Hiring a skillful department head is one of the key conditions for the entire team’s success and high performance. To do this, an HR professional must not only be aware of hiring trends and rules but also be able to change the recruitment methodology when necessary.
Why Standard Recruitment Rules Don’t Always Work
The job market is constantly changing. Accordingly, to be successful, companies must hire many employees and often use an unconventional search approach. The traditional hiring algorithm of drafting and posting a job opening, a candidate selection process, and a final interview are essential. However, in some cases, standard methods can be abandoned.
Why an unusual approach to executive search is effective:
- Employers need a new approach to evaluating and interviewing candidates;
- The best professionals often find jobs through recommendations from previous employers; they don’t even need to submit resumes;
- High-potential professionals need a personalized approach.
When it comes to finding a company director or senior executives not by succession, the recruiter’s task is to explore their interests and values beyond a list of professional skills, knowledge, and competencies.
Potential candidates for such roles in the company are most often “stars” in their professional field. They are often the ones who choose a company where they can realize their full potential, not the other way around.
An HR specialist will need significant professional experience, well-developed intuition, and an openness to new recruiting approaches. Also, an HR must be able to justify to the company owner the need to move away from the standard approach and how it contributes to improving the company’s performance.
4 Rules That Can Be Broken
When looking for senior professionals, managers, and executives at any level, you can and should combine traditional hiring methods with unconventional methods, e.g., a proactive approach. The latter involves proactive succession planning and regular monitoring of the labor market.
The business owner’s challenge in this situation is to empower HR professionals to form a flexible strategy for finding, selecting, and hiring candidates for executive positions. It is the proactive selection process that is essential for timely anticipating changes and current trends.
Companies that are able to constantly stay “ahead of the game” can successfully implement a search strategy and recruit the best professionals in a certain field.
1. Rejecting Сandidates from Outside the Company
A thoughtful succession strategy for each leadership role is a great idea for building a team of high-potential talent. However, that doesn’t mean abandoning outside candidate search altogether.
Here are a few reasons why it makes sense to combine a succession strategy within a company with an external search:
- Even if your leadership development strategy has helped build a team of high-potential talent, it’s not rational to abandon labor market monitoring. Proactive search is the prevention of ineffective recruitment via the “gap-filling” approach for those positions in the company for which there are no appropriate candidates internally;
- A proactive search strategy is for HR professionals to maintain relationships with external potential candidates in order to build a talent pool for existing and future staffing roles;
- Increasing your online presence, including social media, will make your brand attractive not just for potential clients but also for outside candidates in passive search.
This is where a properly designed human resources page on your corporate website can be an effective tool. In addition to a list of current jobs, the page should also contain information about the company’s mission and values that will appeal to potential candidates.
2. Rejecting Employees Looking for a Job
If employees of your company have posted a resume or CV on a job search site, it doesn’t necessarily mean their disloyalty. For high-potential professionals, this only means that they have reached the pinnacle of their career and see no prospects for their professional growth at the company.
In order not to lose your experienced employees, it may be worth offering them to participate in a leadership development program. This way, they can receive additional training and, consequently, acquire all the skills and competencies needed for their new role at the company.
3. Preference to Those Who Do Not Grow Career-Wise
It’s important to remember the difference between a high performer and a high-potential employee. In the first case, the person is doing a great job but won’t necessarily be as productive in the new role.
The HR professional needs to determine if professional development or participation in a leadership development program would be effective for the employee, as well as how much time it would take.
4. People for Work, Not Work for People
Of course, one of the key goals of any business is to generate revenue. Accordingly, the HR professional’s job is to find and hire professionals who will work effectively to help the company achieve success.
However, if the head of the company is interested in creating a successful team, it’s crucial to have a respectful attitude toward people and their personal needs.
If potential employees are perceived by management as individuals and not just “expendable assets” for the processes within the company, this increases the level of trust and engagement of people.
Conclusions
It doesn’t really matter the reason why the company needs to find an executive for a certain division. In any case, it’s worth paying equal attention to the hiring process and the end results. The company owner and HR professional should not only develop a hiring strategy but also modify it as needed.
It’s for executive roles that a proactive rather than reactive method of finding employees is most effective, as well as an out-of-the-box approach. The HR professional’s job is to prove to the executive the need for a flexible hiring strategy, and unconventional methods are often used for this purpose.
