Why Retain The CS&A Search Group?
Carney Sandoe & Associates are known for the comprehensive nature of our services and for the thoroughness of our execution. Leadership candidates praise us for the professional and confidential manner in which they are treated. We believe our reputation for excellence and position of industry leadership are the result of clear, competitive differences:
Understanding Your Needs.
Every search is different. Your school has a special identity and culture, and it faces unique challenges and opportunities. We'll learn what these are, and we'll help you frame the issues. Together, we'll translate the school's objectives into a leadership profile required to achieve success. And we will 
supplement those competencies with interview and reference questions with which to discern effectively whether candidates we identify have the designated "right stuff" to lead your school.
Commitment and Credibility. Our consultants are experienced and dedicated professionals who know schools intimately. Each specializes exclusively in the search for superlative school leaders, and each demonstrates an extraordinary commitment to our clients and our craft. Our work is thorough. We take pride in attention to detail. You will see it in the quality and fit of the candidates we present to you.
A Collaborative Practice. Each of our clients enjoys the rapport and responsiveness of a dedicated search consultant who understands their school and shares their sense of urgency. Each of our schools also enjoys the support of our entire search team, representing a richness of resources unparalleled in the industry. Every week, The Search Group meets to discuss each search in progress -- to pool networks and contacts, to suggest leads, to share confidential assessments, and to make specific referrals. This collaborative process intensifies each individual search and creates powerful synergies not otherwise available.
Our schools also benefit from the interface between The Search Group and our Placement Associates, who recruit literally hundreds of teachers and administrators for independent schools each year. As a result, The Search Group is uniquely positioned to tap into this new generation of emerging leaders.
Customized Search Process. The process by which a school leader is chosen is critical, but one size doesn't fit all. We will help you structure a search process that balances your specific needs for efficiency and clarity of outcomes with an appropriate level of stakeholder participation. In sum, we'll help you manage the search effectively and in a manner that promotes a sense of ownership, thereby optimizing the new Head's opportunities for success.
Transition Support. The selection of a new leader is not a finale, but an inflection point. The Board must take active steps to develop a sound basis for its relationship with the new Head and for effective governance during his or her tenure. Our search services include planning support and tools for the Board Chair that are designed to ensure an effective leadership transition for the school.
Our Search Methodology:
PLANNING
Tailoring the Search Process to Meet Your Needs.
The manner in which your search is conducted will have an indelible impact upon the ability of the new Head to lead your school effectively. Change is unsettling, and the diverse constituencies that define your school community will likely have different expectations about what qualities its new leader should have, and where s/he should take the school.
Carney, Sandoe & Associates will help you determine how to structure stakeholder participation constructively and manage it effectively. All expectations and agendas need to be aired, and consensus should be reached concerning the future direction of the school and the criteria used in selecting the new Head. The community must feel a sense of ownership in the selection process, and its new leader requires a mandate concerning the school's broad goals and objectives.
We will also work closely with the Search Committee to determine its preferences and requirements concerning the number of candidates presented and at what stage it wishes to review their qualifications. Typically, we present eight to twelve quarter-finalist candidates upon whom we have conducted careful due diligence.
Alternatively, some clients have preferred to review only four to six semifinalists, while others have decided to review the qualifications of a larger number of viable candidates earlier in the process. Our services are tailored to meet the particular style and culture of the school and the Search Committee.
Understanding the School, Its Challenges, and Its Opportunities.
Carney, Sandoe and Associates' consultant will engage in an intensive immersion to understand fully your school's history, mission and culture, and will focus on those distinctive characteristics that make up its especial identity. Through on-site interviews and focus groups, s/he will learn about the competitive challenges and environmental opportunities you have identified. The consultant will challenge you to define what the new Head must do (in three months, in six; in one year, in three) in order to be considered successful, and will assist in bringing diverse points of view into alignment.
Defining Required Leadership Competencies and Personal Characteristics.
Once broad consensus is reached concerning the new Head's goals and objectives, we will assist you in defining the "right stuff" and "fit" needed to achieve them.
We also offer an optional Search Workshop. The workshop is structured to involve the Board and the Search Committee in reaching common understandings concerning the critical connection between successful leadership and sound governance, and to set the direction for the search based upon the inputs received from stakeholders. As a result, every Board member (whether on the Search Committee or not) participates actively in framing the foundation for the search.
Preparation of the Invitation to Apply, the Marketing Plan, and the Search Timetable.
