Recruiting senior executives is complex due to their high-level impact on a company’s operations and goals. It involves extensive resume reviews, interviews with multiple individuals, and careful negotiations over salaries and benefits. Staffing firms and contacting individuals from similar positions are common methods.
Senior executives hold high-level positions within a corporation, organization, or company, and they often make decisions that affect not only the organization’s day-to-day operations, but also its overall strategies and goals. They can have a major effect on the success or failure of projects; Software; product lines; and, in some cases, the company itself. Recruiting senior executives is often more complex than recruiting other employees for all these reasons. Recruiting for these positions involves soliciting resumes and conducting interviews, but resumes are generally longer and more involved, and the interview process often involves more meetings with more individuals. Senior executives’ employment checks involve detailed investigations of candidates’ past successes, and negotiations over salaries, benefits, and start dates can be extensive.
Finding qualified candidates for senior positions is rarely as simple as posting a position on a website or job board, although these basic actions are part of the process. There are entire staffing firms that specialize in recruiting senior executives, and many companies choose to use this agency to identify viable prospects. It is also common for an organization or company to evaluate individuals who currently hold similar positions with competitors or comparable companies and actively contact these individuals to determine their potential interest in a position.
In most cases, recruiting senior executives involves reviewing resumes, biographies and executive resumes. These documents are usually more extensive than the resume for a less senior position and may require additional research to verify the accuracy of an individual’s claims of achievement. While all of these queries are sensitive due to privacy laws, background and reference checks for senior executives should be handled more carefully. This is especially true when recruiting from within the same industry, as gossip can spread quickly.
The interview process is often extensive when recruiting senior executives. An executive of this type rarely interviews with just one immediate supervisor. Meetings often include peer executives and, depending on the position and nature of the company, may include the board of directors. Questions will be focused not only on specific past accomplishments, but also on management style, strategy, career interests and understanding of the industry. Interviewers will also want to find out if there is a good match between the candidate’s personal and professional style and the company’s culture.
Negotiating an offer during the senior executive recruiting process can be complex. Salary, bonuses, profit sharing and benefits are often negotiable for these positions. It’s also not uncommon for senior executives to give exceptionally long notices in current jobs. One to six months is common. However, it is also not uncommon for an executive to be available almost immediately, as many companies require departing executives to leave immediately upon notice.
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