Thanks for visiting our website. Here you'll find an overview of what we do and how we work. If you're looking for a transactional relationship we won't be the right supplier for you. But if you need a partnership that consults, that gets you the right outcome - read on and get in touch. Don't forget to check out our FAQs at the bottom of this page.
SERVICE SNAPSHOT
- Launched in January 2022 as a division of Bircham Wyatt Recruitment
- Headhunting of Product Management professionals in the UK
- Approach based on the pillars of partnership, insight, service and good experience for both employer and candidate.
- 100% fill rate for retained projects, including assignments such as Chief Product Officer, Head of Product & Technology, Head of Product Management, Product Director, Director of Product Marketing, Product Marketing Manager, Product Manager x2
- Fee agreed based on the needs of the project comprising an instruction fee and the remainder on start date of successful candidate.
- We invest the instruction fee in servicing the project. Our profit is derived from filling your vacancy
- 12-month free replacement guarantee. If we haven't done our job properly, we will refill the vacancy without cost to you
HOW WE PARTNER EMPLOYERS TO FIND YOUR PRODUCT PEOPLE
We will:
- meet you to consult on your role, needs, business, challenges, operational context, mission, vision, values and culture. The DNA of your business, the shape and substance of your vacancy, and a market reality check. This requires full access to your hiring team
- audit these against your documentation to ensure they are fit for purpose and, if not, we will amend or re-write them with you as required
- establish what good needs to look like in the right candidate
- establish a market map to inform our strategy (see q&a)
- set the strategy for an appropriate multichannel approach to market, ensuring full access to embedded and passive candidates, as well as those who are actively looking for a role that may still be the perfect match
- work with you to execute a critical path recruitment process that brings the right people forward
- mitigate risk from the top of process through to pre-boarding, onboarding and inductions
- aim to fill this role and the next. Our aim is to build on your vacancy as a platform to an effective long-term partnership
A typical project will take 6 weeks from instruction through to completion of research (on average 100 hours of work) & shortlisted candidate submissions, and can be much quicker - a recent project saw their new employee in place five weeks after project start.
OUR CANDIDATE WORK
We see good candidate experience as a multi faceted consequence of our work, both in their experience of your recruitment process and of how we engage them.
Everything we do works towards giving candidates the best experience, so that when we've found you the right person they are already on the path to joining your business.
Some of this comes down to what should be common decency, with the skilled work a result of how we partner with employers strategically and tactically.
It's not just about filling a vacancy - it's about finding the right person for the right role, where they will thrive over the long-term.
And if the fit isn't right, establishing this in the right way that treats everyone with respect.
For product management professionals that need advice on their career, prospects, bottle necks, salary or a market reality check - we're here for you, in confidence.
WHO ARE WE?
Product Search is a division of Bircham Wyatt Recruitment, an independent search and selection firm that has traded since 2011 in the East of England.
As business owner, I'm a 20 year career recruiter who has worked in only two other recruitment firms - TNG associates, a technology headhunting firm as researcher, and Whitehill Pelham, an independent Head Office agency progressing to Senior Recruiter.
I work with a small group of researchers, solutions providers and fellow recruiters to service each project based on its individual needs.
As we scale, I'll be looking to employ people who have built their careers on research, customer insight and service delivery. That value integrity, are keen to learn & improve, and aspire to excellence. Who have a strong sense of decency, are accountable, who consider the needs of others in every action they take.
That's what it means to be the kind of recruiter our clients and candidates value, and who embody our business.
Contact me now to see if I'll be the right recruitment partner for you.
Thanks for reading.
Greg Wyatt
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Why do you need full access to our hiring process, and agency to amend our documentation?
A. We need you to give us the tools to do our best job. We work closely and inclusively with our hiring partners, and consult with you in advance of any strategic decision or change. We accept this approach will not suit all situations, in which case we will try to recommend you another supplier.