Following this intensive gathering of data, we will summarize our understandings concerning the school, the challenges ahead, and the required competencies and characteristics of its new leader. More than a traditional position description, the Invitation to Apply is designed to ensure both that our recruiting objectives are closely calibrated with those of the Search Committee and that the opportunity is presented and marketed effectively to prospective candidates.
To supplement our extensive educational networks, the Marketing Plan will recommend additional avenues by which to boost the visibility of your search and cast the broadest net possible. Typically, we will research and target key educational leaders, and recommend advertisements in appropriate professional journals and on web sites which have proven to be effective in the past. The Search Timetable, also submitted for approval by the Search Committee Chair, will ensure that our respective expectations concerning the comprehensiveness and urgency of the search are appropriately balanced.
CONDUCTING THE SEARCH
Building the Candidate Pool.
Because we have been specializing in Head search for independent schools since 1977, you will have the benefit of the extensive networks we have developed and will energize in order to build a robust pool of highly qualified candidates that fits your requirements. We will reach out to our academic contacts in colleges and universities, foundations, government agencies, independent and public schools, and at professional associations. We will follow up on nominations received from Search Committee members and from marketing efforts, and we'll contact other educational leaders identified through searching our proprietary database.
Our entire search team will share their professional networks and contacts with the school's assigned consultant. And the consultant will interface with the Placement Associates at Carney, Sandoe & Associates (who follow the careers of hundreds of school administrators nationwide) to identify emerging leaders who may qualify for your Headship.
A key focus will be to identify highly qualified, potential prospects -- successful educational leaders who aren't necessarily shopping -- and to motivate them to become candidates to lead your school. This confidential networking and follow-up activity is essential to effective search.
Evaluating the Pool.
Carney, Sandoe and Associates will thoughtfully interview and check references of all candidates before referring their credentials for review by the Search Committee. Our interviews utilize a behavioral event approach to tracking each candidate's career, to ensure that s/he has successfully demonstrated, in analogous situations, the specific competencies required for superior performance at your school. Our reference checks utilize the same approach, to ferret out from witnesses of a candidate's track record whether s/he was indeed successful, or is merely a superior interviewee. The dossier you will receive on each candidate will contain a resume, a reference summary, an analytic profile prepared by your consultant, and a statement by the candidate of his/her educational philosophy.
Narrowing the Pool.
Typically beginning with off-site interviews of quarter finalist candidates, the Search Committee begins to winnow the pool. Semifinalists are usually invited onto campus for a round of second interviews; consequently, the selected finalists and their spouses are customarily invited to visit the campus and engage in meetings and final interviews.
We provide advice concerning logistics, and offer Committee members detailed interview questions custom-designed to probe whether candidates possess the specific leadership competencies identified as required by the school. We help to structure interviews and visits to ensure that they meet the candidates' needs for information as well as the Committee's. We also facilitate the flow of feedback between the candidates and the Search Committee.
We will also provide tools to the Search Committee to assist in the difficult but altogether necessary art of checking candidate references. While we will have referenced the candidates and will request background checks, the final due diligence of candidate credentials is a critical, fiduciary responsibility of the Search Committee. In our view, this responsibility should not be delegated.
THE FINAL CHOICE
The selection of the new Head of School always rests with the Search Committee and the Board.
A decision between compelling, highly qualified finalists can be difficult, and we are happy to provide insights and assistance. The matter may be complicated by other offers, by a counteroffer from the designee's current school, or by second thoughts about relocating job or family.
We will assist by managing candidate expectations, providing advice and feedback regarding the offer, facilitating salary and contract negotiations, and by offering advice concerning the announcement of the appointment. We will also keep other finalists engaged during this sensitive phase of the process, in the event that closure cannot be reached with the top-ranked candidate.
TRANSITION SUPPORT
Carney, Sandoe & Associates' services do not end with the appointment.
A carefully crafted and executed transition is a necessity, or even the ideal candidate may not succeed.
We will prepare a Transition Management Plan for the Board Chair, providing tools that will support the appointment and the school's effective leadership and governance. These include: a model job description, proposed objectives and a suggested evaluation process for the new Head; an Entry Plan to facilitate an effective transition; a Board Chair/New Head Behavioral style analysis to foster an effective working relationship; and an Administrative Team-Building Analysis to promote cooperative and effective leadership. Finally, we are is available to revisit the school after the first "100 days" to provide an objective, transition management assessment of the working environment between the new Head of School and the Board of Trustees.
