You won’t be surprised that AI is coming to executive search, however you may be surprised by the extent to which some mid-sized and small executive search firms have revised their practices due to AI tools.
A Mid-Sized Firm Builds Its Own AI tools
Bespoke Partners, a midsized executive search firm with around 100 employees, has invested in building their own AI tools to use in-house. Their tools do three main things:
- Expand the size of the talent pool being considered
- Enhance the data about the candidates
- Improve prediction of who is a good fit
It’s useful to think back to the talent pool executive search traditionally considered. Historically, professionals in these firms would have a list of contacts and use that list to network their way to leaders who would potentially be a good fit. The quality of the list and the search professional’s networking skills were a major source of value, however, even the best search would only touch a fraction of the entire talent pool. With the AI tools Bespoke has developed it’s possible to find and consider essentially anyone with a web footprint. This offers the promise of finding better candidates—and finding them faster.
The next capability AI brings to search is enhanced data. There is a great deal of relevant data about an executive that won’t be found on their resume or LinkedIn profile. For example, detailed information about the companies they worked for will be important in assessing the suitability of the candidate. Information about where the potential candidate lives (and they may have more than one house) sheds light on how likely they are to accept an offer. Before AI, one could get at this data manually; with AI the data can be automatically pulled in as part of the search process.
Eric Walczykowski, Bespoke’s CEO, notes that in addition to publicly available data, their AI is enhanced with proprietary data—essentially the insights their search team has acquired from countless interviews over the years.
The final big value added of AI is predicting who will be a good fit both in terms of performance and likelihood of accepting the job. This capability will improve over time as more data is collected.
A Small Firm Leverages Third-Party AI Tools
TopGun Ventures, a small boutique executive search firm, has leaned heavily into AI. They are using several tools not only to enhance their processes but also to change their approach to search.
One tool they use is the Performance-based Hiring GPT. That may sound familiar because it was developed by the well-known recruiting thought leader Lou Adler. This tool acts as an assistant who is an expert in Adler’s performance-based hiring approach. It does everything from helping refine the success criteria for a job, to identifying what would attract a candidate to a job, to suggesting interview questions.
To expand the search they use both Juicebox.ai and HelloSky.ai. Why use two tools? Peter Donovan, a managing partner at TopGun, explains that no single tool fits all searches; it depends on the type of role you need to fill. Donovan also uses the familiar LinkedIn Recruiter, again it’s a question of having an AI toolkit, not just one AI tool.
Key takeaways
Both Walczykowski and Donovan stress that these tools are only as good as the people using them. Yes, AI provides power tools but you need to deeply understand executive roles and the search process to use them successfully. Human judgment is still the differentiator.
Another lesson is that while these tools can improve speed and reduce cost, the bigger impact will be finding the best possible candidate. Organizations seeking to use AI to improve their executive search should focus on the quality of hire, not the cost or speed of hire.
Donovan notes that AI tools are beginning to transform how he works with hiring managers. Rather than being given a mandate and then going off to do the search, Donovan can work with the hiring managers and the AI in real time to activate a closely collaborative process.
The final lesson is that firms of all sizes can already make effective use of AI tools if they lean in.
