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Permalink Reply by John G. Self on February 16, 2009 at 11:48am

When I founded JohnMarch I had never worked in a retained search firm so I was blind and leading myself. Did I make mistakes? Gosh yes. Too many to count. But the driver for me was that I had dealt with other retained firms and was always frustrated with the lack of communication, poor service and respect for the effort I was putting out to be a candidate. I knew what I DID NOT like about those types of search firms.

On the contingency side, I quit talking to those types of recruiters because most did not know enough about the opportunity for me to justify the effort. They were in a big rush to get my resume and seemed frustrated when I started asking basic questions that most could not answer, which is why I have stayed away from the contingency side as a recruiter. There are some excellent contingent recruiters, I know. However, my personal experiences as a client and as a candidate, along with the host of war stories that I heard from others led me to conclude that I just did not want to be in a segment of the search industry that, overall, had such here today, gone tomorrow/anything for a fee mentality. In doing so I was gambling that, longer term, the financial rewards would justify the loss of income during the first two or three years, as I worked to build relationships.

Clients like our in-depth candidate screening, our video summaries of the last interview before we present the recommended candidates and the really appreciate our thorough background vetting process which includes a review of all criminal, civil and driving records in all jurisdictions where they have worked or lived for the past 10 years.

I like the retained search approach. However, now that we are flirting with economic disaster, it remains to be seen whether our high touch/high service approach will be a keeper.