Emeka Nwandiko
As South African companies struggle to fill high-flying posts they are increasingly relying on executive recruitment agencies – better known as headhunters – to fill the gap.
Crime is the reason most often given for the outflow of mainly white senior executives from South Africa since 1994.
The Central Statistical Service notes that 2 600 executives and senior managers have left the country in the past three years.
During a similar period prior to the 1994 elections about 800 of their compatriots left for Europe, Australia and the United States to work.
“There has been a steady stream of people leaving the country,” says Derick Boshard, a partner at executive recruitment company Amrop International in Johannesburg.
The present outflow of talent has exacerbated South Africa’s skills shortage, and with companies giving top staff more challenges to remain, ordinary recruitment is not enough to get executive posts filled.
More companies have thus turned to the more finely tuned skills of headhunters to plug the gap.
According to Boshard, the executive recruitment industry has been expanding at a rate of 30% in recent times.
Industry insiders estimate the executive recruitment field is worth about R50-million a year.
But it is not just this white flight that has led to the shortage of talented senior executives in the boardroom.
Johann Redelinghuys, chair of Amrop International, believes that with the recent growth in the technological industry, such as the emergence of electronic banking, and the unbundling of conglomerates, as well as globalisation pressures, there has been a rising demand for senior management staff.
Boshard agrees: “We have been recruiting in just about every sector we work in – manufacturing, construction and the financial services industries,” as South Africa with its advanced economy spearheads the economic ” renaissance” of the rest of Africa.
Executive recruitment has more in common with a John le Carr novel, entailing discreet phone calls and clandestine meetings, than simply answering an advertisement in a newspaper.
Once a contract has been issued to a headhunting firm to fill a particular post, crack teams of researchers are set the task of locating the best and brightest brains suitable for the job.
“We look for people with proven track records of operating in a dynamic environment and the skills to run companies,” says Boshard.
Quite often the search goes abroad. “Increasingly we have replies to our adverts from African- Americans,” says Redelinghuys.
“For most of them filling an executive post in South Africa is part of their experience of returning to their roots and being in a country where a black man is the head of state.”
Redelinghuys observes that South Africa’s peaceful democratisation has appealed to foreigners who “want to be part of” the nation-building process.
Among locals, however, finding a suitable candidate who could help build on the success of a company relies, in part, on gossip.
“You will be amazed how frank people are when it comes to talking about their colleagues,” says Redelinghuys.
Furthermore, “part of getting the information we want is listening to what a potential candidate has to say about the company they currently work for”, says an advertising headhunter.
This gives clues not only to the candidate’s personality, but to possible future candidates.
Headhunting involves a lot of networking to find out who are the up-and-coming hotshots in business.
“We belong to a number of societies and organisations to meet people we might want to recruit,” says Redelinghuys.
But some headhunting firms have been criticised for recruiting low-calibre black executives for senior management posts in an effort to redress the racial imbalance in the boardroom.
“It seems some headhunting firms do not look long and hard at the calibre of black people they put forward for shortlists,” says Mare Norval, of Mare Norval & Associates.
With some firms earning retainers of R100 000 or more per executive netted, Norval says headhunting has become a business in which the quantity and not the quality of scalps are being watched.
But David Lowery, managing director of headhunting firm Tasa, which recruits black high-fliers in the chief-executive and director strata, rebuffs such criticism: “We have heard of companies that have had their fingers burnt as a result.
“Over the last couple of years black executives have learned that if they keep hopping from job to job they will not have achieved much or had time to build up a track record, and what happens? They fall off a cliff.”
Redelinghuys agrees: “These days companies have golden handcuffs – lucrative share options in the region of several million rands that cannot be touched until a period of at least five years has lapsed – which means that a person would not be willing to leave the company if they are happy.
“It’s more a question of getting a person who is thinking about moving on.”
Once the would-be candidate has agreed to being shortlisted, the process of selection could take anything from a few weeks to six months.
If the candidate is successful, the headhunter is given a percentage – in some cases 10%- of the gross annual salary of the new employee from either the old or the new firm.
But should the new recruit decide to leave the company within a three-month probation period it is not unheard of for headhunting firms to repay at least 50% of the negotiated fee.
And what does it take to be a headhunter?
“The person must be prepared to be tenacious, energetic, have a strong work ethic and come from any professional discipline,” says the advertising headhunter.
ENDS