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The “Seek and Find” Sourcing Strategy

Did you know that only 5% of firms focus on this advanced but vastly superior approach to hiring new recruits?

The term “seek and find” is our own term here at Executive People, but it is in fact a well-known HR strategy which targets currently employed top performers. This superior sourcing approach is not designed to attract the masses, and it is not to be confused with headhunting, which identifies candidates for senior or key positions that need to be filled.

Rather, the “seek and find” approach identifies individuals who are generally not looking for a job and may not be interested in (or even aware of) your company. . (Note: Some of us call these individuals "passive" candidates, but that's a misleading label because these people are generally not passive at all).

Seek and find is based on succession planning in that the role may not even exist in the organisational structure, or if it is, it may not yet be vacant. Instead, this recruiting technique uses a "narrow net" approach to identify the very best people and then recruit them.

This is the approach that has been successfully used by executive search firms for decades. It is also used by top firms like GE and Microsoft, as well as almost all sports teams, and it’s also a fairly mature practice amongst law and accounting firms here in Queensland.

The seek and find approach is based on the premise that if you start recruiting before you need someone (i.e., before you need to fill an open position), you have the time to identify the very best individuals by name and then build the relationship, so that you can, over time, better assess and "sell" them on your company and the opportunities you can offer them.

According to research, it can cost a company thousands more in unproductive time and training to fill a vacancy so it’s always our goal to identify and develop relationships with employees who possess the motivation, competence, capability and cultural fit to a role identified with our client organizations – whether immediate or in the future.

At Executive People, we’ve successfully placed dozens of people in positions of power simply based on being in the know, and using our long-standing relationships with employers and candidates to help with succession planning.

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