The Situation:
As an executive search firm our clients can be located anywhere in the world, so we’re always ready to adapt our recruitment process to meet the demands of individual assignments. Our most recent project, in the arena of public healthcare brought us to the Middle East to one of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states. Our executive search services were required by local government to find an Executive Director to lead the department of Women and Children’s Health following a multi-billion-dollar investment in their main national hospital.
The Challenge:
The initial recruitment challenge was in understanding the scale and magnitude of the investment made by the national government in their state-of-the-art health facility. This set a benchmark for the calibre of candidate we were expected to deliver; an individual with an exemplary medical record, a specialist in paediatrics and women’s health, and a proven leader with experience in managing large public & private healthcare departments.
The global hiring process was made all the more difficult by ongoing international blockades between neighbouring nations. This placed restrictions on different nationalities that we could recommend for hire, but also from a candidate perspective, the situation presented significant concerns.
The Solution:
Our research led approach included several in-person and on-site meetings to better understand expectations for the role and develop a full proposition for potential candidates. We toured the hospital, shadowed department consultants and visited the luxury accommodation to get a sense of work / life balance and explore the cultural nuances that many in the West might not know about and understand. This was a very important part of the assignment, as it meant we could accurately advise potential candidates on what to expect from the role and what it was like to live in the Middle East. Furthermore, it helped align client and candidate expectations.
Our search started with the top 50 ranked hospitals worldwide including The John Hopkins Hospital (USA), Charité Universtatsmedizin Berlin (Germany), Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset (Sweden) which produced a list of over 200 potential candidates. We conducted a rigorous screening process with over 100 interviews to deliver our client a shortlist of 5 candidates.
Our client’s interview board consisted mainly of practicing doctors and consultants. As you can imagine these individuals had very little time outside of their duty hours to participate in lengthy interview processes. By allowing Hunter Executive Search to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of shortlisting, screening and interviewing of the initial talent pool, our client was better able to dedicate resources to the final stages of the recruitment process.
As a result, the final hiring decision was a much easier one to make thanks to our close relationship with the client throughout the process, our communications strategy and our detailed profile matrix that we shared with our client before the final interview stage.
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