Executives Online launches

Executives Online has launched a new service to radically reduce the recruitment costs of UK companies, which it believes currently run at 80,000 per senior manager hired.

Executives Online has created a talent bank of over 3500 experienced interim managers, a third of whom are successfully practicing as interim managers until the right permanent job comes along. All are ready to start work immediately. Covering every job function and industry sector, this talent bank, coupled with Executives Online''s rapid search service means that within days of providing the brief, a company will be offered three fully vetted, perfectly matched candidates, all will have a proven track record and top-flight credentials. They are available to start immediately - but because the candidates are interim managers, companies can ''try them out'' before committing to permanently recruiting them.

The service is set to shake up the recruitment of senior people, says Norrie Johnston, Executives Online''s managing director:

In a typical recruitment scenario a company takes a month to find the right person. The senior manager will then have to typically serve a three-month notice period. So it will be four months before the candidate is in place, and five months before you know whether they are really the right choice or not. If the decision has been a bad one you are starting all over again.

According to Executives Online this traditional approach to recruiting senior managers costs UK companies almost 80,000 per person.

The maths is quite easy. A senior manager is on average worth at least three times their annual salary in terms of their contribution to a company. The Chartered Management Institute''s 2002 National Management Salary Survey suggests that senior managers typically earn 80,000 per annum. If you take four months to find the right person the delay has cost your business 80,000 - and that''s excluding the recruitment fees which traditional agencies charge, or the unease and inertia which the recruitment delays have created.

That''s a huge sum of money, says Johnston With our service candidates are interviewed in days and start soon after. Even in the unlikely event that the company decides the manager is not quite right, this will not have been time wasted. Remember our candidates are all experienced interim managers. They are adept at quickly fitting into an organisation and hitting the ground running. They will have been making an immediate impact from day one, getting the job done.

If their personality or skills aren''t quite the right match, we will have someone else onboard incredibly quickly.

Executives Online believes that this ''try before you buy'' option, plus the fact that the company does not charge upfront fees will transform the way companies recruit even their most senior directors.

Norrie Johnston again Companies have accepted a hit and miss, expensive, time intensive recruitment service for far too long. In today''s corporate environment they can''t afford to waste time like this, and we intend to see that they don''t.