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Media Advertising
For some senior level and middle management level positions, organizations utilize advertising in local, regional or trade newspapers and magazines to generate potential candidates. Advertising can be relatively cost effective when it produces the right candidate. However, advertising poses a number of potential problems.
First, only those who have read the advertisement and responded to it can be recruited. This suggests, of course, that those who are unemployed or disenchanted with their current positions will be aggressively reading help wanted advertising and are likely to respond. Those individuals who are not active in the job market, however, are not likely to respond and may be the ones who really should be candidates. In this way, the executive search process is far superior to advertising because it seeks out people for their ability and competence, and is not limited to those who are actively in the job market.
Another drawback to media advertising is that certain situations do not lend themselves to being displayed in the paper. The position, or the company itself, may be so unique that even a blind ad could alert the community to a confidential situation.
Finally, there are two timing issues which must be accepted if advertising is used. From the time an ad is prepared and inserted in a publication, it is normally 30 days from the publication date until the majority of the responses to the ad will be received. This means, in the case of a weekly or monthly publication, the quality of the ad response may not be known for as long as two months. This turnaround time may, in itself, be unacceptable. Second, if the first advertising approach does not generate the required candidates, a second ad or a migration to the executive search approach will take additional start-up time.
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