You’re two weeks into a new search. Having set a sound search strategy with your client at the onset of the project, it’s enabled your researcher to make good progress sourcing a solid list of potential candidates. You want to review the progress with your client on your weekly status call but need a better way to present such a lengthy list of candidates. One that’s easy for the client to view and provide feedback in order to keep the project moving forward efficiently and effectively.

A Common Research Stage Dilemma

Researchers work tirelessly to source promising candidates that best fit the defined research criteria and support the project’s search strategy. Wanting to show the client the great progress being made and get needed feedback to move onto the outreach stage, the question becomes how to present this information to clients?

You don’t want to do a deep dive on all of these potential candidates so early on in the process, but you do want to confirm the work being performed is aligned with the client's expectations. Before now, common options included sending over a spreadsheet of names or a list of LinkedIn profiles. These types of methods aren’t efficient or very effective.

Within Clockwork’s online platform, you could turn on visibility for all of these candidates and run through them one by one with your client—but considering how many there are, is that really the best use of your client’s and team’s time? We don’t think so. Not this early in the process. To better support the Research stage of the Eight Stages of Successful Retained Search, we developed Long List.

A Better Way To Present Early Researched Candidates

Long List allows you to easily share potential candidates with clients in a way that displays just enough information to quickly review together online and receive the high-level feedback you need at this stage of the project. There’s no need to get into the weeds at this point—just information like name, company, and current position. It sets the stage for an efficient yes/no review and recommended pivots to allow your team to move onto the Outreach stage with the confidence you’re headed in the right direction.

For more information, including how to enable the Long List function and how it displays for clients, read the Long List support articles in our Clockwork support site.  

Clockwork’s Long List is another upgrade that supports our core mission: improving how you and your clients collaborate on retained search projects so you can develop the trust and confidence that leads to long-lasting partnerships and more of the work you want.