A.M. to _____ P.M.

<Eastern/Central/Pacific> time (except on public holidays

or any other holidays as prescribed by the client).Client may

request services on an emergency basis after the regular

scheduled days and hours outlined above at an additional

cost which will be mutually agreed upon.

4. Supported Services and ChargesServices providedThis Service Level Agreement describes RPO

provider’s commitment to provide the following

services:

• Overall management of the recruitment

lifecycle through the on-boarding stage.

• Sourcing and recruitment for all the business

units of the client.

• Delivery of full life cycle recruiting service for both

internal (processing of internal transfers & promotions)

and external hires. Full life cycle recruiting entails all

phases of recruiting process/sub-processes (i.e.,

planning, sourcing and preliminary screening,

screening and selection for interview, pre-interview,

interview and verbal offer).

i) Recruiting and staffing activities—driven by the

business unit’s strategic plans and associated

workforce requirements.

ii) Client’s brand and image—communicating and

marketing client’s image to the talent market must

be consistent with industry standards.

iii)Data collection and information gathering—

recruiting activities will be tracked and reported

using consistent data standards and industry best

practices.

• Meeting the commitment to fill the open positions as

per the conditions of this SLA.

The agreement does not cover services outside the

scope of the statement of work and/or the service level

agreement.

Out of Scope (Examples)• Returning retiree recruiting.

• Production and maintenance recruiting (union).

• Non US locations.

ChargesIn conjunction with the program management and

Implementation fee as specified in the master services

agreement the following fee structure will be applicable.


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Roles & Responsibilities• Project Manager—Project management oversight to

ensure successful delivery.

• Recruiter—Handles all hiring manager interactions at

candidate level and requisition strategy meetings with

hiring managers for establishment of CTQs; manages

requisition load and balancing; offers strategy meeting

with hiring managers; offers candidate verbal offer;

responsible for delivery of services per the recruiting

timeline.

• Sourcing—Provides complete (active & passive)

sourcing support to the recruiter.

5. Party ResponsibilitiesClient ResponsibilitiesClient stakeholders agree to:

• Provide workforce planning—give a clear listing of

requisitions for the year on a quarterly basis detailed by

functional and/or business unit

areas.

• Provide clear-cut and industry

standard job descriptions.

• Provide a salary structure for open

positions that is commensurate

with the required experience and

industry standards.

• Have an established employer

branding policy.

• Require the hiring managers to be

accessible and available (within 48

hours of the requisition being open) to the recruiter for

a strategy meeting to establish the critical to quality

(CTQ) elements and the profile of an ideal candidate.

• Require hiring managers to provide timely feedback

(within 48 hours) on candidates submitted.

• Require the hiring managers and the interview team to

be available for candidate interviews in a timely manner.

• Require the hiring managers to provide feedback on

candidates interviewed within 48 hours of the interview.

RPO Provider ResponsibilitiesRPO provider and its team agree to:

• Complete the strategy meeting within 48 hours of the

release of the position.

• Provide candidate flow and submittals to hiringmanagers

per the established recruitment timeline as specified in

the table in the charges section of this document.

• Submit a minimum of 5 candidates to the hiring

manager that meet the job specifications.

• Have verbal offers extended to selected candidates

within the agreed time frame from the date of approval

by the hiring manager to achieve the service level

objectives on timeliness and quality.

• Provide reports and dashboards at a frequency level

that is mutually agreed upon.

• Work on only formally approved requisitions.

• Execute the client’s referral program as per the referral

process.

6. Service Measures and ReportingThe critical to quality report outlines the following areas:

Notes:1. Each candidate must be routed to the hiring manager

by the recruiter to be included in the above metrics.

2. The RPO provider’s time to fill clock will stop every

time there is a delay on the hiring manager’s part

beyond the stipulated delivery times mentioned in the

client responsibilities (item 6) section of this

agreement.

3. The RPO provider’s time to fill clock will stop

whenever there is a change in the scope, salary or

location of a position or a reporting relationship.

4. Once a candidate is in the client’s database, they cannot

be submitted by a vendor within a period of six months

from time of entry.