Q. Why do you offer a 12 month free replacement guarantee?
A. We work on a partnership basis with employers, with mutual obligation. We recognise that new hires may not work out as expected and want to share that risk with you. Because we work rigorously throughout our process, we guarantee this with a free replacement.
Q. How many times have you had to honour your guarantee?
A. While Product Search is a new business, it is a division of Bircham Wyatt Recruitment. In 11 years of trading we have been asked to honour the 12 month replacement for retained work twice.
Q. What fee level can we expect?
A. We price keenly based on a holistic view of cost of service and risk. We work on a lean basis, and where additional tools, such as psychometrics are required, we will either introduce a service provider, or project manage at cost. The fee for a typical one off project is 25% of basic salary, comprising 10% instruction fee and the remainder on start date. If you have a volume of work, where we can reduce our cost of client acquisition and service delivery, or there are other areas that reduce our cost without compromising on service, we will share this with you by reducing our fee appropriately.
Q. Why should I use a headhunter if I could just advertise myself, or go on LinkedIn?
A. Consider that more than 80% of the candidate marketplace is not actively applying for roles. What about those that will never apply to an advert and aren't receptive to LinkedIn? Many are in successful careers and need a nuanced reason to consider a move. Now think about the different agency messages you've received to tempt you to work with them, as candidate or employer - how effective were those? If you have the wherewithal, time and means to map out, find, engage and win these candidates over, you can and should do it. If you haven't, we are here for you.
Q. You say you're a headhunter, while in the same breath you mention multichannel. Isn't this contradictory?
A. No. Multichannel includes channels such as networking, recommendations and referrals; direct contact based on market mapping and research; social media and CV database access. These together, and more, make up a headhunting / executive search project. We do also advertise if appropriate. Our work is based on the needs of the project and we will access all parts of the candidate marketplace as required. It can be the case that by navigating a fully mapped market, and engaging all suitable passive and embedded candidates, we prove the point that an advert applicant is the the right hire. Why would we limit your prospects of a successful hire, by limiting our work? We do it all for the right outcome.
Q. How can we trust that you are doing what you said you would?
A. We will provide as much, or as little, reporting on our work as you need. This can be done on a daily basis, if you find this helpful. Equally - talk to our candidates, they'll tell you how we found them.
Q. What is a Market Map
A. This is a strategic and tactical exercise that guides how we find the right people, requiring insight and a lot of hard work. We'll look at the marketplace to see which employers serve as incubators for the people you want to employ. These might be direct competitors (with your permission) or employers that have equivalent cultures, tools & processes, workflows and approaches. This is an exercise that is starts before we go live on the project and we adjust iteratively as we navigate the candidate marketplaces and identify new avenues for finding the right people.
Greg wrote this post for LinkedIn, that shows ways in which you may already be employing a market map:
Q. How many vacancies do you work on at a time?
A. We will only work on 2-3 projects at a time.
Q. Where do you advertise?
A. Around half of our vacancies are advertised publicly. Depending on the role, you may find them on generic and specialist job boards or in specialist media. Vacancies are not advertised when discretion is required.
Q. Why don't you talk about values, innovation, disrupting the market for the better and giving candidates the service they need?
A. Regrettably this is common, generic, wordage used on most agency websites. Have you had any bad experiences from those that have promised the very same? That's why we talk process instead - promises are easy to make, it's execution and consistent behaviour that count. You'll see our values and our behaviours in how we work with you.
Q. What is the average wing velocity of an unladen swallow?
A. 24MPH.
Q. How do we know you won't let us down?
A. We guarantee to do the work and are happy to tell you everything you need to know about what this entails. Over the last couple of years this has led to a 100% fill rate for our retained projects, for those that weren't cancelled due to the pandemic. As part of this work is scoping out your requirement and setting mutual agreements, we start off on a footing that manages your expectations.
Q. What if I have a different question?
A. Feel free to give me a call on 07896 092024 or email greg.wyatt@productsearch.info with any question you may have. I only want to help those we can best help so if you have any concerns, happy to discuss them openly with you.
