The road to a successful appointment

 

Analysis

Before a consultancy contract is entered into, the terms for the assignment are analysed through a dialogue with the top management, the immediate manager and the HR manager. This includes discussing the essential objectives and success criteria for the vacant position as well.

This assignment also involves interviewing the immediate manager and any same-rank colleagues and key co-workers who will be reporting to or working with the new employee.  This is done to obtain an optimum impression of the business culture for the purpose of being able to attract the most competent candidates available.

With this as background material, the job and personal profile are compiled that will form the basis for the wider search.

Moreover, the profile will be available on our website – anonymously.

 

Search Strategy

Taplow Denmark uses a 3 phase search process:

  • Our database and network contain CVs for around 6,000 people that are reviewed to find both particular candidates and candidates who have successfully been employed within the same or similar branches or markets.
  • Other media are appraised.
  • Effective search is started – targeted at selected businesses in the same or related branches.

 

Qualification

As a result, a number of candidates are identified with the help of interviews and possibly references, before the first list with qualified candidates is compiled. To locate, qualify and motivate candidates is a demanding job that often requires the participation of 2-3 consultants.

The most important assignment however is the final selection of the candidate who will be offered the job.

 

Assessment presentation

Here our experience is that a two-way assessment presentation provides the best basis for a successful appointment.

To select and uncover who possesses the right, often holistic qualities is particularly difficult. General psychological tests, copies of qualifications, scrutiny of CVs and references, supplemented by interviews can reveal if the candidate has the potential to be an immediate success in a well-described job. But whether shared chemistry, concrete business understanding and whether the client's organisational activity plans can be best carried out by the candidate are determined best by simulating in case-form some topical and concrete scenarios and problem formulations that the new candidate may have to deal with when and if he/she is offered the vacant key position.

 

Our two-way presentation contains the following elements:

  • A Power Point presentation of the candidate's CV, including the results that the candidate has achieved in previous jobs that correspond to the requirements of the vacant position.
  • A presentation where the client's management team provides orientation about:  Objectives, visions, strategy, organisation, as well as the job's content and success criteria. Subsequently, there is a response to questions from the candidate.
  • A presentation of one larger relevant project that the candidate has been in charge of that has required significant managerial or personal   performance.  Here we investigate why he/she won the case and what his/her role was in the process. Who were the competitors? What was the economic gain? Who can confirm that this is a truthful interpretation of the case? References are taken.
  • A presentation of the candidate as a leader. Here the candidate is faced with a number of managerial questions and dilemmas that he/she needs to resolve, and which provide a good insight in the candidate's abilities to tackle problems under pressure.
  • The candidate is asked to suggest in headlines a concrete plan of action that will ensure that he/she can present his/her activities for the management with clearly measurable success criteria within 30 days.
  • Last but not least, we need the candidate's input as to how he/she wants to be motivated by his/her new boss and to reveal his/her expectations of achieving a good relationship with his/her colleagues.

References

Finally, we will take references to check all the information about his/her achievements that the candidate has presented just to verify that the candidate himself/herself has headed up the projects mentioned.

The process detailed above is our way to ensure a successful appointment that makes certain that  the client and the candidate enjoy a successful future working relationship.