You don’t want to take shortcuts when hiring a senior IT manager. A good executive search can take as long as three months. So you don’t want to waste any of the search committee’s time.
Taking your time during the selection process will lead to long term success, rather than rushing and making the wrong choice.
Executive search firms use their expertise to uncover the best person for the job. We’ve gathered up their top five steps to making the best decision.
It’s never an easy task to find a replacement for a top executive. Here is how to do it the right way through executive search firms.
Who Needs Executive Search Firms?
When it comes to finding the best talent for your senior IT manager position, it can take a separate team to focus on the selection process. That’s why some companies choose to hire an executive search firm.
This can be helpful when employees are busy and don’t have enough time to spare to dedicate to the search. It also helps to have a team of professionals who are experienced in matching the right person for the job.
Businesses aren’t just using outside firms. They’re also taking advantage of AI technology. In fact, some are saying that hiring algorithms could potentially be more accurate than recruiters themselves. Find out more if AI recruiters are the right choice for your executive search.
1. Who Are Your Competitors?
When executive search firms take on the project of hiring a new senior IT manager, or other executive roles, they may take into account your company’s competition. Not only will they want to find someone who can take on the current duties, but they also want to find someone who has the foresight to think ahead of your competitors.
They may even want to try recruiting from your competitors directly. This can help your business find candidates that you may not even know about. It also takes the pressure off of you to find people who haven’t considered leaving their current position.
2. Do Your Research
Before you even meet with some of the potential candidates, it’s important to do your research on each one and then some. You may end up finding the right candidate through other hiring platforms.
For example, you may want to search through resumes posted on job sites of people who haven’t applied for the open position but fit the criteria. It’s important to consider their comparable roles in other positions, geographic locations, and the corporate culture and company ranking of previous jobs.
You may want to reach out to individuals in these positions at competitor companies who you feel are already making strides in their current positions.
Executive search firms will actually hire executive search companies to do this research for them. Also known as “headhunters,” these companies will hunt for the best candidates and create a list for you.
3. Stay Organized
Once you begin to create a list of solid candidates, you are going to quickly be inundated with information and data. Between tracking interactions, feedback, notes, and meetings, it’s going to be difficult to remember everything about each candidate.
That’s why executive search firms use technology that helps them manage and track their candidate information. You may want to look into software that was specifically built for screening candidates and other aspects of the recruiting process.
Having an organized place to input all of the detailed records, interviews, and insights on your candidates will make the selection process even easier. Plus you’ll be able to reflect on each interview when making your final decision.
You can also present clear reasons why you’ve made a particular decision to the appropriate stakeholders.
4. Define the Executive Position
Do you understand the requirements and expectations of the position? If you don’t know the ins and outs of the senior IT manager position, how will you properly fill it?
It’s important to assess not only the hard skills needed but the soft skills too. In fact, 89% of bad hires typically lack soft skills.
Before you can really start your search, you need to have a firm grasp and description of what the role entails as well as the opportunities for growth for the individual.
Candidates aren’t just going to tell you why they meet your expectations. They also want to know what’s in it for them at your company. That’s why you should be fully prepared to describe the position as well as long term goals for the company.
5. Use Social Media
When searching for a list of potential candidates, why limit yourself to applicants only? In fact, you may be missing out on even better prospects if you don’t use social media.
Platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook are used by executive search firms to find potential candidates. Not just because it’s a wealth of knowledge but also because it’s a lot easier to search through.
Search for particular keywords that best reflect the job description. From there, you can reach out directly to the candidate and see if they’re interested.
Social media can also give you insight into their current work and how they represent themselves. This could even make or break a candidate before they come in for an interview.
Get Started on Your Search
There’s a lot to consider when getting started on hiring an executive manager at an IT firm. Take it from the experts, you don’t want to rush the process.
Hopefully, these recommendations from executive search firms will help you make the right decisions for your company.
Looking for more great information on being a leader at your job? Check out my blog!
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