Organizations keep on transforming during the course of their life. When they begin to scale, they find it difficult to manage a multitude of business processes under a limited leadership team, and hence more people with leadership skills are required at the top level. CXOs are assigned a detailed set of tasks for a particular business they lead. Here we’ll discuss some of the strategies organizations can employ to hire the right CXO for their business.
Understand Individual Drivers
It is important to keep in mind while hiring for executive level talent that individual drivers are much more important. For some people it is still about paying the bills, but for most individuals it is far more important to add value with their unique talent they have. It is therefore for the organization to figure out how reach out to such individuals and hire them before someone else does.
Set Clear Hiring Parameters
When hiring process is initiated, set the clear hiring parameters upfront. It is critical to consider who will be involved in the screening, interviewing and making final offer. Generally, people involved in the process will be holding senior positions in the organizations and they will be having some opinions about the role and responsibilities of the candidate. It is imperative to welcome inputs from them regarding where is company doing well, what are the challenges ahead and what is required of the new hire to fulfil the goals. Having clear expectation upfront and setting some parameters eases the hiring process.
Nurture a relationship
Nurturing a relationship with the candidate being considered for executive position is also very important. It may happen that they are not able to come on board this time around, but don’t stop at that. Try to keep them in loop and may be in a year or so they if you have some other opening for a similar role, they can be considered for hiring.
Follow a win-win Approach
Organization should follow a win-win approach during hiring for executive positions. The process should benefit the candidate as well as the organization in the long run. The candidate will be part of a fast-growing business driven by great mind set, that empowers users to take right decisions, while it will also increase the value of their knowledge and past experience.
Ease the interview process
Interview process generally takes a lot of time when hiring for normal role in organization but this approach doesn’t suit if you’re hiring for executive level positions. The reason being candidates seeking these positions have multiple offers on the table and a long interview process may force them to accept another offer. Organizations have to come up with fast and efficient interview process to get the suitable candidates. Companies that can do fast and efficient interview process are going to win in the long run.
Try fragmented hiring
Because of lack of supply of talent, companies can also consider fragmented hiring as part of hiring process. In fragment hiring, candidates are hired for a limited period of time. Organizations should be asking the question, “Do we really need a full time CXO for the job?”. If your organization is going through some upheaval and you need to calm things down, a fragmented hiring of an executive makes much more sense. Once things are back on track you can go for the usual hiring process. Fragmented hiring is going to be the norm in the near future for senior executives.
Avoid bad hire
Understanding the culture and processes of the company are of utmost importance. According to a study one third of the top level executives were not able to properly align with their objectives in the organization.
A bad hire may not align with the vison and values of the organization and can be destructive for the organization in the long run. Once hired, they can damage the productivity of the organization and its morale. They can also lead to a mass exodus thereby crippling the company. What organizations need to understand is that, just because a candidate has previous or similar experience with an organization, this does not necessarily mean that their leadership style will also be suited to your organization.
Have clarity around the type of hire
It is a common mistake made by organizations to think that they need an exact clone of the person who had just left. As far as the executive level positions are concerned this approach is not going to bring any positive outcome for your business. Instead what you should do is to take opinion of the key stakeholders in order to provide clarity around the type of hire is needed for the role.
Diversity is important
In recent years there has been a push to increase diversity at the executive level of the organizations. Hiring for executive position is an opportunity to bring a fresh perspective at the top of organization. It can also signal the world that you welcome diversity at all levels. Another advantage of having diversity at the top level is that it may also help you diversify talent at other levels as well.
Plan for future
Great organization always tend to think and plan for the leadership shift in future. There will be many executive level positions that will be vacated in the coming years mostly due to people retiring. Having a succession plan and investing in your current employees always helps in such situations. Companies investing in the current employees will find it easier when the time comes to fill these critical roles.
