Our approach to search

The initial ‘engagement call’ will be made in the candidate’s native language wherever possible. From here we will ascertain motivations to change role and personal requirements to do so. This entails four basic questions that we pose in a conversational style:

• Are you open to new opportunities?
• Are you willing/able to live and work in ____?
• What is your salary and package?
• What is your notice period?

We would of course return to these points conversationally throughout the process to reconfirm and validate responses. Those who are happy in their roles or are unable to meet the basic requirements of the role profile will be discounted.

Once we are confident a candidate is motivated to change roles and the role can meet their personal requirements on location and salary we perform a screening interview. This interview ascertains the future aspirations of the candidates that can be compared with the future opportunities available within to assess the cultural and career fit with the role. Will the role meet the candidates’ aspirations in the short, medium and long-terms and retain them in the business?

This involves the same 4 questions for each candidate:

• What are your career goals?
• What are you best at professionally?
• What are you not good at / not interested in professionally?
• If we progress we will take extensive references. When contacting your last 5 employers (or less if they have less) what will they say are your strengths and weaknesses, what score will they give you out of 10?

We are looking for consistency at this stage in their strengths and weaknesses. Often candidates in an interview scenario will avoid giving their weaknesses but, we have experience in acquiring this information through appropriate questioning.

Those whose aspirations and working strengths match the requirements of the role will be invited to a face-to-face interview (or video conference depending on travel restrictions in force at any given time). This interview, which will be conducted in English as the business language, will focus on the CV. As well as reconfirming motivations for changing roles and investigating any gaps in the CV, we will ask the following 5 questions for every position in their career history:

• What were you employed to do?
• What were your main accomplishments in this role?
• What were your low points in this role?
• Who did you work with? Specifically:
  a. What was your boss’ name? Please will you spell it? What was it like to work for them? When we speak to them, what will they tell me where your greatest strengths and weaknesses?
  b. How would you rate the team you inherited on an ABC scale? How would you rate the team when you left? (for those managing teams)
• Why did you leave that role?

We will ask each candidate to tell us who their manager was and spell the name to leave the candidates in no doubt that references will be taken at some point if they progress in order to encourage honest and frank answers. We listen carefully to how they describe their relationships with superiors and peers. Evidence of improving the teams they have managed is also assessed. Finally, we are looking for candidates that have been pulled into new roles through their careers, those that are headhunted and proactively sourced for roles or taken on by those they have supplied services to in the past. We are seeking to avoid those that have been pushed through their career through redundancy or being let go.

A competency interview would form the next stage and can be conducted at the same time as the stage above, or we can do this via telephone / video conference if time does not allow for it on the day. Using these reports for background we will ask the following questions and probe to challenge inconsistencies or discover areas of self-awareness and self-improvement:

• What are your biggest achievements when it comes to _______?
• What are your insights into your biggest mistakes in this area and what lessons did you learn?

The highest scoring candidates will be short listed and submitted for interview. They will be submitted with a full and up to date CV and summaries of their experience. We would propose a presentation to the is included at this stage.

Taylor Hopkinson will arrange and manage all interviews with the candidates and yourselves.

The final stage will be referencing. We will take at least 2 references on the chosen candidate, if not more. With each referee we will ask:

• Please will you confirm the context in which you worked with ______ ?
• What were their biggest strengths?
• What would you say were their biggest areas for improvement back then?
• How would you rate his/her overall performance in the role on a scale of 1/10? What was it about their performance that causes you to give this score?
• He/she mentioned that they were challenged with ______ in the role. Can you tell me more about that?
• Would you employ them again? 

We are seeking here to validate and verify the conclusions we have drawn. Any discrepancies or variations from what the candidates have told us will be probed.

Full reports will be submitted.