Measurement and Reporting1. RPO provider will also track and provide the client with

the following overall program metrics:

a. Requisition activity.

b. Time to submittal days.

c. Submittal to hiring manager feedback days.

d. Hiring manager feedback to interview

scheduling days.

e. Submittal to hire days.

f. Submittal to offer days.

g. Formal offer to candidate accept days.

h. Candidate accept to start days.

i. Overall time to fill.

j. Source of hire analysis.

2. RPO provider will provide the client with the following

reports:

7. Client Requests for Service EnhancementService enhancements are client requests for planned

changes in service, for example:

• Setting up of a new process within the recruitment life

cycle.

• Benchmarking and write-up of job descriptions.

• Providing new salary and compensation data.

• Increasing the number of job requisitions without a two

week prior notice.

• Extensive increase (10% or more) in the number of

positions from the number originally agreed upon.

The client should request services by sending an e-mail

message to the RPO provider’s delivery contact who will

provide an estimate of the impact of the change in the

scope of services.

Such a request must be sent at least two weeks in advance

of the proposed execution or implementation date.

The RPO provider will respond to requests for service

received with appropriate advance notice (see “client

responsibilities”) within two business days.

Financial ImpactThe RPO provider will assess and negotiate client service

enhancement requests, taking into consideration the

enhancement’s impact on existing budget and staff

resources. If delivery of service enhancements can only be

provided with funding from the client, RPO provider will

provide client with a cost estimate in writing. Client will

then have the opportunity to determine whether to

proceed with enhancement.

8. RPO Provider IncidentReporting & Management

Incident ReportingThe client will report all incidents

to the professional services

contact. Should the incident

remain unresolved after two

business days of such reporting it

must be escalated as follows:

• For all operational issues—the

delivery contact as defined in the

client & RPO provider contact

section of this document.

• For all agreement and sales related issues—the sales

contact as defined in the client and RPO provider

contact section of this document.

Incident Management Service GoalsThe RPO provider’s subject matter expert or other

knowledgeable staff member will respond by e-mail or

telephone to the client’s incident within:

• 1 business day (during coverage hours) for issues

classified as urgent.

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• 2 business days (during coverage hours) for issues

classified as high priority.


classified as normal priority.


classified as low priority.

9. Client Incident Reporting & Management

Incident ReportingThe RPO provider will report all

incidents to the hiring manager/

business unit heads or any

appropriate client contact as

designated by the client. Should

the incident remain unresolved

after two business days of such

reporting it must be escalated as

follows:

• For all operational issues—

The client contact whose

contact information is

mentioned in the client &

RPO provider contact section

of the document.

• For all agreement and sales

related issues—The client

contact whose contact informa-

tion is mentioned in the client

& RPO provider contact

section of the document.

Incident Management Ser-vice GoalsThe client—Director of

recruiting and/or business unit leader will respond by e-

mail or telephone to the incident within:

• 1 work day (during coverage hours) for issues classified

as urgent.


classified as high priority.


classified as normal priority.


classified as low priority.

10. RPO Provider Change ManagementChange management refers to any event that alters the

existing state of affairs both at the RPO provider and on

the client side. RPO providers seek to minimize disruption

of services by using a standard process to communicate

and implement changes.

in the table in the charges section will be applied to

cover costs incurred. All costs will be assessed and

charged back to the client as per the billing cycle.

4. If a candidate leaves during the specified period of 30

days, a replacement will be provided at no additional

cost to the division/business (except for candidate travel

and expense).

12. Signatures of approvalBy signing below, all parties agree to the terms and

conditions described in this agreement.

11. Rewards & Penalties

Rewards for Compliance:1. RPO provider will provide a _ % discount on the total

invoice amount for the month if the client meets all the

service level terms.

Penalties for Non-Compliance:1. RPO provider’s time to submittal clock will stop and

be reset:

– every time there is a delay on the client’s part and

deviation from the stipulated delivery times detailed

in the client responsi-

bilities section of this

agreement.

2. RPO provider will make

a 15% upward revision in

price whenever there is a

change in the scope,

salary or location of a

position or a reporting

relationship.

