If your team finds itself missing a key executive team member, you’ll be faced with a task that has become increasingly daunting over the past few years – replacing a high level position in a highly competitive talent market. If you are unsure where to start, we’ve compiled 4 helpful tips to use when beginning an executive search to ensure that your organization’s brand and the perception you are creating regarding the open role are positive ones.
Develop your Executive Search Strategy First
Define your search strategy first before you start your executive search. Not doing so can make your executive search appear unfocused and can work against you. Are you going to be using your internal team to pilot the executive search? Engaging an executive search firm to work on your behalf? Using your network to mine for referrals? Perhaps a combination of all of the above? Whatever your course of action, make sure that whatever is being communicated “out there” is reflective of what you’re trying to accomplish.
In the digital world, everything that you post online can be easily viewed by the prospective talent and it tells a story. You want the story to make them more interested in your opportunity, not less interested. Having mixed messages delivered from multiple mixed up messengers is going to damage the perception of your company – and your leadership. If you/your company don’t control the flow of information (for example, having outside recruiters “spinning” a position as one thing, only to have a potentially interested candidate find out something completely different in the interview process), the potential for problems increases.
Make the Leadership Commitment
Make sure the leadership team is committed to participating in the executive search and is expressing the importance of the role to the goals of the organization. Unfortunately some CEO’s and C-Level hiring managers do not consider the hiring function to be part of their scope of responsibility. They’ll delegate the entire process down to a subordinate, expect that it will simply be managed effectively and that in the end they’ll be presented with a stellar candidate who will be thoroughly vetted and incredibly eager to join their team. It just doesn’t happen that way. It also sends the wrong message to potential executive talent; that the CEO is not committed to hiring key roles before they join the team, and the likelihood of the CEO being invested after they join the team is also not high.
Potential executive team members are going to want to know about the leadership of any organization they might consider joining. Their needs to be executive buy in and participation in the process. The C-Level hiring manager needs to be involved earlier in the process than most. There’s a meme going around that says “Don’t pick a job. Pick a Boss.” Although it’s really a combination of the two, this aphorism points out that the hiring manager has direct influence over a talent’s decision to join a team. And in a highly competitive talent market, that can be the difference between a successful hire and ongoing executive search.
It’s not what you do, it’s everything you do
Realize that you may have to use all resources to fill a job in this talent market. An inbound campaign (job postings, online referral requests, tweeting your job, etc.) can produce some results but you’re limiting your talent pool to those who are actively looking for a role – and 64% of the talent market aren’t actively looking. You’ll also most likely have to run a proactive outbound campaign (utilizing an executive search firm, having your in house team source and recruit, etc.) in addition to running an inbound campaign.
The Messenger is as important as the Message
This last tip is especially crucial. Assigning a junior person with little or no experience to a key executive search can be especially damaging. Executive Assistants and junior level recruiters who lack experience should not be the “face” of your organization. They may be valuable in assisting with scheduling and behind the scenes support but make sure they are not the first point of contact on an executive search as this may result in a poor impression of the organization. And while a good EA or recruiter can be an incredible asset, it’s doubtful that they’ll understand the executive role in question in great detail and when presented with specific high level questions from potential candidates may produce confusion and mixed messages.
Also beware of how your company is being portrayed online. Many inbound campaigns take place on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and your company needs to monitor and inspect what your staff are doing on these platforms. The online identity of the messenger broadcasting your company’s open positions needs to be either scrutinized or kept entirely separate from that messenger’s personal account. If they are going to use a personal account, make sure the content on their social media pages, especially Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. is appropriate for a professional posting. We’ve seen instances where an opportunity for an executive level opening has been tweeted only moments before the same user tweeted information of a highly personal nature using the same feed. Their actions on social media will reflect on your company in instances such as this.
Executive search is done differently than other types of hiring. Make sure that you understand that hiring at this level is a 50/50 proposition, where both the hiring company and the executive level talent have to partner for success.