IN TOUCH : Talent on tap

Speed daters do it. Bullet trains do it. When it comes to getting stuff done faster there’s been notable gap in the market. That’s the view of Executives Online (EOL) director Steve Rattray, in New Zealand recently to launch the local arm of an executive recruitment business that offers to get the right person into the right job fast.
Rattray’s mission is to shift the entrenched executive recruitment pattern to more speedy, and less costly, model. It’s an old pattern that is sadly in need of change, he says, predicated on what is typically five- or six-week delay before shortlist emerges and often eight to 12 weeks before role is filled. Then there are the fees: traditionally paid up front and garnered irrespective of successful placement.
All in all, not bad sacred cow to challenge with blend of automation – web, database and metadata searches – and human intervention at appropriate stages of the filtering process.
EOL’s typical placement times are two weeks from go to whoa. Rattray says his organisation recently dug out and placed CEO for Melbourne mining company. Time taken? Just five days. Sydney-based laser technology incubator that had generated no interest in CEO’s role after five weeks of searching, got 39 qualified responses within 48 hours of putting out an online alert. When Rattray last checked, the two strongest candidates were battling it out for the job.
EOL already has 30,000 people on its United Kingdom database, 3000 in Australasia and has just set up shop in France, Germany and South Africa.
•More details on www.executivesonline.com.au