3. Settlement of canceled

requisition to hire: If the

requisition is cancelled

for any reason after 10 days of the requisition being

released, a charge of 50% of the price per hire as stated

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Ravi Subramanian is a leading subject-matter expert and a consultant in the areas of RPO, staffing, and HR.His internationalexperience includes work assignments in Asia,Africa, Europe, and North America.He has over 22 years of operations experience,15 of them in the human resources function that spans the gamut of RPO implementation, setting up and management ofstaffing/recruiting functions, staffing/recruiting process improvement, creative sourcing strategy, metrics and reporting, implemen-

tation of HR policies and procedures, employee management and retention, employee development, and employee referral programs for small-and large-cap companies. Subramanian has provided recruiting and RPO-related consulting services to GE Healthcare, Freddie Mac, CoramHealthcare,Yoh HR Solutions, Kelly IT Resources, HR First, Illuma,Allscripts, eLoyalty, Zorch, and Norvax.


I n recent years, social networking websites such as

MySpace and Facebook have skyrocketed in popularity.

It is estimated that these two sites are visited over one

billion times per month by nearly 100 million visitors

worldwide.While these sites (along with many others like

them) are used mainly for informal social connections,

many users have begun employing them as business

development and employment search tools. Following this

trend, some more recent networking sites, such as

LinkedIn, have been established with the primary purposes

of business networking and career

development. LinkedIn has more than 20

million registered users and has seen a

700% increase in visits over the past year.

Given these impressive statistics and

obvious trends,many employers have begun

exploring the potential uses of social

networking sites for recruiting.According to

an October 2006 survey conducted by

Careerbuilder.com, over sixty percent of

employers that search candidates’ online

profiles have rejected candidates because of

information obtained from those searches.

Employers’ interest in these sites generally follows two

tracks. First, some employers have used social networking

sites as candidate search engines, publishing job postings

and conducting searches based on users’ interests and

experiences to locate potential applicants online. In

addition, many of the same employers, as well as many

less convinced of the sites’ utility as candidate search tools,

have used the sites to conduct inexpensive, informal

background checks and personality screens. Although the

sites have proven, in many cases, quite useful in both

capacities, there are legal perils worthy of consideration

LEGAL UPDATE

intrinsic to utilizing these sites, especially in the latter

context.

Legal BackgroundAs most, if not all, recruiters are well aware, various

federal and state statutes prohibit employers from discrim-

inating against applicants in hiring decisions based on

certain protected characteristics, including: sex (including

pregnancy), race, color, national origin, religion, age (40

and older), disabled status,military/veteran status, and prior

history of filing EEOC charges and/or

workers compensation claims. Some

additional state statutes add categories such

as sexual orientation, weight, political

affiliation, receipt of public assistance,

criminal history, smoking, and ancestry to

the list of protected characteristics. A few,

including NewYork, California, Colorado,

and North Dakota, even have statutes

preventing employers in many cases from

basing hiring decisions on information

learned about applicants’ legal, off-duty

behavior.

Generally speaking, all a rejected applicant must do to

establish a preliminary claim for discrimination in a hiring

decision is show (1) he or she possesses a protected charac-

teristic, (2) he or she was qualified for the job, (3) he or she

was rejected for the job, and (4) circumstances giving rise

to an inference of discrimination, such as the fact that the

applicant selected for the job was not in the rejected

applicant’s protected class. Crucially, it is nearly a

universally accepted rule among the courts that an

employer’s alleged discriminatory intent cannot be inferred

from circumstances unknown to the employer.Therefore,

According to onesurvey, over 60% of

employers thatsearch candidates’online profiles haverejected candidates

because ofinformation obtainedfrom those searches.

What You Do Know Can Hurt YouPotential Legal Pitfalls of Using Social Networking Websites

in the Recruiting Process

By Ron Chapman Jr. and Michael H. Bell, Ogletree Deakins

of possibly learning relevant data, such as an applicant’s

drug use or falsification of employment history on an

application. Conducting background checks using

business-oriented networking sites such as LinkedIn might

reduce the risk of learning information about protected

characteristics, but also may compromise the thoroughness

of the background check.

