Is it a good
idea for executive recruiters to present the same candidate to
two corporate clients at the same time?
The practice,
know as "parallel processing," became popular during the dot-com
heyday when there weren't enough executives to keep up with growing
demand. Critics derided the practice as unethical. And few search
firms publicly admitted they processed in a parallel way.
Now, the
issue is heating up again. Recruiting Industry Newswire reported
last month that the Association of Executive Search Consultants,
a New York professional group, had "weakened" its stance on parallel
processing. The trade publication also disclosed that Chris Clarke,
president of Boyden Global Executive Search in New York, had "penned
a strong dissent" to the altered guideline. Mr. Clarke served
on a 15-member panel of senior search executives that recently
reviewed the AESC's guidelines.
The prior
professional practice guideline stated that search professionals
should "avoid knowingly presenting simultaneously, without disclosure
to clients, the same candidate to more than one client." The amended
guideline says that if an "exceptional circumstance" arises requiring
parallel processing, a search professional must get a client's
full "agreement in advance."
Mr. Clarke
confirms his dissent stated that "the client has the right to
a professional champion who is not torn by conflicting loyalties."
He expected the AESC to include his dissent in its March distribution
of the new guidelines to the association's 160-member search firms.
Instead,
"the board [members] did whatever they wanted to do," Mr. Clarke
says. "There wasn't a meeting to discuss [the dissent] and the
next thing I knew the thing had been issued without my dissenting
opinion."
Peter Felix,
AESC president, says the professional group's board ultimately
made a majority decision, which took into account all options
expressed by board members and the advisory panel. Mr. Clarke's
take "was one opinion and obviously all associations are run on
a majority opinion, though we understand his point of view," Mr.
Felix adds.
Nor does
Mr. Felix see the revamped guideline as a retreat. He says the
AESC actually tightened its stance on parallel processing by urging
recruiters to get clients' permission. "The old guideline said
you just had to disclose to the client," he says.
Boyden "aspires
to an even higher standard which implies that there will never
be an exception -- even with full disclosure and agreement with
all concerned," Mr. Felix continues.
The debate
over parallel processing seems unlikely to die down soon, however.
Cortland Stiles, a vice president of boutique search firm Warren
& Morris Ltd., in Portsmouth, N.H., sees no problems with the
practice as long as all involved parties consent.
"If the candidate
is talking to you...he's probably talking to other [search firms]
too," Mr. Stiles says. "So it's better for the candidate to go
inside the firm rather than to somewhere else" if he or she intends
to approach multiple clients simultaneously. During his 10-year
recruiting career, Mr. Stiles has never had a client express discomfort
with parallel processing.
But
other recruiters believe the practice isn't in the clients' or
search firms' best interest. Pat Cook, founder of Cook & Co.,
a boutique search firm in Bronxville, N.Y., recalls that parallel
processing created an uncomfortable situation while she worked
for recruiters Heidrick & Struggles International Inc. She left
in January 2000 to start her own firm. During the dot-com boom,
she was trying to place a finance chief. At the same time, a Heidrick
& Struggles colleague wanted to present this individual to another
corporate client.
The
prospect received offers from both recruiters' clients. "It was
tremendously awkward," Ms. Cook says. The candidate ultimately
accepted her client's offer. "It was an internal race to the finish,
but your competition becomes internally focused instead of externally
driven."
Eric Sodorff,
a spokesman for Heidrick & Struggles, says that parallel processing
"is not a common practice at the firm, but it's done under some
circumstances and we always do it with full knowledge and agreement
from the client and candidate.," says Mr. Sodorff. "It was much
more common during the dot-com era."
Search-industry
watchers see the renewed debate as another sign of how executive
recruiting is evolving. "The industry has become more of a transactional
and commodity business than a relationship one," says Scott Scanlon,
head of Hunt-Scanlon Advisors, search-industry consultants in
Stamford, Conn. "I can see a day when a candidate is put on 10
or 20 different job slates and the fastest and highest bidder
will get the commodity."
