Success Stories

Selection

Executive Search Firm

As Cambria has deep experience in developing executive-level competency models and is one of the originators of competency-based interviewing, this executive search firm selected us as its partner to help it adopt a competency-based approach to defining position requirements and assessing candidates. Cambria interviewed the firm’s most successful managing directors and senior leaders to develop a set of characteristics of successful candidates that could be used as a general framework for setting criteria and assessing candidates for any executive-level search the firm might be hired to fulfill. This was accompanied by a comprehensive competency-based interview training program, that we delivered in the US, the UK, Europe, and Asia to all of the firm’s consultants.

Cambria’s work has given the firm the competitive advantage it desired, and it has provided recruiters with a shared language to use in comparing candidates against position requirements — no matter where the candidates or the positions are located.
 

Consulting, Technology, and Outsourcing Firm

This global firm was grappling with its inability to hire experienced executives who could both fit into its unique culture and outperform their peers. Cambria conducted a competency study comparing a group of external-hire senior executives (SEs) who had achieved early success with a control group of external-hire SEs who were currently in the firm but whose performance was below expectations. The competency profile that resulted revealed a set of experiences, behaviors, and personal characteristics that distinguished these two groups from each other and formed a distinctive combination of competencies that made up the ideal SE hire.

This work became the basis of a simplified, focused selection process that concentrated on the essential predictors of success, reduced the number of interviews needed to identify a successful candidate, and included managing directors (MDs) in the recruiting process to increase their ownership and accountability for the newly hired SEs’ early success. Training was delivered to the firm’s recruiting team and to MDs globally.
 

Investment Bank

This European bank wanted to upgrade its recruiting practices in its Asset and Wealth Management (AWM) division. Its success rate in bringing on new and experienced hires that could work effectively in the bank’s culture and outperform their peers was spotty, at best. AWM wanted a process that was consistent around the globe, and wanted managing directors (MDs) charged with the final stages of hiring to have the skills to do an effective job of screening candidates.

Cambria studied the firm’s most effective asset managers to determine the experiences, skills, and personal characteristics necessary for best performance aligned with the firm’s brand and business practices with clients. This research became the basis of a global training effort, designed and led by Cambria, whereby MDs in the US, Europe, and Asia learned the new recruiting model and Cambria’s Critical Behavior Interview™ technique. The AWM recruiting process has now been institutionalized, and the result is a more competitive and distinctive process for recruiting and onboarding the most talented asset managers.