A final, but important, consideration to keep in mind is

that unlike information obtained from formal background

checks, there is a significant risk that the information ob-

tained via social networking sites may be inaccurate or ambi-

guous. Most of these sites allow others to leave comments

on users’ pages that might contain misleading, false, or even

defamatory information. It is even possible for another user

(possibly a competitor for the job) to create an entire false

profile about a candidate designed to cast the candidate in

a bad light. Even with information included on a profile by

a candidate himself or herself, an employer may run the risk

of making incorrect assumptions about the candidate.

Avenue for Discriminatory MotivesWhile the most common danger of using social

networking sites arises in the “background check” context,

an unscrupulous hiring manager may also expose his or her

company to liability by using illegal search parameters to

discriminate in the candidate search process. For example,

onMySpace, it is possible to construct a “user search” using

factors such as age, sex, race, religion, body type, and sexual

orientation.On Facebook, a hiring manager could conduct

a search using additional parameters such as political

affiliation and national origin. Such searches would clearly

implicate federal and state laws against discriminatory

hiring.

In 2006, in recognition of the discrimination risks

inherent in permitting employers to search online databases

secretly and without regulation, the Department of Labor’s

Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs

(“OFCCP”) imposed new recordkeeping requirements

on federal contractors and subcontractors that conduct

candidate searches using online databases. Specifically,

federal contractors using an external electronic database to

search for candidates must maintain the following

information related to each search: (1) the position for

which the search was made; (2) the date of the search; and


unless a rejected applicant can offer some evidence that the

employer knew about the applicant’s protected charac-

teristic, the applicant cannot establish a discrimination

claim.

Dangerous KnowledgeThe legal dangers in using sites such as MySpace and

Facebook to research applicants’ backgrounds stem

primarily from the availability of considerable amounts of

personal information on those sites.To illustrate this risk,

first consider the information about protected character-

istics an employer might learn through the typical

application and interview process. From an application,

an employer might learn as little as an applicant’s sex (based

on his or her name or other clues like prior job descriptions,

such as “waitress”), veteran/military status, and possibly an

applicant’s approximate age (based on job or educational

history). An interview might add additional information

about sex (including pregnancy) and age, as well as

information about race, national origin, and disabled status,

althoughmuch of this “knowledge”may be uncertain or the

result of speculation.

In contrast, a visit to an applicant’s online profile has the

potential to reveal a wealth of additional information about

protected characteristics.These sites (especially MySpace)

permit users to customize their profiles to describe personal

details such as religious beliefs, political opinions, and

sexual orientation, as well as post pictures that may provide

additional information about protected characteristics

(such as a picture of an applicant in a wheelchair). Unlike

applications and interviews, which most wise employers

carefully develop and monitor to avoid gathering

information about protected characteristics, a visit to a

MySpace page easily could reveal information about every

imaginable protected characteristic an applicant might

possess.Therefore, even if an employer eventually rejects an

applicant for a perfectly legitimate reason, if the employer

learned information about the applicant’s protected class

by viewing the applicant’s online profile, the employer may

no longer be able to escape liability for a discrimination

claim purely on ignorance grounds.

Given the availability of this “dangerous knowledge,” an

employer must weigh the risks associated with possibly

learning such problematic information against the benefits

LEGAL UPDATE

NETWORKING WEBSITES


LEGAL UPDATE

NETWORKING WEBSITES

(3) the search criteria corresponding to the search.While

the primary target of these regulations was most likely job-

seeking databases such asMonster.com and CareerBuilder

.com, searches on social networking websites would

certainly fall under the ambit of the regulations as well.

Although the OFCCP’s regulations apply only to federal

contractors and subcontractors, the regulations could well

be a harbinger of changes in federal recordkeeping

requirements for other employers in the near future.

Possible Disclosure Obligations on the Horizon?Currently, despite the obvious potential for abuse implicit

in the use of social networking sites to conduct candidate

searches and background checks, there is no legal

requirement that employers disclose to rejected applicants

the fact that information from their online profile was

considered in the hiring decision.

