How Do You Run a Stealth Search Effectively?

Krissy: Good morning everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Blueprint Round Table. Today I am gonna be your host, and Chuck and Matt are gonna be weighing in on. And really interesting question actually. And something that we’ve been asked to do a few times, over at Blueprint. But going into separate from just good topics of like how to hire or run a search.

Today’s topic and question is how do you run an effective search in stealth mode where you don’t want people at your organization to know that you’re actually running this search? So, I will start with you, Chuck.

Chuck: Yeah, such a great question. This is definitely a topic for probably some follow up, but I’ll answer it. The first and most important thing to say is before you run any form of stealth search, It is, it is imperative to clarify like what precisely are your objectives and why is there the need to do this is this a general sort of interest in bench building, anticipating churn, whether voluntary or involuntary based on expectations in the market? Is this based on having a specific individual who is who is on or expected to go on a performance plan? But I think first thing that’s really important is clarifying why this needs to happen.

I think minimizing the need to do it as well is another factor, right? So if it is a matter of a specific individual, like does this need to be done in stealth, right? Or if you’ve managed things in a transparent, open way perhaps you can run this search in a more open, open way because, all parties are aware of circumstances, right?

So clarifying your objectives, minimizing where possible the need to do it. Consulting with your legal team, I think is also important. It goes without saying that nothing should be done right, that’s ever in violation with federal or state employment laws. So making sure that you’re being, you’re being fair, you’re being consistent, you’re fully in accordance with the law and how you run any form of search.

All of those things matter. And so then once you’ve got those kind of foundations right, then I think it’s really about making sure that you’ve got trusted partners involved. So if you’re working with the recruiting team, that you’ve really conveyed the specifics, you’ve mitigated the chance for things to, to spiral, and that the parties who are involved in that search are staying as respectful, about circumstances as you need them to. I mean, I think there are other dimensions of this, depending on specifics how you, or how you make sure that people who maybe report to an individual who may be impacted are not aware of those circumstances. I mean, you just, you wanna err on the side of being respectful to everyone, the parties that you’re seeking to bring in your organization, the party who may be getting managed outta the organization and the folks in between.

And beyond that I think it’s really case by case, but I think it’s a great topic. I think we should, we should do some follow-up, Krissy, on this as well because we have seen interest in doing this and I think in this business environment in particular with growing expectations that buts and seeds are executing at a really high level.

I mean, there is a lot of interest in ensuring that teams aren’t performing at the highest levels and being upgrade-ready. And so while I understand the need for businesses to do that, I think just doing it in a respectful, clear way is always vital. Matt, what are your thoughts on that?

Matt: Yeah, I was, I’m thinking more tactical from, from the recruiter’s side, whether you’re in-house or like, it’s easier if you’re external ’cause your email address doesn’t have the name of the company. I think we, we’ve got some clients that ask us not to use their name when, when reaching out for some stealth searches.

As long as you, you’re aware that your response rates are gonna be, or your engagement rates are gonna be lower because nobody wants to take a call with a company, they, they don’t even, they can’t even go look up on their own. And the whole feeling of like, you have to take a call with me to know the company name or to get the compensation, like those tactics are, are dying.

And if they’re not dead yet, the companies that are using ’em will die. So like, as long as the hiring manager and the team are aware that, hey, if we’re if whether internal or external, we’re not allowed to list the name of the company or the actual position of the role or the territory.

If you’re backfilling a geo-specific individual, like, response rates are gonna be lower and there’s only so much we can do. Right? Because even if somebody wants to take a call with the series D, the tiring for mid-market ae at this comp level, and here’s some of the must haves that they have from a candidate profile standpoint.

The first question they’re gonna ask or they should ask on that call is, Please tell me the name of the client and then the cat’s outta the bag. So if you’re using a third-party recruiter, it’s really just making sure that you’re on the same page with them. There’s only so much they can do to make it a stealth search.

And typically response rates are gonna be a little bit lower because of that. But outside of, outside of that, everything Chuck echoed is, is spot on. There’s a lot of variables that go into this from a core reason to a, handling both internally and externally that warrants, I think a deeper conversation where maybe we take some of the top three and sort of break ’em down.

Chuck: Yeah, those are really good points and I mean those are important considerations. I think you’re right. Sorry. ’cause I was gonna say, I hadn’t thought about you. I mean, times have changed. Right. And I really do, appreciate and take pride in the way that we are always so open and transparent.

So at a certain level, while we have a lot of experience with this and, and comfort here, it, it, it is a little more challenging in today’s market, maybe versus five years ago to run these kinds of searches because our value is not tied to like serving up that name, right? And so once you start to be cryptic at any level, even when there are very valid reasons, it can be a little more challenging, right?

Krissy: Yeah, for sure. And look, your process matter always matters, but it sure has helped matters in this situation. Like everyone needs to be buttoned up. The worst thing you can do is not be buttoned up or you aren’t sure if you actually are like some people will wanna do steal search and, but then they’re, they kind of slow down and like, that’s a bad candidate exp experience, like this is where candidate experience matters because you have to be transparent.

We’re replacing somebody that’s still there and so they wanna see how you treat them and they’re, I mean, their, like red alert is like all up, even if they’re interested in the company. So I think those two things are like, really critical to be locked, locked down and get right. So you can create a great experience, but als but also just make sure that everything is, is aligned as possible.
But great, great conversation, great topic. We definitely should follow up on this. Great advice. But that’s all the time we have for today. So until next time, we’ll see y’all

Matt: See you guys.