Most hiring decision makers are aware that hiring executives is different from hiring middle management managers or fresh graduates. Although there are no official statistics, it was reported that about 40% of executive recruitment failed. There is no specific definition of failure here but if we look at some of the typical cases below, the rate could potentially be higher than 40%. Especially when many candidates chose not to share their job interview experiences openly.
Here are some of the most common ‘deal breakers’.
Some positions have more stakeholders than the others. Each of these stakeholders may have different ideas of the person they want to hire. This can be true for multinational companies with matrix structures, or local corporates where staff from entry level to CEO sit within one office.
It is very difficult to recruit when the hiring stakeholders do not have consensus on the profile. Which is why a position profile is written. The good position profile will contain job descriptions, requirements, and KPIs among others. This will help stakeholders agree on the profile they are looking for. In real life it is still challenging to get many heads agree on what they want to hire. In global companies with matrix reporting structures one executive position might have multiple bosses. With some positions this can go the extreme of 3 bosses. We sometime came across a position with multiple reporting such as country boss, regional business line boss sitting in the regional hubs like HK or Singapore, and global business line boss sitting wherever the headquarter might be.
Although the direct hiring manager is responsible for the ultimate hiring decision (and ultimately the candidate’s performance management), the decision to hire the candidate may need the approval of others. We know a global bank that put their senior level executives in 10-12 interviews and will only hire if everyone reaches consensus on the hiring. The process can go for months. We can only try to keep the candidates warm while occasionally reminding the client to speed up the process. All while hoping the candidate is not losing his interest in the job!
What can happen also is conflicting messages that may have transpired from the communications with different stakeholders. Our experience tells us that multinational companies manage these multiple stakeholders better since they normally have a proper and detail position profile.
Promoting from within is the ultimate goal of many business and HR leaders when it comes to executive recruitment. It is not optional but almost mandatory. But sometime the talents are just not up to the mark. Executive search firm can be engaged to help in doing the management assessment by benchmarking the internal talent versus external talents.
Standardized recruitment procedures are great. But sometime you need to tweak it. One example will be insisting on the executive candidate to come over to your office for an interview. When they prefer to meet outside for confidentiality reason. Meeting outside also allows neutral territory that will put both parties at ease. When your candidate is relax you will find their real character you may not be able to spot in the boardroom interview situations.
The other no-no is to hand your executive candidate an employment application form in the first meeting. First meeting is always exploratory. Unless the candidate is overly eager with the opportunity (which is quite alarming!), this form should go all the way to the final stages of the process.
Many of our potential clients raise their eye brows when I mentioned to them about pitching the job opportunity to the candidate. Just like your new customers, the candidate is also need to be informed why your company is such a great place to work. Good senior level candidates would have done his due diligence on your company. But not all information is available outside. Especially when you are not a public company.
Pitch is not always about presenting the hard facts about the company. The candidates might be sold by the founder’s characters, the values he up-holds, his generosity, his shrewd business sense, etc. There is no way the candidate would know about this unless you as the hiring manager pitch this to them.
Moving jobs are not always about compensation. A lot of it has to do with chemistry, self-esteem and self-actualization, among others. Happy and high performing candidates are never easy to persuade. Yet they know what they want when they hear it.
In our business ‘Time Kills Deals”. It simply means the deal will go off when the client or the candidates are taking too long in their decisions. However, ‘light speed’ recruitment can also kill recruitment. We advise our clients to hold the process when they want to offer the job to someone after the first interview. It scares the candidate away! They might think that the hiring manager is overly impulsive. Or worse, there could big problems lurking waiting for someone oblivious to the situation to fix it. It is critical for both parties to be comfortable before a job offer is presented on the table.
As straight forward as it sounds there are still hiring authorities offering total compensation lower than what the candidate is presently drawing. Unless the candidate is desperately looking, it is more often than not kills the candidate interest.
Anything that you can think of: Candidate cannot resign as per schedule due to project commitment, family holiday commitment, bosses who do not accept resignation, disliking the office lay out, third party counter offer, and many other reasons you can think of. A good Executive Search consultant will help you manage the process smoothly and eliminate surprises until the candidate is on-board.
Can you think of other executive recruitment deal breakers?