This fact stands in sharp contrast to the requirements of

the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which mandates that if an

employer wishes to use an applicant’s consumer report as

part of the application process, it must first obtain the

applicant’s written permission to view the report and, in the

event it decides not to select the applicant based on

information in the report, it must (1) notify the applicant

in advance of the hiring decision and provide him or her

with a notice of his or her rights under the FCRA and (2)

after the hiring decision, give the applicant certain

additional information about his or her rights and the

agency that supplied the report.

These provisions in the FCRA were enacted for the

purpose of curbing abuses in the consumer reporting

industry, as some applicants were, without their knowledge,

being denied employment based on inaccurate or irrelevant

information contained in their consumer reports.While the

FCRA applies only to consumer reports obtained through

consumer reporting agencies, many of the same concerns

that prompted the enactment of the FCRA are present in

the searching of social networking websites for information

about applicants.Thus, it is likely that the next few years

will see a push by plaintiff’s lawyers and lobbyists to require

disclosure of social networking website searches to rejected

applicants, either through amendments to the FCRA or

through the enactment of new federal and state statutes.

Practice PointersIn summary, while social networking websites can be

useful tools in the recruiting context, employers should be

careful to avoid certain legal pitfalls in the use of these sites.

A few general tips to help employers avoid liability are:

• At the outset, determine whether use of the website will

actually benefit the company.Online candidate searches

and background checks may not be appropriate or

necessary for every employer or every job position, and

thus may not be worth the associated risks.

• Determine the best websites to use.A business-oriented

website like LinkedIn is much less likely to expose an

employer to information about protected characteristics,

but may not provide enough information to make the

background check useful.

• Implement and adhere to a uniform policy regarding the

use of social networking sites in the recruiting process.

Ensure that if informal online background checks are

conducted, they are conducted for all applicants being

considered.Thoroughly document the process, keeping

records of what was considered during the online

background check.

• Educate hiring managers about the improper use of

search parameters that may violate discrimination laws

and instruct them to disregard any protected character-

istics.

Note:This article is provided for informational purposes only and

is not intended to offer specific legal advice.You should consult

your legal counsel regarding any threatened or pending litigation,

or for any advice.

Ron Chapman Jr., Shareholder, Ogletree [email protected]

Michael H. Bell,Associate, Ogletree [email protected]

Chapman and Bell both routinely represent employers in employment law matters.They can be reached at (214) 987-3800. Ogletree Deakinshas 33 offices across the country and is online at www.ogletreedeakins.com.

EXECUTIVE SEARCH

Asthe war for talent continues to heat, there has been

an explosion of activity in executive search.With

high stakes and even higher fees, companies have

increasingly turned to retained executive search firms to

fill critical roles—with varying degrees of success. Because

of all the activity, many search firms prioritize their efforts

according to the level of visibility of a particular search;

after all, placing high-level executives generally leads to

work in the future. Or they give greater attention to long-

standing clients.

Considering that the standard retained

executive search fee is 33.3% of total cash

compensation, does it make sense to always

go outside? If you only need one or two

director-and-above executives per year, it

probably makes sense to partner with a

good search firm.That partnership can be

invaluable in finding and recruiting good

talent.The fees, however, start to add up quickly once you

have between 5 and 10 searches per year. As an example,

five searches at the standard fee of 33.3% of total cash

compensation with an average base salary of $150,000

would equal a minimum of $250,000 in fees, not

including bonuses. If you add vice-president level salaries

into the mix, the fees can easily double.

Of course, executive search is a skill set that is not

always found in corporate recruiting.To be successful

there needs to be a commitment to talent acquisition that

goes beyond posting on job boards and posting positions

on the company website. But emulating the well-known

retained search firms with an in-house team can bring

great rewards in both talent and money saved.

