Rarely Asked: What does the real impact a firm’s blockage and/or off-limits policy have on their ability to provide comprehensive retained executive recruiting services?
Response: I have always been astonished that clients never address the “dirty little secret” of retained executive recruiting known as “blockage and reserved candidates”. If a client simply does the arithmetic and poses a few direct questions, they would find that the big firms simply do not have access to as large a pool of candidates as they purport to have. The dilemma should be even more apparent for firms that are “self proclaimed specialists” in particular industry sectors of professional disciplines. I have very minimal conflict by comparison to other firms where as much as 60% of the desired candidate universe may be blocked due to extensive client conflicts, placement off limits, candidate reserving policies and “parallel processing” of candidates. Frankly, the larger firms can only approach individuals and organizations that are not on their ever expanding blocked or reserved list. On the other hand, my professional experience will compare favorably with anyone and I pride my
