I recently came across an interesting article written in 2002 by Monica Hamori, at the time a PhD Student at Wharton, now an assistant professor at the Instituto de Empresa Business School in Madrid. Her paper covers how quality standards are created and maintained in executive search firms, and  if any such standards present, what makes their adoption difficult. Quality is in the parlance of some search consultants such a cliche they forgot a long while ago the actual meaning of the word, though not its usage. Mrs Hamori comes to the following conclusion:

executive firms function more as the collectors of unrelated individual consultants and do not seem to possess a lot of firm-level competencies. Due to little effort to standardize tasks, individual best practices are not codified and do not spread across the organization. Although some consultants clearly do things in a way that should be adopted and modeled by others, their way of undertaking tasks is not institutionalized.

Right! Seems like Monica is holding up a mirror for the low-flying, bone picking vultures in the search business. Six years later, the subject covered in her paper has not lost relevance. On the contrary, the rapid proliferation of executive search firms makes the point more pressing; and my sales pitch longer and harder, sigh. One of the most difficult and hardest issues for a search firm is how to achieve and deliver consistent quality across the organization. Quality covers client presentation ("the pitch"), execution process and service delivery.

Hamori rightly points out that (1) the intangible nature of executive search service, (2) the high degree of customization to the clients' unique requirements, and (3) the discretion of the individual consultant make the maintenance, improvement and adaptation of organizational standards difficult and challenging. Hence search requires a high amount of tacit knowledge required by consultants and researchers, a need for customization, and a degree of autonomy for consultants. Hamori found out consultants work in a idiosyncratic manner: work styles differ greatly, some like to tamper with as many details as possible, others delegate, while there is simultaneously a heterogonous mix of competence and maturity amongst consultants (what the hell, how did he get into this business??).

Another point brought up:

Currently global expansion via replication is extremely challenging for executive search firms since, owing to a lack of standards, the valuable features of search operations are both hard to identify and, in many instances, hard to articulate.

The weakest part of her paper is the lack of concrete recommendations to adress the problem. Besides a vague reference to standardisation through an industry certification program, a technique applied by some of the more prestigious search firms is to have independent post-search surveys administered to clients.

Myself I worked once alongside Korn/Ferry in a large Telco operator, where we filled positions in operations, product development and sales and marketing respectively. In an evaluation meeting several months after the placements, the HRD of the firm told me she appreciated the survey Kornflakes administered as a clear and professional concern into the quality of their service delivery.

Independent surveys do have an advantage they can point out to the management of the search firm in which aspects of the service they excel and can improve, while they offer the client organization an opportunity in evaluating the service delivery. The latter aspect is especially appreciated by the HR executives I have come across who were subjected to such surveys.

Three aspects are related to quality: (1) internal processes (search methodology application), (2) client service, and (3) the actual placements. The adaption of IT in a search firm combined with the management skills of senior consultants and partners will allow to measure the satisfactory application of the search methodology: amount of relevant candidates on a shortlist, companies and industries covered, written reports, database codification standards etc (...). The client service dimension can be covered through surveys, provided appropriate feedback loops are established, and action within the firm is taken. Post-search meetings with executives placed, and the buyer in the hiring organization, allow to match the assessment of the consultant with the actual results produced by the executive placed, and the expectations of the buyer.

The deployment of knowledge management and collaboration systems in an organization hold significant potential to accelerate and facilitate dramatically the definition, adaptation but also the improvement and dissemation of "best practices" (like always, in some companies, "best" seems to be confused with "worst" - whence there is Dilbert). Without saying, this goes beyond usage of email and messaging programs.

The fact that some projects are cancelled, or that (very) few placements will leave the client within the warranty period is hard to avoid, because client organizations also do change, and some have, especially in the emerging, and more recent, submerging market zone, management cultures that are to some extent myopic.

Executive search is a human asset intensive service, just like advertising, PR, law, psychotherapy, management consulting, tarot reading, the organization of a warcraft lan party, and many others. Effective quality management will depend on a (1) transformation of the execution and delivery processes into transparent and measurable processes; (2) the recruitment, training and coaching of great consultants; (3) mechanisms allowing customer feedback on service delivery to be incorporated into strategic and tactical planning and execution.