Invitrogen Executive SearchIn 2005, Invitrogen Corporation, a $1.4 billion dollar

publicly traded biotechnology company formed itsTalent

Acquisition Group (see your April 2007 issue of this

publication) to fill all levels of positions from hourly roles

to senior executives.We did it because of high fees. As a

result of proactive talent acquisition strategies, Invitrogen’s

internal recruiting team has been instrumental in holding

the line on base costs (the costs of doing business), of which

talent acquisition is often the largest expenditure.This has

been a major contributor to the bottom line and has

impacted the growth of the company. As part of the

continuing evolution of this group, Invitrogen

has formed a new group dedicated to

performing executive search in-house.

While InvitrogenTalent Acquisition was

originally formed along the lines of a

retained search firm, in response to the

needs of the business it has transformed

into a more traditional corporate recruiting

group. However, as a rapidly growing

company, Invitrogen still has a strong need to recruit the

executive talent that will play key roles in the continued

development of the company.

By bringing together members of Invitrogen Talent

Acquisition who have worked in retained search, we have

formed a new team with the mandate of filling at least 10

executive (director and above) searches this year, which

would have gone to retained search, resulting in an

anticipated savings of $500,000 in search fees. Naturally,

there will be circumstances that require using a retained

search firm—an example of which could be when there

is an incumbent being replaced and there is a need for

secrecy. In this case, having a team experienced with

retained search can provide much needed oversight over

the search plan and the process to make sure that the

search remains on track.

Of course, every new concept needs to be proven. It’s

natural that there will be push-back from managers who


Internal executivesearch’s

responsibility goesbeyond loyalty to aparticular client but

rather to thecompany as a whole.

Bringing Executive Search In-houseThere are benefits beyond the bottom line.

By James Seetoo, Executive Search, Invitrogen Corporation


have successfully worked

with retained search firms.

In effect, they will be

putting their critical search-

es in the hands of a new,

unknown firm which hap-

pens to be internal. So in

addition to building a team

with the skill set to recruit

executives, the team itself

must build credibility inter-

nally to be successful.

The Executive SearchExperienceIn the search business, there are varying levels of profes-

sionalism and prestige with retained search firms sitting

on the top of the pyramid, going down through contingency

to temp staffing firms.This is partly because of the poor

practices of some (by no means all) contingency firms that

treat candidates as commodities, and the conscious effort

by retained firms to brand themselves as premium services.

Besides their sometimes efficacy at filling key roles,

executive search firms provide a “luxury” experience for

their clients and their candidates.

Passive candidates wooed by retained search firms are

often open to speaking with these firms not only for

current searches but also to build a relationship for future

possibilities. In the candidates’ minds there is a level of

quality associated with the searches that retained firms are

working on. After all, someone is willing to pay a large

fee to get a position filled, and the firm is not going to

shop their résumé all over. For candidates who are

currently working, the need for discretion is very strong.

The expectation of privacy is part of this experience.

Retained firms are also experts at providing top-level

service to clients in the form of candidate presentation,

timely updates, and strong customer relations

management, all with the aim of reinforcing hiring

managers’ comfort level, and thus the search firm’s aura

of expertise.They market their services more as consulting

than staffing, and charge accordingly. According to Dr.

Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence, high fees lend the

air of desirability to the service and this is often transferred

to the candidates they present. Even in this current

information age, there’s still a strong belief in the old

adage: “You get what you pay for.”

So what beyond cost would be a driving reason for

creating an internal executive search function?

StrengthBy nature, most searches take place in a reactive

environment. While some searches are performed to

replace incumbents while that person is still in position,

most begin when an employee leaves his/her position for

another promotion within the organization or for opportu-

nities with other companies. As part of a company’s HR

organization, internal executive search can and should

be involved with people-planning. Knowing certain

positions will be opening will allow proactive sourcing to

begin prior to opening a requisition, which should help

reduce time-to-fill.

The internal executive recruiters will also develop

strong professional and personal relationships (“skin in

the game”) with their clients and HR business partners.

These recruiters will also be able not only to find

candidates with the right skill set but will also be better

able to assess candidates for a fit within their own

corporate cultures.

