Several times over my career in Executive Search I find myself working with a candidate who believes they are an ideal fit for a retained search assignment I am conducting. My retained search work is “performance based” NOT contingency based, which means that when a client has paid a deposit for my time and effort, I am expected to get the job done. For an executive search consultant, getting the job done means nothing short of bringing forward high-impact “business changing” candidates to our clients. These are the “A” Players. Not only must they have the required experience, expertise, and a proven track record of success, but he/she must prove to me that they can meet the challenges of the position, meet or exceed my client’s expectations, and make a “direct positive impact” on my client’s business.

Many people believe they are “A” Players. They hear about a search I am doing or are referred to me by others or view a Tweet about the search and assume they are the answer. So let’s look at the facts – not only as I see them, but I dare to trust that most high performance executive recruiters who work in a specialized vertical market (or single industry) would agree with me. We have insight into the different vertical markets of our clients and as such, we know when one company is doing better than a competitor in the same market. A company may have a great sales team, but without “A” Players on the product/service development side, that company gets beaten by its’ competitors. On the other hand, you can have exceptional engineering talent and a great sales team, but if the executive leadership has a “B” or C” Player, they can still fail in the marketplace against their competitors.

The truth is that by and large, 55-60% of all employees at any given company are in fact “C” Players. They can do the job they were hired to do; they show up for work on time, do the job they were assigned, and are loyal to their managers. However, they lack the entrepreneurship risk taking mentality, the “take charge” attitude, and the take no prisoners’ mindset required to make an impact on the marketplace. While for many positions it is acceptable to have “C” players in many roles, at the leadership and senior management level, it can be fatal. Next come the “B” players which based on my 20+ years experience in executive recruiting, are roughly 25%-30% of all employees at any given company. They outperform “C” players any day of the week and possess the intuitiveness and hunger to succeed that makes them valuable to their employer. They have a track record of success, albeit in their department but rarely make a definitive impact on the company’s overall performance in the marketplace or the business strategy.

So what really is an “A” player? These unique individuals comprise the Top 10% to 15% Talent in the client’s vertical market. An example of a vertical market as defined by a recruiter is an industry (wireless), an industry category (network infrastructure), and the vertical market (RAN systems). So an “A” player is defined as someone with the experience, expertise, track record of multiple successes that have measureably impacted their employers’ business.  That is what an “A” player is for all non-officer positions. An “A” player for Board level or Officer Level (CXO) positions is different. These are roughly 20% of those in the Top 15% Talent. These levels are expected to not only have the former, but are in fact “game changers” not only within a client’s vertical market, but have had similar success in other vertical markets within that industry or in a different industry altogether. They have a responsibility to the owners (founders, investors, and stockholders).

In a recession where funding issues, layoffs, and market conditions have left so many unemployed, many companies believe they can identify and recruit key talent AKA “A” players through their own direct contacts, social networks, or internal recruiters. Rarely does that actually happen. The fact is that 50% of ALL hires are either bad hires or miss-hires. This is due to a combination of poor internal recruiting staff, the use of poorly defined job descriptions that ignore the specific business need to solving either the unique technical challenges or defining in detail the corporate objectives, plus most Board members and senior level executives are simply too busy to perform adequate and intensive interviewing, screening, plus behavioral and intangible assessment throughout the entire Talent Acquisition life cycle.

The Cost of Failed Executives due to a Failed Talent Acquisition Process.  A Mercer study estimated that on average, the cost of a failed executive is estimated to be more than $500,000 or 2.5 times salary. And that does NOT include organizational, opportunity, productivity, and transitional costs for the new executive. As an Officer or Board member, you must ask yourself, why would you risk letting this happen? The same can be said of a VP of Engineering who needs principal level systems software engineer for that matter. You may save yourself a few dollars in the short run recruiting someone with your existing recruiting process, but the long term effects may cost YOU and YOUR STOCKHOLDERS much more than a retained search fee.