This article recently appeared in the summer edition of ‘Conference and Common Room‘
“Always be nice to Head-hunters” is some stock advice I give my own children. But looking over my shoulder I feel I am increasingly skating on thin advice! Grim stories circulate of distinguished heads being pestered by researchers, good candidates left feeling that they have been used as short-list fodder, and dark suspicions of recruitment consultancies bidding up salaries while at the same time inflating their fees. It is hardly a surprise that after estate agents and politicians head-hunters are next in line for public contempt and derision. Having deserted academe for politics and then morphing into head-hunting I hold my hands up!
Head-hunters, even in the world of Linked-In, are however, here to stay. The tradition of boards bunging an advertisement in the TES and hoping for the best no longer fits with best practice in corporate governance let alone the need to make great appointments. One of the fixtures in educational thinking (and shared by the public) is that schools stand or fall on the basis of whether they have great leadership. Call it “distributed” or “collaborative” it nevertheless all comes down to the person at the top of the greasy pole. In the state sector there is a chronic shortage of candidates with frequent stories of applications being in single figures. In the independent sector attractive deputy headships draw four or five times the numbers of applicants in comparison to headships.
Search consultants, when at their best, work in partnership with the board that retains them. As well as assisting with specific recruitment they are also called upon to give strategic advice on identifying pools of talent within existing staff and establishing succession strategies. This is increasingly what “Retained Consultants” provide in contrast to “Contingent Consultants” whose role is simply to offer candidates on a success-only basis for payment.
Head-hunting school heads is a relatively recent phenomenon. At the top end Diana Ellis splendidly paved the way with NB Selection and then Odgers, and set the highest standards. Other businesses have followed of which my own is one. Among ISC schools it is now the case that approaching half of all headship appointments are now managed by recruitment consultants. This trend more recently has started to spread to the international sector. With our databases, network connections and sophisticated assessment methods for selection it would be a foolhardy governing body that would wish to rely simply on their own endeavours. Anything less than a fully focused and professional search will, in any case, not satisfy those new wave fee-paying parents who expect our schools to be every bit as business-like as their own businesses.
So what is going wrong and giving head-hunters such a bad name? An obvious issue is whether all this “head-hunting” makes for better appointments. While the process of appointing has certainly been professionalized in a way which will meet the needs of modern Human Relations it is also the case that the duration of headship has steadily reduced with a small but growing number of cases where a head spends less than five years in post before spiralling upwards. While this reflects wider socio-economic patterns both within and outside education it is also erodes that continuity and stability which every good school needs. A wonderful thesis remains to be written which draws on the appraisal evidence from successful and unsuccessful heads. And let it not be forgotten that successful headship is a joint-product of individual leadership and governance support. Also increasingly present is the toll of undue stress on heads and the failure to extend “wellness” from schools to those who lead them.
The phone rings. “Is that the Head? We are looking for a new head for Barsetshire Academy. Might you be able to make any recommendations …. Or even consider it for yourself?” The time taken over the dots will depend on the experience and skill of the researcher who is likely to be fairly lowly in the search-eating chain. Cold calls are, in my opinion, nearly always a waste of time but have now reached a frequency in the lives of leading heads which has become embarrassing. It is time the head-hunters stopped this primitive and irritating approach. While I am entirely in favour of “intelligence-led” search let us at least be a little more intelligent in our methods and approach.
An equally unsavoury practice is packing a short-list with “no-hopers” simply to try and convince the client that the assignment has been worked assiduously. While we always aim at a final list of four candidates there is absolutely no advantage for the client or the candidates by packing numbers simply for the sake of it. That is not to say that a final list should not include a proper balance of “rising stars” and “veritable warhorses” and it is always positive to look for diversity. But to put people through the whole process of applications and interviews for posts where their chances are remote is insulting and degrading.
Another unfathomable error is paying head-hunters a percentage commission based on the appointment salary. No wonder our proposals sometimes contain inflated salary ranges when our own profits will benefit from bidding up! Anything else except fixed-fee proposals should be disregarded.
We head-hunters are unregulated and unwashed. As long as we operate within the law we are at present safe, too safe. Apart from the central ethical issues of respect and fairness a more immediate problem is that we have become irritating. I suspect we have also become greedy. Step forward ISC and institute a Royal Commission to sort us out, which I will naturally expect to chair!
Anthony Millard
Executive Chairman and Director
