CONSORT Group’s office in Yekaterinburg took almost a year to complete an assignment from a large IT company to search for a top-class sales specialist. The search mandate was received back in 2018, without a clear description of the requirements – it was just a desire to “find a seasoned salesman”.
From the first three candidates presented, the client selected the one he needed – a top specialist who worked for a competitor selling industrial software solutions. But he requested too much money in compensation, and after lengthy negotiations he left for Moscow, where his financial expectations were met. He did one good thing, though: he referred a colleague who also met all of the requirements but had fewer ambitions.
This candidate was introduced to the CEO but there was no “love at first sight”, as with his predecessor. A six-month pause followed, filled with the company CEO’s doubts: was our candidate suitable or not? However, last summer, when the need to change the head of the company’s commercial unit became apparent, the CEO remembered our candidate, met again with him and realized that he needed that very person.
Long negotiations followed, as a result of which our candidate received an unprecedentedly high compensation package from the company. Then he continued in his current job for another month and a half, and eventually came to work for our client’s company! All in all, the search project lasted for over eleven months, and for the consultant it was almost a year of intensive mediation between candidates and the employer, working with their expectations and objections. But the major thing was that the right candidate was placed in the right place at the right time, as evidenced by a 110% increase in sales!