- Person to speak to (full name, address at work and home, telephone numbers, title, company)
- Details of the conversation, with time and date
- When to follow up again, with time and date
- What category the contact is (see the section "How to Use the Codes" in this chapter)
Ask yourself why for every action you take. If someone declines, for example, it is not sufficient to say that he or she did not want to pursue. You have to record why he or she declined. If someone is very rude and behaves in a way that does not fit into the company's culture, you have to be specific. You could record: "He was very rude, which is why he is being declined. He made several remarks about people he worked with as being stupid and ignorant with intelligence on the level of a cow. He called his present boss a birdbrain." Even when someone is being interviewed, you should make conclusive notes. And again, you have to be specific.
If an executive search firm is involved, the researcher should pass the information or problems on to superiors; otherwise they will assume everything is fine. Furthermore, it is always better to address a problem sooner rather than later. If your sources and prospects are making the same remarks over and over, it is important to record them. This way, you can document why the original compensation package needs to be increased, with comments from such-and-such-including titles and companies-ideally with information about their current compensation, plus how much it would take to talk seriously about the job.
Remember that if it becomes necessary to have the job upgraded, it is important to have a good deal of data to support this move. This is just one example of why it is of such great importance to be very good at recording information throughout the course of the search.
The main purpose behind putting everything in writing is to make things easier for yourself and at the same time enable you to make maximum use of the information that you gather. You must therefore not only write down everything of importance, but also organize it so you can easily retrieve what you need. If you are using professional executive search firms, be aware that one individual consultant might be working on as many as seven or eight searches simultaneously, so the need for keeping full control of what is going on is especially great.
The bottom line is that you need a good system, and you must stick to it if you are going to control the information flow. The tools described later in this chapter should help you in getting organized. But, before you start, it is important to have a system to organize every step of the process, the big overall picture. This is why there is no substitute for the log, or the cycle of the candidates, and the search folder with the candidates.
Phone Log of Source or Prospect Call Sheets
Phone log and prospect call sheet documents track everyone you called in a particular search. It is helpful to organize the log when you start calling, by last name, especially if you do not use a computer system and utilize a so-called call sheet. If you use a computerized system, it is easy to run lists organized both by company and by last name.
This allows you to review at a glance everyone you have spoken to at a given company or by last name. You do not have to write everything in full sentences. The main thing is to write down the most important facts, in an understandable manner. For example, if a prospect sounds good but is not interested, find out what it would take to get her interested: compensation, responsibilities, opportunities, job satisfaction, and whatever else is important. Be sure to write it down in the log. Everyone you speak to regarding a specific search should be recorded in the log. To make the log easy to retrieve at a later point, identify it with a number that pertains to the particular search. That numbered log will contain only individuals whom you have called or plan to call in reference to that particular search.
How to Use the Codes
To keep track of what stage or group the people in a search belong to at any given time, it is very important to code everyone in the log according to his or her status. This method is very common at the leading executive search firms. The codes presented in this section are being used by Ward Howell International and many other firms. As a rule, you should change the coding (group) when you have a good indication of the next event that is going to take place.
This means that if, for example, someone you speak to tells you that he or she could be interested, the code should be immediately changed to PSP (prospect). You do not have to wait for the resume to arrive to change the code. The same goes for a prospect you have decided to interview. Even if the date has not been set, he or she immediately should be grouped as INV (interview). This code again should change right after the interview to either CND (candidate) or INQ (interested but not qualified).
By religiously sticking to the log and the coding, you will quickly be able to tell where you stand at any point during the search. But, in order for this system to work, you must always make good notes, and always make sure that your contacts have the right coding. You will quickly be able to make reports that tell you how many candidates you have, how many you have called, how many declined, and so forth.