WeaknessWhile most corporate recruiters routinely carry

requisition loads of 25 or more, most retained search

recruiters will focus their efforts on a handful of searches

EXECUTIVE SEARCH

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EXECUTIVE SEARCH

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at a time. Unless it’s a small shop, there will also be a

strong research organization handling sourcing and often

candidate development for the lead recruiter/engagement

manager. A small internal executive search organization

can be easily overwhelmed by a large executive search

requisition load, especially as these requisitions tend to be

“one offs” and there will be little opportunity to leverage

candidates from similar searches.

This could lead to longer time-to-fill for critical

leadership positions and increased opportunity costs for

the company.

OpportunityThe opportunity to control costs is a key

driver for internal recruiting, and the savings

could be geometrically higher when recruiting

executive talent internally. Beyond costs,

however, strong executive leadership canmake

a tremendous difference in an organization

and one of the key functions of an executive

search function is to take a broader view of

talent than normally found in day-to-day

staffing. While Invitrogen is a technology-

driven company, it is a talent-driven organi-

zation that has a commitment to finding talent beyond the

boundaries of our industry. At the executive level, we have

overcome resistance to bringing people to our organization

from outside of the industry through successfully recruiting

talent from specialty chemicals and consumer packaged

goods marketing, allowing us to take advantage of a larger

talent pool.

For a talent acquisition organization, the rigor

associated with setting up and performing executive

search can be translated as best practices down through

middle-management-level recruiting.This will provide the

opportunity for candidates at all levels to have a positive

experience which is reflective of the company as a whole.

In Invitrogen’s case, many of our candidates are also our

customers, so a positive experience, even if the search

process doesn’t result in a hire, helps brand our company

as a great organization—which can only help sales.

ThreatAs with any new initiative, credibility is the key to

successfully launching an executive search function. At

Invitrogen, we have developed our talent-acquisition team

over the past three years and gained credibility in the

organization by making key hires while containing costs.

In many ways, this new function is a formalization of a

function already being covered. Still, it is one thing to

handle the occasional director opening and another to

take over take primary responsibility for recruiting

executive talent to an organization.

As a partner, you cannot resign a search, as many search

firms have done in the past, and a failed search will have

a direct opportunity cost to the organization. It is

important to manage expectations about

length of time to fill and the size of

candidate flow.With the expectation of

filling 10 director-and-above-level

searches through internal executive search

we have, as of early June 2008, filled four,

with one more currently in the interview

stage.

Setting Up ShopThe first thing to do is take a deep look

at your talent acquisition organization to

inventory the skill sets currently on the team, to see who

has experience working on complex searches. Having

recruiters and/or sourcers with cold-calling ability is a

must when recruiting passive candidates. While it is

possible to perform an executive search with one person

performing every function from sourcing through

candidate development, candidate presentation, and

interview scheduling, to final offer, it would severely limit

the bandwidth of the executive recruiter.

Once there is buy-in for setting up an internal search

function, it is important to create a brand within the

organization.There is an expectation of a higher level of

service. Delivering this will go a long way to gaining

credibility with hiring managers and candidates.We have

created presentation templates and reports that emulate

those of retained search and are diligent in overseeing

the candidate experience from first contact through final

disposition. Candidates have an expectation of confiden-

tiality and it is extremely important to make sure that their

candidacies are handled with delicacy.


Several candidateshad been presentedand after months ofsearching an offerwas extended andturned down. The

search was dead inthe water.


The initial telephone interview of the candidates must go

beyond a standard Qualified-Available-Interested screen.

This interview will ideally take a “deep dive” into the

candidate’s background including experience details, “hot

buttons,” corporate culture fit, and compensation

information. Should budget allow, it would be ideal to have

a live interview with the candidate either in person or via

video conference prior to presenting to hiring managers.

Above all, it is important for the internal executive

search team to be committed to finding the best candidate

regardless of the pressures to fill the job.

Case StudyDuring a recent high-level search that

had begun last year and had gone through

several hands internally, our new search

team was handed the assignment. As this

would essentially be the third time the

search was performed, most retained firms

would have resigned the search by this

time. Several candidates had been

presented and after months of searching an

offer was extended and turned down. In

short, the search was dead in the water.

