1. The Candidate Advocate
Improve your chances of hiring outstanding experienced consultants
Jason Sanders, Ivy Exec V.P. of Executive Search
The Candidate Advocate is not an administrator, nor a recruiter. The Candidate Advocate does
not simply set up interviews and deliver feedback; they represent your candidates’ interests. It
may seem counterintuitive to appoint such a person, but your must consider your candidates’
point of view in order to effectively hire. A candidate advocate can facilitate spoken and unspoken
communications allowing you to present yourself and your company in their best possible light.
Even the very best consulting firms lose good candidates. Hiring companies may turn candidates
off by delaying interviews, providing unclear feedback or simply by not paying enough attention.
An overly full interview pipeline prevents new prospects from entering your hiring process. You
may waste valuable executive time micro-managing recruitment. You may not provide or receive
valuable feedback. If you are losing your best candidates, you may want to consider appointing a
Candidate Advocate.
A Candidate Advocate plays a critical marketing role as you compete for scarce talent. You have a
short period of time and limited communication with your prospects and you need to make the
best impression possible. Your candidates’ emotional reactions to you and your hiring process
critically impact your ability to hire.
The care you take creating a favorable impression to candidates should reflect the care you take
developing business with new clients. When you sell services, you create the strongest messages
possible, plan the delivery of those messages, seek help from subject matter experts, and
delegate the administration of your process. You provide leadership and only directly involve
yourself in the highest value areas. A good Candidate Advocate not only will provide
administrative support, they will act as a subject matter expert about your recruiting process and
your prospective hires.

2. An employer has a number of tools available to motivate experienced candidates. These include:
higher compensation, greater responsibility and growth, stability and vision for the company,
exciting projects, and above all, a personal connection with the hiring manager.
Experienced consultants consistently cite their feelings about the people they will work with as a
top reason for joining a new firm. While it may be difficult or impossible to change many
aspects of your company, it is quite possible to enhance the impression you make with
the very best candidates. The first step, of course, is to identify those outstanding candidates.
Consult your own network, ask your staff, and perhaps even engage an external recruiter. You are
on your way. Now that you have begun to source candidates, how do you manage a successful
hiring process?
1. You want to give yourself access to the best candidates available by crafting and delivering a
strong message about your firm and your opportunity. Make sure you convey a quality
message to a select audience. You want to let prospects know about your opportunity, but
make sure to preserve your brand broadcasting your opening carefully.
2. Once you have a pipeline of prospects, you will want to narrow the field as efficiently as
possible, so that you can effectively build relationships with the best candidates. Rely on
your recruiters and staff to conduct the first screening interviews, but make yourself available for
urgent initial conversations. Great candidates must be pursued and do not remain on the
market long. Put yourself at the head of the interview line, when necessary.
3. Once you have identified good candidates, you must manage an effective interview process.
This includes screening out the wrong people. You MUST make rapid, effective decisions
about the candidates in your pipeline. The single most common error made in hiring is to
manage a large pipeline of candidates without reaching closure. It may seem like more
candidates are better, but inactive candidates clog your process and do not make room for newer,
more qualified prospects. Reducing the number of candidates quickly motivates your
recruiting team to bring more qualified professionals to the table.
4. Negotiating an offer and closing the deal is critical to this process. At each step along the way,
you learn more about your candidates and they learn more about you. The trick is to build the
closest relationships with the best candidates early on and intensify it through the process.
This serves the dual function of allowing you to make a more informed choice, while creating a
positive impression.

3. You can begin to address these issues by appointing a professional charged with representing
your candidates. Instinct may tell you to hire a recruiting coordinator, or someone mandated to
directly represent your own interests. Think about reversing this approach and appointing a
Candidate Advocate to represent your candidates’ interests. Ultimately, this will serve your
goal of hiring the very best.
It may seem counterintuitive to commission such a role, but this person will open critical lines
of communication. The best Candidate Advocate will force you to make decisions,
administer an effective process and hone your message to prospective employees.
A Candidate Advocate provides you with the following valuable services:
 Time management
 Relationship maintenance
 Feedback mechanism
 Ability to adjust to your needs
 Pushes you to make decisions
A Candidate Advocate manages time.
Since you are working hard to fulfill client obligations, appoint someone who will help you manage
time. Set expectations properly and this person will update your candidate pipeline with minimal
effort. They will provide brief, regular status reports. Make time for quick weekly phone calls and
agree upon a goal for numbers of candidates in the funnel. This encourages the advocate to fill
the funnel when it is low and obliges you to take people out when it is overflowing.
A Candidate Advocate maintains relationships.
Sometimes, your personal connection to candidates is irreplaceable. At other times, less direct
contact promotes a good impression of you and your company. You may be able to foster a
relationship with something as simple as quickly providing basic feedback. It could be as involved
as flying a candidate to your client site for meeting, with you, your team or even your clients.
Maintaining regular contact is absolutely essential to keeping your best candidates interested in
your opportunity, and a Candidate Advocate can help you decide on the most effective course of
action.

