In the world of hiring there is no simple answer, no one size fits all approach, and no carefully guarded secret to making this process any easier. To be carried out effectively and efficiently requires, first and foremost, a staunch dedication of time and a commitment of certain resources to see these processes through. However, when it comes to the hiring of executive level employees, many seem to believe that some variation is called for in their typical hiring process, but the fact remains that such a belief is fundamentally flawed. While the stakes may be a bit higher in these situations the process itself should remain pretty much the same. Unfortunately, where making a bad hire in some smaller role will still cost the company not only the time and money wasted in the process that led to this failed acquisition, but those wasted in whatever work the individual may have come up short in and the losses that their presence may have wrought in others that they worked with as well, these damages are only compounded and multiplied the higher up the individual may be and the more individuals they oversee.
To avoid such mistakes employers then believe that they have to slow down their executive search procedures, giving themselves more time to work in by dragging the whole ordeal out by being overly thorough. Unfortunately, while decent in theory, this strategy creates its own problems. The first factor, and perhaps most important, is the issue of the timeframe. As important as it is to ensure that you find a talented individual with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experiences capable of filling the role in question, it is also crucial that these duties be carried out in a timely manner. Allowing these processes to drag out unnecessarily is sure to have a number of detrimental consequences. For a start it will create an unnecessary drain on the company’s time and resources. Also, it must be considered that, by dragging these processes out in being indecisive over the selection of a candidate, always looking for someone better, the employer is sure to lose the interest of any talented candidates that they might already attracted. To avoid facing such a conflict of time management, the first thing employers should do, before they even begin their executive search and candidate sourcing procedures, is to draw up a timeframe. Here they will need to decide upon a date by which they plan to conclude these efforts, as well as outlining a general timeline through which they plan to have completed each stage, effectively reducing the chance of either rushing or dragging out these practices.
Something else that employers will need to take into consideration, a factor that might vary slightly from other hiring practices, is in the way that interviews should be conducted. Given the significance of the position to be filled and its role in overseeing other employees, it is incredibly important that the individual seeking to fill it be compatible with company’s corporate culture as well as the teams or departments they will be supervising. Luckily these issues can be gauged rather easily through the simple inclusion in the interview of certain team leaders and department heads that the candidate would be working in close proximity to if hired. This will allow these individuals to lend make their own assessments and provide their opinions of the candidates, a source which can be indispensable in the final decision process.
Published by Conselium Executive Search, the global leader in compliance search.
