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AESC Certified Researcher/Associate
The AESC Certified Researcher/Associate Program has been developed by the AESC in order to develop and improve the level of skills, ethics and professionalism in research and to provide an objective standard in determining the quality of researchers.
Eligibility
Application
Certification Curriculum
Examination
Pricing
Eligibility
In order to become certified, each individual must meet the following criteria:
- A reference from a consultant (or equivalent) at a retained executive search firm
- Must be currently working within the retained executive search industry and have at least two years of experience.
Once an individual has satisfied the above criteria, they must then undertake the AESC Certified Researcher/Associate curriculum which involves a combination of Online Courses and Expert Forums. An individual is exempt from AESC Campus training if:
- Their firm has approved equivalent in-house training
- They have worked in the executive search industry for five years or more
Once an individual has met eligibility criteria and satisfied curriculum requirements, they will then undertake both an online and oral examination.
Application For AESC Certified Researcher/Associate
If you are interested in applying to become an AESC Certified Researcher/Associate, please complete this online application by clicking here.
AESC Campus will be in contact with you shortly.
Certification Curriculum
The AESC Certified Researcher/Associate curriculum consists of the following Online Courses:
Creating An Effective Search Strategy
Telephone Outreach and Qualifying Candidates
Candidate Development and Client Management
Name Generation
Relationship Building Through Professional Practices
Due Diligence in Executive Search — Background and Reference Checking
Click here to go to the Online Course menu page
The AESC Certified Researcher/Associate curriculum consists of the following Expert Forums:
Getting Past The Gatekeeper
Pitching Your Search
Maximizing The Source Call
Qualifying Candidates Over the Phone
Eliciting Candidate Compensation Information Over The Phone
Maintaining and Managing Candidate Interest
Overcoming Candidate Objections
Click here to go to the Expert Forum menu page
The AESC has also developed an online Preparation Course for certification which all individuals are encouraged to complete before taking the online exam.
Examination
Once an individual has satisfied eligibility requirements and completed the AESC Certified Researcher/Associate curriculum, they will be able to take the online examination.
The online examination will consist of 100 multiple choice questions to be answered within a set time frame. The questions featured in the online examination will be based on the curriculum.
The online examination will be graded on a pass/fail basis.
If an individual fails the online examination, they must wait a minimum of three months before they can retake it.
Once the individual has passed the online examination, they will then be eligible to take the oral examination. The oral examination will be conducted over the phone and will involve a case study with certain scenarios based around it. The examiners are experienced AESC member search professionals and the process will be handled confidentially. The oral examination will also be assessed on a pass/fail basis.
If an individual fails the oral examination, they will need to wait a minimum of three months before they can retake it. It will not be necessary to retake the online examination once it has been passed.
If you pass both the online and oral examination, you will be an AESC Certified Researcher/Associate.
You will have a total of three attempts to pass each of the exams. Once you have failed three times, you will be required to pay again for the examination.
For a listing of all the competencies that will be covered in the examination process, click here.
Pricing
The cost for an AESC Member to enroll in the AESC Certified Researcher/Associate curriculum will be $1295.
The cost for a non-AESC Member to enroll in the AESC Certified Researcher/Associate curriculum will be $2495.
If an AESC member only needs to take certain Online Courses and Expert Forums in order to be eligible to be certified, the cost will be at the regular price as listed on the AESC Campus website.
The cost to sit both the online and oral examination will be $495 for AESC members and non-members. This will include access to the Preparation Course.