When it comes to hiring executives and C-suite employees, you have to hire people for a position that you have never worked for. You have to hire people who are more competent at their job than you ever would be. Have you been head of HR, Marketing, Sales, Finance and other departments? Probably, No. So, if you don’t have any experience, how do you hire someone good?
In this blog, we will share four tips with you to hire executives.
Know what you want before you start
Many employers just start looking for candidates assuming that they would figure it out in between the process. This never happens and they end up hiring someone who is not the right fit. Because you have never done the job, you don’t know what strengths and weaknesses you are looking for. Never decide to gain knowledge on the job role by simply interviewing many candidates. This is a very bad way to hire executives.
Never hire based on looks
Never hire someone based on their appearance. This may sound silly at first but many people have hired executives based on their look and feel, and the way they speak. When the CEO and board of members don’t know what they are looking for, they hire on the look and feel on the candidate.
When you are hiring, never focus on strengths solely. If you are a seasoned and experienced professional, then you may already know that each employee at your company has a few weaknesses. Whether it is functional, interpersonal or some other shortcoming. No one is perfect and that’s quite true. You should be ready to tolerate a few shortcomings in the candidate. To know about the functional weaknesses, you will have to work at the role for a few days. Once you are aware of the job duties, you can find out what weaknesses are okay to tolerate. Moreover, you can also bring in the experts of the domain to get their opinion on hiring. Ask them a lot of questions. What makes them great. If they were in your place, what qualities, they would have looked for.
Translate the knowledge you have gathered into a written persona
All the knowledge you have gathered so far must be written on paper. Start with all the strengths you want in the candidate and weaknesses which you are willing to tolerate. Ask yourself these questions:
All these questions don’t carry equal weight. For some positions, you will have to give more weight to some strengths. For instance, if you are hiring an executive for marketing and communication, obviously you cannot compromise on interpersonal skills. You want a person who has impeccable communication, is emotionally intelligent and knows his stuff. If you are hiring an executive for an engineering position, you can compromise on interpersonal skills, while you may want her to have extraordinary functional skills and knowledge.
Create an interview team
You need a team of people who will help you during the hiring process. These will support you in finding the best match for the position. They can be internal or external. You can also hire an executive search firm to help you with this. While they will do most of the strenuous work for you, the final decision will be left to you.
You also need another team who is going to help the candidate function and work once he is on board. No matter how amazing the person is, there will be people around her to sabotage her. To make the first days easier, you are going to need the support of a few people inside your company.
These were some tips to make your executive hiring process easier. You can also recruit an executive search firm. These companies have a lot of experience in hiring executives and c-suite employees. They can find the perfect fit for you. While they do all the hefty and strenuous work, the final decision of hiring belongs to you.
