What Top Recruiters Will Be Doing Differently in 2020

Forget the war for talent — there's a war for clients going on. Here's how the best recruiting firms are rising to the challenge.

My general intention in writing this article was to interview some of the top, "smaller" executive search firms with great reputations and long histories in the industry. I wanted to know what major trends or changes they saw in 2019, and what they were planning on doing differently in 2020 to adjust to these changes.

While most of the articles I've written in my career have been guided by a general idea of where I want to go with the content, I felt on a gut level that I needed to let go of my typical approach for this one. I didn't write any preliminary questions for the people I was interviewing. I wanted to allow whatever information came to the surface during our conversations to facilitate the direction of the interviews.

What I learned throughout the process of interviewing the managing partners and upper managers of various executive search firms was that, even though each firm seemed to be facing unique challenges , they were all responding to the new recruiting landscape in similar ways. Moreover, I think their responses capture some of what recruiting desperately needs.

How Will You Differentiate Your Firm?

One of the most common themes brought up by the people I spoke with was the necessity of differentiation.

As Rob Robinson, managing partner of Horn Solutions and former district president at Robert Half, told me, "At some point our economy is going to shift back into a recession based on basic economic trends, and when this happens, many recruiting firms will go out of business. It's best to differentiate yourself effectively during these times to endure the headwinds and come out on top with the other firms left standing."

Throughout my interviews with these firms, I found they were all working diligently to differentiate themselves in progressive and innovative ways. With almost no exceptions, all of the firms I spoke with were either beginning to offer or in the process of putting together more comprehensive services for their clients that included various forms of coaching, consulting, development, training, and onboarding.

Becky Barclay Prewitt, founder and president of R.L. Barclay & Associates, a recruiting firm specializing in the legal industry, reported that her biggest challenge in 2019 — shared by many of the other local recruiting firms she networks with — was that there was not enough great talent to match employers' demands.

She has also found over the past few years that companies are now more willing to offer much better counteroffers to departing employees in an effort not to lose them, which can make a recruiter's job very difficult.

Trying to remind our clients that all of our candidates are the best of the best has gotten harder.

According to Barclay Prewitt, "These job candidates are often not clear on what they actually want or how serious they are about leaving their current company."

As a result, Barclay Prewitt has started offering more counseling and coaching to candidates so that she can identify who is really willing to start a new job, regardless of any counteroffers they might receive.

"In 2020, I believe we will see more companies willing to offer even better luxuries and benefits to these quality candidates in their counteroffers," Barclay Prewitt predicts. "Companies that are hiring recruiting firms need to anticipate this and know what they are willing (or not willing) to offer to get these candidates."

Ducatus Partners, another firm I interviewed, is a boutique executive search and leadership consultancy firm that focuses on the energy, infrastructure, and private equity sectors. During my interviews with Partner Jonathan Verlander and Research Director Alyssa James, I learned the firm is adding new services to increase the impact of placements for its clientele, which includes many prominent oil and gas companies investing heavily in attracting top executives.

According to James, "One of the things that Ducatus Partners prides ourselves on is that, even though we have a large network of talent already known to us within our specialist sectors, we begin each search for a client with a clean slate, searching for the best possible talent by mapping the market comprehensively for a client's bespoke requirements."

Verlander notes that Ducatus Partners also maintains high transparency with its clients, which includes regular reporting on each mandate.

In 2019, Ducatus began to experiment with offering a post-hire executive coaching package for some of its more tenured clientele. This package includes consistent coaching sessions with leaders during their first 12 months of employment with a new company. Verlander reports the firm is currently refining the specifics of this addon service and plans to roll it out to all clients in 2020.

Staying Ahead of the Changing Tides

Horn Solutions is a management consulting firm that specializes in finance and accounting, information technology, and transactional accounting and office staffing. Managing Partner Rob Robinson, quoted earlier, agrees with Barclay Prewitt that counteroffers have become more common over the past 3-4 years, but he didn't notice any major changes to this trend in 2019 and doesn't necessarily feel things will be much different in 2020.

That said, Robinson notes our economy has experienced the "longest expansion cycle ever on record," and it's only a matter of time before the tides change.

Robinson has been managing partner at Horn Solutions for two and a half years, and he has led the company in becoming more customer-service oriented for both clients and candidates. He says this "white-glove approach" encompasses "handling all aspects of the process for the client and candidates, including assessing, coaching, interview preparation, and resume assistance."

"The way we do this is one of the things that differentiates us from other firms in our industry," Robinson says. "We have found that the time saved and increased positive results have been well received ... by existing customers. In many instances, clients have hired candidates they would have otherwise never interviewed or been able to get to fast enough to retain through the lengthy hiring process."

At Beecher Reagan, which focuses on placing leadership talent in consulting and professional services, Managing Partner Mo Captan says the biggest trend he noticed in 2019 was clients growing more particular and rigid about their expectations and requirements for the firms they hire — even if a firm is already working with the very best of the best talent.

"Trying to encourage or remind our clients that all of our candidates are the best of the best has gotten a bit more challenging," Captan says. "Some of them seem to be set on three or four candidates and are unwilling to consider others."

"Some of our clients haven't gotten the results they wanted from past hires, so their reaction has been to be even more particular and attached to a select few of our candidate pool," he adds. "This can make things more difficult, as all of these candidates are in very high demand and may not go with our client."

To help clients get better results, Beecher Reagan has been offering a "post-hire integration" service. While Captan notes that some firms might have always offered some initial consulting to their clients post-hire, he is now seeing a shift in the industry where firms are also offering formal programs or technologies their clients can continue to use long after a candidate is placed.

What It All Means for the Future of Recruiting

So, what can we expect moving forward? Having interviewed all these companies — and taking into account my own experience in the industry — I feel like many recruiting organizations may be transitioning into agencies that offer a larger variety of services to clients.

I also believe these firms that are dedicated to a very high standard of excellence in their services will soon recognize their own needs to hire additional professionals who specialize in the new add-on services they are offering to maintain congruence in their standards of service. This would open up the opportunity for more specialists to join forces with recruiting firms.

With qualified people who can offer pre- and post-hire assistance in executive coaching, career coaching, talent and leadership development, instructional design, and training, the most successful recruiting firms may have much more robust offerings for their clients in 2020.

Scott Engler is the author of The Job InnerView and Legends of the Recruiting and Career World. Read his latest, The Problem and the Solution, on his website.