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“Is it important to solicit constituent (clients, candidates, placements and colleagues) feedback? Yes or no - and why?”
WINNING RESPONSES
“Yes. Feedback provides benchmarking information that fosters continuous improvement. Many firms do this with clients, but the correct concept is constituents. Expand this to suppliers, competitors, etc. wherever your processes touch constituents. Discovering what constituents think about the conduct of business, as well as their suggestions, will improve any business, but is critical for consulting. Asking for, and being sensitive to, feedback will provide keys to the improvement of how you do everything. Start with process mapping and then solicit feedback from the interaction points with the constituents you deal with. This may sound difficult, but doing it continuously as you work through your day and getting it instilled into the culture of the firm makes it easy.
Continuous Process Improvement is the key to success and feedback is the engine of improvement!”
Douglas R. Allen, Executive Vice President, DHR International
“Yes…..It is always constructive to get feedback. But the objective of feedback is to respond to it. To request feedback and not change your behavior, or correct the misimpression that exists, would be disingenuous and could hurt you in the long-run.
To make the feedback most accurate, I find that it is helpful to ask the individual for a specific example that manifests his or her critique. You may find that the performance they are referring to is actually the result of a different issue.
Incidentally, the feedback need not be just critical, but can be positive. You should ask for the critique in specific segments of the search process.”
Joseph J. Carideo, Partner, Amrop Battalia Winston
HONORABLE MENTION
“You cannot afford to miss out on the feedback process in the search business as this diligence is overdue. Recommendations from clients and candidates alike are viewed as testimonies for our consistency and reliability. LinkedIn recommendations provide potential clients with immediate access to view others' opinions on your skills and abilities. Providing recommendations to others is also very important, a way to show compassion and is often reciprocated. On the other hand, any constructive negative feedback provides us with a hole which all search professionals desire, giving us the opportunity to search to fill the gap with professional improvement. All positive and negative metrics such as client and candidate feedback need to be taken into consideration for all of our daily processes as this data can then be turned into important information to be reviewed weekly. If you can master the information-gathering approach and implement the necessary changes weekly, all of your feedback will be positive and recommendations will be flooding your way without having to solicit them.”
Ross Campbell, acchuman executive search Inc.
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Exceptional Thinking Question of the Month
“In today’s business climate, what characteristics do you see as critical to success for retained search consultants, and why?”
Click here to submit your response.
Exceptional Thinking Past Questions and Responses
July 2010
“What new challenges have you faced when trying to convince your candidates to accept a position, and how have you dealt with them?”
April 2010
“Is it important to solicit constituent (clients, candidates, placements and colleagues) feedback? Yes or no - and why?”
December 2009
“What is the most important factor in building client trust and how have you achieved it?”
November 2009
“What new skills will exceptional search consultants most need to succeed over the next two years?”
October 2009
“What is the most significant change in client expectations over the past two years?”
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