As a business owner, there are many difficult business processes that may either make or break your company. One of these processes includes the executive hiring process, which refers to the recruitment of the right candidates for the top or leadership positions in your company. Executive positions include senior managers such as the CEO, directors, or vice presidents.
Many companies end up doing it wrong and hire executives who quit within 18 months. This means that all the effort and resources you’ve put into the hiring process went to waste. So how can you make sure you nail the executive candidate recruitment process? Here are three vital tips to enhance your recruitment process and find the ideal candidate for your leadership position:
- Hire A Team
Finding the right executive candidate for your company is not a task to take lightly or something to schedule during your spare time or weekends. You need to put in the right amount of time and effort to find just the right person for the job. This is why you need a team that will spearhead your efforts towards the right candidate and vet candidate evaluation.
A hiring team will be tasked to go through applications, recruit the right talent, interview prospective candidates, and hire the best candidate. When hiring your team, make sure they understand the job requirements and the company’s needs. This will go a long way in avoiding conflict in the future.
For example, your team should be able to communicate whether your company needs a local candidate or can accommodate a candidate’s relocation. You don’t want to hire the right candidate only for them to reject the position after learning the specifics. Your company should have clear and concise communication channels.
You can either choose to appoint internal personnel from your company to serve as the hiring team, or outsource the task to a professional recruitment agency.
- Carry Out In-Depth Research
It would be best if you did tons of research to prepare well for the executive hiring process. The obvious reason for this would be to know the right candidate that would fill the executive position. However, the research needs to go deeper than that.
Your team should be able to know the qualities and profile of the kind of person that would be successful working in the position. This is especially true if you have a larger team because most recruiters are good at closing deals and transacting on behalf of the company, but may not know the ins and outs of the business.
Besides, proper research will help you come up with the right job description. Imagine the ideal candidate for your position and craft your job description around that image.
Also, proper research will help you understand the competitive market rate compensation for your ideal candidate. You should then be in a position to know if you can remunerate your candidate appropriately. You don’t want to overcompensate your candidate and create extreme expectations. On the flip side, if you’re offering compensation that’s way below industry standards, you’ll lose out on the best talent.
This is to help your company remain competitive by industry standards.
- Engage Current Leaders
Sometimes, it’s recommended to go beyond the whole hiring and interview process. Networking and relationships can be significant tools in your hiring. You can leverage the existing networks and connections of the current executives in your company.
Your current crop of leaders can use their influential positions to pull together a circle of friends who can come up with a list of people ideal for the position. Your leaders can be your company’s investors, stakeholders, board members, and advisors.
Your hiring manager can first make a list of all the executives who has an ideal candidate in their networks. You can also engage an employee. The hiring manager can then create the following bullet points that will help the company understand how the executive will be of help when hired:
- What qualities should they have?
- What are your company’s priorities?
- How should the candidate help the company meet its vision and goals?
This will help you bring a person who will be of help to the company. This list will also help you eliminate any candidates that will not be of benefit to your company. Send the list of points to the executives you’ve identified. This can also help narrow down your search for top talent.
Key Takeaways
The executive hiring process is not easy. It should be one of the processes your company prioritizes. You want to get it right and minimize chances of the candidate quitting later on. First, you need to find a team who’ll be in charge of the recruitment process. You can select your team from your in-house employees or outsource the task to a recruitment company.
Secondly, conduct research to know what qualities you need and what compensation to offer the ideal candidate. Finally, leverage your existing leader’s connections and networks.