Exec Search Firms Waste Money

I’m often strongly critical of the Madison School Board. But when it was reported yesterday that the Board incinerated $100,000 of taxpayers’ money in their search for a new superintendent I couldn’t single it out as being especially wasteful. Pretty much every major public and private entity blows money on these search efforts.

Of that $100,000 almost $95,000 went to the Chicago based executive search firm Alma. All of these firms are pretty much a waste of money, though Alma seemed especially bad because of its obvious biases.

But the end result had nothing to do with Alma. Joe Gothard wanted to return to Madison, he was the obvious choice and he could have been recruited and hired without Alma’s “help.” Moreover, the two other candidates that Alma identified as finalists were pretty bad. In fact, one of the candidates was widely disparaged at his previous post, which he had been forced from after only two years. So, Alma’s $95,000 fee was a complete waste.

There is simply no reason that these searches cannot be handled in house. It’s a simple process. You announce the job opening through obvious venues — the general media and professional publications and associations. You vet the candidates by checking references as well as the great amount of information that is available in the media and through the internet. You scour the candidates’ social media accounts to make sure they haven’t said anything embarrassing. Then you narrow the search using your criteria, conduct interviews with the leading candidates and make your decision.

Sure, there are details and legalities to consider along the way, but that’s what human resource departments and staff lawyers are for.

Executive search firms might have some use for small organizations that don’t have the internal resources to do some of these things. But that’s not true of MMSD or other organizations of its size or complexity. In my time as mayor of Madison we never used a firm to hire department heads.

These firms are pretty much a scam. Let’s insist that public entities don’t waste any more tax dollars on them.