How Thrive Speeds Up the Executive Search Life Cycle with Real-Time Collaboration

A client just reached out to ask whether you can help them find a CMO—a notoriously difficult search to close in their city.

So your lead recruiter hops into your system. With a couple clicks, she opens a search and starts to dig through her database for passive candidates who work at competing companies. Then she scans LinkedIn. In minutes, she has added 10 candidates who look promising to the search. She advances a few candidates, so her team knows to reach out to them. And now the client can log in and see the progress your team has made—on the same day they called you!

Sound familiar? Probably not.

Most firms are still patching together emails and spreadsheets, taking a week to share their candidate lists with clients. But these days are limited.

Digital transformation—and its benefits—are within reach now

Real-time collaboration is speeding up the time it takes for firms to place executive talent, making it easier for search firms and their clients to act swiftly. It also makes for better outcomes when all stakeholders can contribute and have access to the latest information in real time. Global HR Research reported in 2015 that it takes more than 70 days to hire director-level and higher roles. But according to 2019 research by Gartner, firms that act decisively take 17% less time to fill positions and hire 10% more high-quality candidates.

Clients know they need to move faster. And hiring teams are looking to you to bring the technology that makes that possible. A recent industry report by Hunt Scanlon points out that 81% of hiring managers believe recruiting firms can help lift technology limitations.

Thrive offers modern, easy-to-use software that promises to close that gap for the executive search firms of today, making digital collaboration through every stage of the candidate life cycle the new norm. Here’s a look inside how recruiting teams, hiring teams, and even candidates are collaborating in real time using Thrive.

1. Sync up stakeholders from the start

When you present your client with a collaboration portal for their executive search projects, you lay the foundation for efficient collaboration. It helps all the stakeholders in the executive search sync up, so your recruiting team is on the same page as the client’s leadership team, their HR department, and participating board members.

Confirm details quickly

Thrive helps you quickly pull together the information you need during the discovery phase. Then your team can sync with clients on role qualifications, skills, and key attributes needed for client assessments. Clients and team members can click into search details from the dashboard to confirm important details.

You can add users with different permission settings, so everyone sees just what they’re supposed to. Clients see a clean, streamlined portal branded with your logo. Your team members see their project details and tasks. From there, each party can dive into the search records and other information you’ve chosen to share.

And clients “get it.” Karen Burke D’Agostino, partner at a retained executive search firm that uses Thrive with its clients, says they “don’t even need a tutorial or walkthrough on it. You send them the link, they go in, and they can quickly figure it out.”

This helps make sure the recruiting team and the hiring team are on the same page from the start.

2. Identify the right candidates swiftly.

With real-time collaboration, you can move through the candidate sourcing phase faster and with more accuracy. Recruiting team members can work in parallel to add potential candidates. The data updates in real-time, which reduces errors and duplication.

Show clients your team is hard at work

Permission settings prevent the client from viewing candidates that you’re not ready to share yet, but you can let clients see your activity as you identify and vet potential applicants. This gives your client peace of mind during a stage they are usually not able to be involved in. And seeing input from your client in real time lets your team react faster.

Once a recruiter has interviewed and assessed a potential candidate, it’s time for the handoff to the client. Thrive makes it easy to let stakeholders know when their input is needed and to see progress via automated email and in-app alerts.

3. Evaluate candidates in real time.

Thanks to your shared collaboration portal, there’s very little required for handoff. Your client has been able to follow along, so together you can home in on the ideal candidate quickly. Alternatively, if client feedback leads to taking a new tack and sourcing different candidates or adjusting search criteria, the sooner you know, the better.

See client feedback in real time

Collaborators can see the stage and rankings of candidates at a glance, so all stakeholders remain in the loop. Stakeholders on the client hiring team can make comments and prioritize candidates with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down. When someone on the hiring team marks a candidate as “priority,” your recruiters get an in-app notification, so your team can act quickly.

If you want to generate a Search Summary Report, just choose the fields you’d like to included and send it via email within seconds. Your report is even branded with your firm’s logo. This speaks volumes over the generic spreadsheets your competitors are still using.

Shaving time off of the typical cumbersome process of collecting client feedback here lets your team quickly pivot or proceed to the next stage.

(helpful tip: clients can complete candidate assessments via email without ever logging into Thrive)

4. Close the deal and solidify relationships.

Complete the search by helping your client close an executive who will hit the ground running. Collaborating through this stage helps you build your relationship with the client and maintain accurate, complete historical performance data.

Continue building the relationship as you close the deal

Thrive lets executive search firms build every piece into their client history and candidate records for easy reference later. Gathering offer and placement details means your team can see and share important performance history with clients.

You can add compensation data such as salary, bonus, and equity, as well as documents like offer letters and noncompetes to a candidate’s record.

Thrive also provides space for notes from calls with references, so recruiters and clients can view any additional findings at this point. You can even invite candidates to update their profiles directly.

Wow your clients while you streamline your own business

Your clients want a collaborative process that makes everything easy to see in one spot — and they expect you to provide the solution. Quite honestly, they’re right. There’s no excuse for sending another spreadsheet or Google Doc to a client with all that’s possible in today’s technology.

Thrive offers a sleek collaboration portal that serves as ground zero for all stakeholders in the executive search, pulling together every aspect of your search projects from business development through placement. And the modern interface and tailored workflows fit with how your team works. After all, it was built with input by recruiters every step of the way. View our case studies to see how firms like Polachi, WilsonHCG, and other executive search firms have improved their data and impressed clients with real-time collaboration through Thrive.

Ready to show your clients you’re truly a leader in executive search? A dedicated customer success team makes migration and setup easy. Talk to us about Thrive today: Schedule your demo now.