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Five years ago I started to learn surfing and I loved it from the first minute. Reflecting on it, it turns out there are some similarities between surfers and recruiters. When the conditions are good and smooth, surfers from all different levels of experience can have a good time and catch a lot of breaks. The swell is nice and the streams are soft. You’ll find lots of waves to catch and you will have a lot of fun in the water without having to try too hard, no matter if you’re experienced or not. Of course, the weather is not always great.

When the conditions are tougher it gets a little more complicated. You can find yourself in a situation where the tide and the streams are very powerful and difficult to fight against, the waves are small and coming in from all directions (from the front, the right and left). It’s difficult to spot when a good wave will be coming in and you can be sure there won’t be too many that are good to surf.

This is a bit similar to a tough recruitment market where the experts/candidates are few, the competition for the experts with the specific skill set you’re looking for is fierce, and most of the candidates are happy with their situation.

This is where you want to make sure that you are working with a highly experienced Executive Search Consultant.

Much like an experienced surfer in a rough sea will have a huge advantage on a less experienced and skilled surfer, it’s the same with recruitment on a tough market. If you go surfing in a rough sea, you want to be sure that you have the power, skills and stamina to fight the stream and not let yourself get pulled away to sea. This is where a less experienced recruiter can be led into a false track looking for people with the wrong profiles or adjacent skills or in the worse case even stop looking for candidates in belief that the recruitment cannot be accomplished.

An experienced surfer will be able to spot the few right waves (opportunities) coming in, just like an experienced recruiter can sometimes notice what a less experienced recruiter won’t be able to see.

As the waves are few, an experienced surfer will succeed in catching and riding a lot more waves than the one with less experience. This comes from experience, skills and persistence. In the same way, an experienced Executive Search Consultant will succeed in receiving a relatively high amount of interest from all of the few candidates that are actually open to discussing new opportunities in other companies. This is because he/she can quickly establish rapport with the candidates, understand their interests and match them with the opportunity that your company offers. He/She will be able to push the right buttons. In brief, the Executive Search Consultant will guarantee that you can meet the candidates available on the market.

So, next time you want to recruit a hard to find expert in a rough market, make sure you turn to an experienced Executive Search consultant. Because just like surfers, the experienced ones are those who can spot all the few waves, as well as catch and ride them, in difficult conditions and achieve a great outcome!