What sets us apart is chemistry and hard work. When a client engages us, we make a professional and personal commitment to achieve a timely and definitive solution to our client's executive needs. These days, identifying the right-fit candidate is only half the job; helping our client successfully recruit that person is the other half - a task that requires diplomacy, fairness and strong negotiation skills - all of which we have built up in our years of experience both as search professionals and as clients of search professionals. So we listen early and hard to what our client say - and do not say - about the kind of person that is best for them. Obviously, we make sure we have a clear understanding of our client's needs right from the start. But just as important, we make sure we understand their culture and the personality of their company and its management. We speak candidly with our client about the realities of the marketplace and the resources needed to find the right people. Strategy is everything. We create individual strategies for each client instead of relying on templates that skew the view and send searches careening off-track. Indeed it is as important for us to have a search strategy for each placement as it is for you to have a strategy for every part of your business. Importantly, we also have great respect for our candidate relationships - an issue that is the Achilles heel of the industry. How often have you heard the cry? -- "They said they'd get back to me, one way or the other, and instead they just dropped me." We do not. Indeed, we know that candidates are our lifeblood and treat them accordingly. Chemistry also means fairness. Because we are fair, we do not poach, nor do we put ourselves in a position of conflict. If a successful candidate leaves during their probationary period, we will replace them at no additional fee. We are also very aware of our role as our client's ambassadors. As a result, every time we speak to a prospect, perform a reference check or search out a referral, we are representing our client and therefore understand fully the trust that position entails. Making searches stick. It should also be no surprise that we embrace a strong retention strategy, ensuring that early problems in a relationship do not turn into major issues for employer or the employee. Because we work deep within our client's organizations, we get to know their culture and its players. As a result of this double familiarity, we are able to help new executives we place to present any issues back in the most appropriate manner, and conversely, we can help communication with the executive in a way that will motivate them to be highly productive and to stay. This is one reason why, in many searches, we ask our candidates to do psychological testing: it is simply another way we work to ensure the right-fit between candidate and company, and the long-term success of the placement. We're in the relationship business. This means we want to be your search consultant, but we want even more to be your search partner - during and well after a search is done. Ideally you would want the same. By knowing your business intimately enough to really champion your brand in the marketplace, this intellectual capital gives you a competitive advantage when it comes to recruiting the best people to your organization - people who are one of the most sustainable advantages you really have. We realize relationships do not just happen; it has to be built up over time. Letting us be part of your human resource strategy enables us to look much farther down the road for those right-fit candidates, whereas reactive hiring may only get you the best candidate who is available at that precise time. Harry Truman once said: "I'm a great believer in luck. And the harder I work, the more I seem to have of it."