Are you a human resource professional that is tasked with employing the executive team members of your business? This specific task is extremely important, as an executive?s qualifications and experience can directly affect the success of the business. Additionally, who you hire and how well they do, affects how well it appears that you do at your position. These tips will ensure that you are hiring the best executive level employees.
Create an extended hiring process
Many hiring processes are too short. They do not give the HR professional, or the company, sufficient time to get to know the candidates. You might be forced to make executive level hiring decisions based simply on the resume and the interview. Because hiring and training of executive employees is a time consuming and expensive process, it is often best to extend the hiring process instead. Extend the amount of time that you plan to interview executive candidates. Even if you find a good option during that time, continue with the interviewing period. Then, schedule second interviews, and sometimes even third interviews, narrowing down the candidates.
Seek executive candidates in multiple places
Although you might get a large response from one single advertising platform, you are unlikely to get a diverse pool of executive candidates. Utilize multiple platforms to get many different applications. This could actually help the company succeed. McKinsey?s research shows that gender diverse companies are 15% more likely to outperform their peers and ethnically diverse companies are 35% more likely to do the same. Make sure you are posting to online job boards, working with local college recruiters, and even informing executive HR search firms of the job opening.
Put a lot into training
When you hire at the executive level, you are likely getting candidates that are already familiar with their position. They have probably held a similar position before. However, this does not mean that they are familiar with the business itself or the specific expectations of the business and the position. When you skip training, you are losing the opportunity to shape the candidate to your business needs and you are not setting clear expectations. A recent survey by Robert Half showed that one third (36%) of 1,400 executives surveyed felt the top factor leading to a failed hire, aside from performance issues, are poor skills match. The second most common reasons (30%) was unclear performance objectives.
Work closely with executive HR search firms
As a human resource professional, you have many tasks in addition to the hiring of executive level employees. Because hiring an executive level employee takes dedication and a lot of time, it can be helpful to also work closely with executive HR search firms. Executive search firms are usually a group of HR consultants that have connections to many executive level employees. They are also closely connected with schools and can provide you with recent graduates that may fit the job role. Working with HR executive searches and a local career placement agency can significantly increase your candidate options.
According to a 2016 Gallup poll, Millennial?s are the job hopping generation, with 6 in 10 open to a new job at any given time, more than any other generation. This increase in job hopping can present a problem to businesses, costing them a lot of resources and training. This is especially true when it comes to executive level employees. A human resource professional that is tasked with finding and interviewing executive employees will have to extend their hiring skills by working closely with executive HR search firms, posting to multiple placements, and extending both the hiring and training process.
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