already made a major impact for some clients, who rely on our abil-
ity to benchmark their executives against our knowledge of the
marketplace. Internally, the assessment practice has also been able
to bring new thinking and new approaches to recruiting. Although
recruiters were aware of alternative interview techniques and psy-
chometric measures, they were unsure how these areas could prac-
tically contribute to recruiting. As our executive assessment
practice has grown over the past few years, our recruiters have had
the opportunity to learn about these from their colleagues in the
executive assessment practice. The social framework, along with
the opportunity to see competency-based behavioral interviewing
and psychometrics in action, has fostered openness and creativity
in the ways recruiters are interviewing and understanding their
candidates. Members of the assessment team began to be invited to
internal meetings to teach and train in these areas. Overall, there
is a strong belief that Russell Reynolds Associates is providing an
even greater service to its recruiting clients through new tech-
niques for screening and qualification of candidates.
Our insistence on training recruiters to do executive assessment
and linking them to mentors who are skilled organizational psy-
chologists has also become a tool for us in ensuring that our
recruiters are expert interviewers. Recruiters who have participated
in executive assessment assignments have become more productive
as search practitioners as well. We have in effect increased the
skill levels of our recruiters by teaching them additional skills in
executive assessment.
Fostering Knowledge Sharing Through Healthy
Corporate Culture and Social CapitalGiven the hypotheses we have cited as to why people don’t share
knowledge, it would seem that effective knowledge sharing begins
with fostering a culture and an environment free of unhealthy pol-
itics, in which teamwork and sharing are recognized and rewarded.
People who are open with each other and share knowledge should
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