We could have turned it over to a

retained search firm but that would not

have gained any time while they ramped up the search and

moved into their standard 90- to 120-day turnaround

cycle. So we re-launched the search, creating a new search

plan, and started sourcing by networking with prior

candidates for other searches, hitting the Internet for the

names of executives who would know the right person,

and started making passive candidate calls.

Regular update meetings helped deepen the partnership

with the hiring manager and HR generalist. At the same

time, great attention was paid to the candidate experience,

even to the extent of meeting a candidate on a Sunday

night prior to his Monday interview to make sure that he

was well taken care of.

This strong partnership proved its worth when we were

able to work with the HR generalist and the hiring

manager to craft an offer for a candidate during his

interview, and were able to make an offer before he left—

an offer that was accepted, filling a key role in our

company.

ConclusionAs a part of the HR organization, internal

executive search’s responsibility goes beyond

loyalty to a particular client, but rather, to

the company as a whole. This is a unique

advantage to having this function in-house.

Relationships formed with candidates will

lead to a strong executive talent pipeline for

your company, which in turn will lead to

ever decreasing time-to-hire. By recruiting a

company’s top and secondary tiers of

leadership, internal executive search has a

direct and vital role in impacting the

immediate and future direction of a company.

EXECUTIVE SEARCH

INSOURCING

James Seetoo, Executive Search, Invitrogen [email protected] Seetoo is currently responsible for leading the executive search effort at Invitrogen Corporation where he has been a memberof Invitrogen’sTalent Acquisition Group since February 2005.He previously held the positions of Group Leader,Global Sourcing,and Talent Acquisition Leader, and authored the article,“The Candidate Supply Chain,” Journal of Corporate Recruiting

Leadership,April 2007.Before joining Invitrogen, he served as a Director of Research and Senior Associate at Boyden Global Executive SearchandThorne, Brieger Associates, two retained executive search firms.

We have formed anew team with the

mandate of filling atleast 10 executive

(director and above)searches this yearthat would havegone to retained

search, resulting inan anticipated

savings of $500,000in search fees.


DASHBOARD

TESTING

RECOGNITION

What Employees Think is Important … and how it’s not What They’re ExperiencingA Randstad survey done by Harris asked 2,199 employees what is important in an “ideal” employer.

Recognizes the value I bring to the organization

Cares about its employees as much as its customers

Delivers on its promises to customers

Provides a workplace that reflects its respect for me and my coworkers

Has active leaders who serve the company (not themselves)

Encourages me to continually develop skill sets

Wants my honest input on business issues

Focuses more on my strengths than on my weaknesses

Encourages me to be an innovative thinker

Has clearly defined advancement opportunities

Encourages a collaborative work environment

An employer I care so much about that I’d defend it against criticism

Strives to be true to its brand/mission, not most of the time, but all of the time

Makes sure I have a good relationship with my supervisor

Has a reputation for corporate responsibility

Focuses on meeting company standards first and saving money second

Where I believe in the company’s purpose/mission

Challenges me with more responsibility

Asks me what would make me a happy employee

Supports my personal growth

Works hard to keep me motivated

Treats its employees like family

Where I would feel comfortable going to my supervisor with a family issue

Asks me regularly what I am interested in learning

Is a positive contributor to my community

Takes the time to really get to know me

Adapts business practices to be environmentally friendly

Is committed to the success of my community

Uses local suppliers to support the local economy

Provides me with the opportunity to make a difference in my community

Provides services to the community that are not readily available

Creates opportunities for me to really get to know my co-workers

Leadership is personally involved with charitable work

DISNEY’S SHINIER IMAGE

You won’t be surprised to hear that Google was chosen as the most “ideal” employer, according to aUniversum study of MBA students. McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Apple ranked next. What’s also interestingare some of the companies that have dramatically improved their images, according to the 5,769 studentssurveyed at 52 top MBA programs. Disney ranked 7th this year, but 20th last year. Deloitte ranked 9th thisyear, but 18th last year. EY was 22th this year, and 56th in 2007. The CIA moved up from 74th place to 37th.Bank of America and Citigroup moved in the opposite direction.

Percent of employees whothink the trait is important

Percent who say itdescribes their employerwell

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2008 CRL Journal - July_August

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