Recruiting across the “C” suite
Paul McArdle | Talent & Recruitment Columnist | The Currency
Recruiting across the “C” suite – CEO, CFO, CTO, COO etc is getting more difficult as the market becomes more candidate driven. As discussed in previous articles, your business has to become more branding led to attract the talent you require.
When you are looking to recruit across the “C” suite it is normally because your business has lost a valuable employee or a senior manager has changed roles within the organisation (your CFO moving to COO for example) or there is a transformational change needed, for example you are looking to scale your business and need the right talent to do this. At The Panel we recruit all along the “C” suite, each mandate has a dedicated team working on the assignment, normally a lead recruiter, a resourcer and our marketing colleague.
When you are looking to make a senior hire, there are a few simple steps you should look at first.
What are you trying to achieve? What is the purpose of hiring this person? These are always good starting points. The next steps are crucial, are your thoughts aligned to the rest of your colleagues? I have worked on too many assignments where you find out halfway through that some of the other senior management either disagree on what type of talent they are actually looking for or agree on what they want, but not the type of solution. For example, it could be someone looking for the exact experience and another member of the senior management team looking to hire for potential as opposed to the finished article. This leads to poorer recruitment process, as a lot of time can be wasted unnecessarily. It also does not reflect well on your organisation if the candidate experience is compromised.
Another thing you need to assess before starting any process is to see if the talent you require is actually already in your business. Often it is better to recruit and promote from within, it sends a very positive message to your staff, and it also shows you as an employer who can support and develop careers. If you skip this step and your employee believes they are being overlooked, you may hire an external “C” suite candidate, but you now have also created a “flight risk” with the overlooked employee.
Communication is key here. Manage the message! A lot of my clients do a mix of encouraging interested employees to apply for roles in tandem with running a professional external recruitment process. The employee goes through the same screening process as the external candidates and feels like they have been given a proper chance. In some assignments I have handled the incumbent gets promoted, in others an external hire is made.
If you feel that your internal employee is not at the level you want to hire at, take the time to explain this properly to them. A big benefit of an external “C” suite candidate coming in is that they can mentor your employee. Make that part of the job specification. Let your employee know that you value them, and you have made their mentoring a key criterion of the hiring process.
It may also be a good idea to get your employee be part of the interview process. This can be a very positive message to your employee, you value their opinion, and you are also taking their career goals seriously. HR professionals often interview their future CEO for example, so there is precedent here. It also helps negate the potential of a “flight risk” situation.
A great way to get alignment, before you engage in any recruitment process, is to write down what you want. A job specification that is reviewed, discussed and agreed on by all the stakeholders will lead to a much better recruitment process. It means that potential disagreements or misunderstandings on what is required for your “C” suite hire can be ironed out. You can also prioritise what is a pre-requisite for the candidate and what is nice to have. The best recruitment processes I have managed are the ones where the board, the business owner, other shareholders, the senior management etc. are all aligned.
Salary packages at the “C” suite level are going up. Attracting top executive talent is becoming more competitive. Again it is important that the package on offer is agreed with all your stakeholders and has been sense checked before you go to market. A call to a recruiter is always a good place to start to give you a steer on what package is required to attract the talent you require.
Salary packages have more elements to them than ever. You need to factor in additional incentives such as bonus (how much it is and what criterion the bonus is based on), pension, health insurance, death in service, car allowance, holidays, educational support, equity participation, Long Term Incentive Plans (LTIPS) etc. This can add up very quickly.
In The Panel we are now dealing with a lot of private equity backed businesses and the LTIP/equity participation is becoming as, if not more, important than the base salary figure. Senior candidates like to sense check how achievable this reward will be and how material the award will be to them. This can elongate a process, as often there will be some back and forth at the final negotiation stage. So knowing your salary budget and the makeup of that budget is key before you start the recruitment process.
Before you share the job specification, it is important that the document “sells the sizzle” about your business and the opportunity itself. This goes back to the branding point earlier, this is a document of record, prescriptive on your requirements. Today the job specification also needs to be a sales document, sells your story, your vision for the business and sells the benefits to a prospective candidate of working with you and your team.
More of our candidates are also paying attention to what our clients are doing on issues such as diversity, culture, ESG, hybrid/remote working, educational support etc. Most candidates we talk to now expect at least a hybrid working arrangement as part of their package. For “C” suite positions we find that the candidates accept that initially they need to get their feet on the ground at the start of their tenure and work into a hybrid arrangement once they have more of a handle on their role. Of all the issues highlighted, working arrangements are the ones that can cause the most friction in the recruitment process. Again, get your policy agreed internally first before going to market.
If your business is in the fortunate position that you can operate fully remotely, remember this really opens up the talent pool you can fish from. The constraints of hiring locally are no longer an issue. You just need to be aware of the tax implications of where your employee is domiciled if they are based overseas for example.
Some businesses when recruiting go to market themselves, use their own networks and advertise on job boards etc. Often they do this for cost reasons, figuring out it can be cheaper than paying a recruiter a fee. And sometimes they are right!
The hidden costs of recruitment is your time and your colleagues time. It can be a very distracting process and very demanding. You can go direct to market yourself and try to find the right talent in a candidate tight market and expend a lot of energy and expense with nothing to show for it at the end. When I go away on holidays, I tend to use a travel agent. I have found I get better recommendations on places to stay than I can find myself, often the travel agent has pre-booked the flights, so they may be cheaper than I can get myself and I have the insurance of going with a bonded provider. I get comfort managing my financial risk and I also benefit from their expertise.
If you do decide to go with a recruiter I would suggest you pick one that is recommended to you. Ask them to pitch for the assignment on an exclusive basis. This can be more cost effective for you. From a recruiter perspective, working on an exclusive assignment means that if we deliver what you want, we have a guaranteed fee, that is a great incentive. A good recruiter sees themselves as your partner, so invest your time in briefing them properly.
Another thing you need to be aware of is the need for speed. In a competitive talent market, candidates are moving quicker. Agree the screening process in advance, have all your stakeholders primed to be available to interview and keep the momentum going. It is very frustrating for you if you lose talent because you have not moved quick enough with your recruitment process. Partner with your recruiter to deliver an excellent candidate journey. Remember, the candidates are doing their due diligence too!
In summation, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Get alignment on what your business requires, write a job specification that sells your opportunity, agree your route to market and act quickly once the recruitment process has started. Best of luck!