Leave Nothing to Chance When Making Executive Hires

One of the most important aspects of my job as an executive search professional is data collection. When I’m out there meeting with executive candidates for any position, every single interaction provides me with valuable data. It starts with the most basic information. Does this person’s resume suggest they’ll be qualified for a position I’m working on? Check. Are they poised and ready for a new challenge, the sort of challenge this position can offer? Absolutely. But it goes deeper than that.

Let’s say I’m working with a candidate that seems like a potential fit, and I ask them to send me some information by Thursday midday. Noon comes and goes. One o’clock, then two, then three. Finally, sometime around 9:00 pm I get an email with the requested information. It might be a fluke, but that’s data I can work with—the candidate did not seem motivated to get me what I needed at the time we agreed. As I continue working with this person, I’ll look for patterns in the data to give me an indication of what’s really going on. Two or three more instances of a blown deadline, and I can feel confident that there’s something holding this candidate back from engaging enthusiastically with the process.

This comes back to the driving purpose behind everything I do when I’m evaluating candidates for an executive position with an outdoor company: Evaluating risk. It’s critical that your hiring process is set up to make these risks 100% clear, whatever they are, so you can mitigate those risks and land your #1 candidate at the end of the process.

Trust the Process

In a recent article, I wrote about how important it is to have a repeatable process to guide every hire. For us at Highline, that process comes down to that old acronym, QAI. As we continue conversations with a candidate, we’re constantly asking questions to evaluate if they are Qualified for the demands of a position, if they’re Available to take it on, and if they are really Interested in making a change. Along the way, we’re looking for any risk that could cause a hire to fall through—maybe it’s a risk stemming from a candidate’s lack of sufficient skills, or maybe it has something to do with a reason this candidate might not be ready to commit to relocating.

As far as I’m concerned, the whole purpose of this process is to uncover those potential risks and then dive deep into them. Rather than wait until the end of the process to wait with bated breath to see if a candidate will accept a job offer, I want to really focus on those apparent challenges right when they arise. The longer I keep the conversation going once it becomes clear there’s a big reason a candidate might not be the right fit, the more time I waste. In a tight hiring market like we’re in right now, wasted time isn’t something any employer can afford.

Sometimes, No Answer is a “No” Answer

It would be wonderful if every candidate who had a reason to eventually pass on a job offer would just say, “No thanks,” right away—but that’s not the world we live in. It’s critical to understand that when a candidate goes dark, or takes forever to return a call, or waffles when it comes time to schedule interviews, they’ve already given us their answer. No answer at all—or even a slow answer, or a cautious one—is often a “no” answer. I don’t need to wait for my client to send a candidate who acts this way an offer letter to know they won’t be accepting the job. And that’s okay! When I see these clear signals, I know it’s time to move on and put my energy into the next exceptional candidate.

The Bottom Line: Leave Nothing to Chance

We have a saying at Highline: An offer letter is the end of a process, not a big event. As you review candidates for your next big executive hire, don’t ignore that voice in the back of your head that says, “Oh, that might make it hard for this person to accept my offer.” Be transparent about any concerns you may have when it comes to your candidate’s QAI status so you know nothing is being left to chance. I know that when I’ve done my job right, and I’ve uncovered and explored those risks to the fullest extent, my clients can make an offer to the right candidate with confidence. That confidence is a beautiful thing.

==========

About the Author: Tony O’Neill is the Founder and President of Highline Outdoor Group — the purpose-driven executive search firm for forward- thinking outdoor industry and sporting goods companies and brands.

[su_row][su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””][/su_column] [su_column size=”1/2″ center=”no” class=””]