The current director, Mary Darby, gave the board her resignation after a closed session evaluation on Tuesday, July 12. It’s effective Nov. 4.
Human Resources Director Pam Samac laid out the plan for the recruitment to find the seventh director for Community Development since 2016.
She said they opened the recruitment on July 14. If they don’t get a decent pool of qualified candidates, they want to put it out to 10 recruiters to find one to lead the process.
After reviewing the candidates, if it’s warranted, Samac wants to schedule interviews with the board.
Supervisor Bruno Sabatier said he wanted the county to use professional recruitment firms to find department director jobs.
Samac said it’s possible the county could get a number of good candidates as they did recently for the assistant county administrative officer without using a recruiter. She added that during the last six months ago the county has started getting better candidates for senior positions.
She advocated for the county starting the recruitment on its own and waiting three weeks before paying $25,000 to $30,000 for a recruiter.
At the same time, she said they could put out a bid request to recruiters so that it can be underway while the county is taking initial applications.
The county is now conducting another recruitment for a Public Health officer. Samac said the recruitment agencies her recruiter network uses are very busy, and have been saying they are too busy to even give quotes for services. However, that could have changed and she said they could ask for bids again.
Samac said she would have the first review of applications on Aug. 9. At that point, she said they already had one qualified applicant.
She said that they could make an assessment on Aug. 9 about what applicants they have. “I don’t believe that you have to have four or five to compare and contrast if you have one great candidate.”
At the suggestion of County Administrative Officer Susan Parker, the board agreed to have a standing item on its closed session agenda to discuss the recruitment.
Darby suggested to the board that they also advertise the job with the American Planning Association, as she said that’s where all the certified planners are and the county can get some great candidates there.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.