4. A Candidate Advocate facilitates feedback.
Candidate Advocate Job
An effective process includes giving and receiving prompt Description
feedback. A third party fills this role most effectively,
The Candidate Advocate facilitates a
since that person takes direct candidate pressure off your smoothly running interview process,
shoulders. An advocate helps build relationships by maximizes the efficiency of screening and
focuses resources on bringing the best
providing clear feedback to your prospects. You may
candidates on board.
also solicit candid feedback about yourself, so that your
message to the market becomes stronger. Finally, Potential sources for a CA include:
feedback allows your advocate address and adjust to 1) A senior member of the practice
2) An HR or recruiting executive
your needs.
3) An external executive search consultant
A Candidate Advocate adjusts to your needs. Responsibilities include:
Facilitate the creation of a position
As you build a relationship with your candidate advocate,
description, which can be a benchmark used
that person will understand your requirements and adjust
in an initial screen of candidates
accordingly. Your process will become more effective as Work with recruiters and researchers to build
that person’s relationships become richer and better and manage a candidate pipeline
Ensure that all interviewers have all the
focused on top prospects. Your advocate will help set
materials they need to interview candidates
candidate expectations and facilitate a smooth interview
Act as a communications hub for the hiring
process. manager, candidates and recruiters
Ensure that the hiring manager makes clear,
timely decisions.
A Candidate Advocate compels you to make
Ensure that negative feedback provides a
decisions. basis for improvement
Coach the hiring manager and the team to
In order to maintain the integrity of your hiring process,
court the best candidates
you must make timely decisions about candidates. Slow
decision making can cost you time, your recruiters’ A qualified CA must:
motivation and your best candidates. Be a trusted advisor, empowered to carry out
the role
Have enough time available to manage the
A Candidate Advocate candidate pipeline
helps you cut through the tendency to put mediocre Possess an ability to understand candidate
motivations and make judgments about their
candidates on hold waiting for better ones to come
interest in the opportunity
along. Keeping these candidates on the hook prevents
you from fine-tuning your job spec and clogs the pipeline
so that other candidates cannot enter your process.

5. A Candidate Advocate promotes your personal contact with the best candidates. Go out of
your way to establish at least one outstanding contact with each great candidate.
This could be getting on a plane for an interview, taking them to dinner for a social conversation
or inviting them in to a team meeting. Your advocate will know your candidates well, and will
advise you when additional attention makes sense. This should be used infrequently with only the
very best candidates, but it will differentiate you from your competition. Candidates get only small
glimpses into the way it will feel working for their new potential employer. Make sure they see the
very best in you.
So, now you have decided to create the Candidate Advocate role within your organization. Where
do you find such a person? You probably do not need to look far. One of your direct reports,
an internal recruiting executive or your executive search partner should fill the role
well. Your direction and the description of their function may be more important than the
individual you choose.
In appointing this person, you agree to follow the guidance of an expert, rather than making
decisions on your own. This probably sounds like the same kind of mandate you seek from your
own client. When you select a Candidate Advocate you create a consulting role, not just
an administrative one.
Ultimately, candidates base much of their decision on the culture of the firm and the people they
meet. They may be more tolerant of a longer process, if you have the right opportunity for them.
There is a limit though, and many good candidates will vanish if you do not build strong, ongoing
relationships. Consciously or not, candidates make emotional decisions about what offer
to accept. If you have an active job seeker on your hands, the prospect may be looking at a
number of similar offers from competitors.
Make the most of your limited time. Court the best prospects most effectively, and let your
Candidate Advocate handle the rest.