Beyond Red Flags: Discover the Power of Green Flags
Michael (Ellenhorn)
Founder & CEO of Decipher Investigative Intelligence | Partner with businesses who are committed to building better cultures, hire by hire through industry-leading data and insights | ?? #StandUpToJewishHate
Sometimes it’s tempting to lead with the negative information from pre-hire investigations. Bullying behavior, inflammatory social media posts, fabricated client relationships – these (very real) examples raise eyebrows and awareness of the importance of due diligence. But there’s another side to due diligence that is often overlooked:
In many instances, investigations uncover positive information about the candidate that can be deployed by the firm to strengthen recruiting, onboarding, integration and marketing efforts.
In Q1 2023, 25 percent of candidates had major red flags. But at the same time, 75 percent – a vast majority – of candidates do not present problems.
How does due diligence factor for these “green flag” individuals?
Deploying Positive Intel from Due Diligence
What is a Green Flag Candidate?
Decipher Investigative Intelligence has researched thousands of lawyers since 2015. Using the data collected from those investigations, we can provide unique and valuable insight on pools of target candidates.
To identify candidates with profiles consistent with historically successful hires, we have categorized candidates into two groups:
Using aggregate data from the green flag candidate pool, we can model attributes of successful candidates specific to a given practice area and location, then benchmark target candidates against this exemplar.
What Makes Green Flag Candidates Special?
Green flag candidates display more steady career paths, stronger market recognition and are more active in business development and marketing.
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Of special note to potential employers: Green flag candidates are considered to be strong cultural leaders, eliciting such feedback from former colleagues as:
“He treated everyone with respect…He is someone you want to work for.”
“She’s an absolute dream to work with. She’s just wonderful.”
“Even when dealing with hostile clients, she was nice, gracious, patient, calm and cool with the associates.”
What This Means for Your Firm
Firms that see due diligence not as a check-the-box exercise or a sniff test – but as an investment into intelligence will drive smarter decisions.
Decipher research shows that many green flag candidates share a number of characteristics that can be deployed before, during and after the recruitment process:
Strategize with laterals by determining their goals while communicating your understanding of their previous actions:
For your best candidates, due diligence will take you beyond the “should we” question and into far more lucrative brainstorms.