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Executive Search & Recruitment right fit Finding the for your company
Why is executive hiring so hard? Perhaps you are focusing on the wrong things... By Jonathan Evans (pictured), CEO at Discovery
without an ounce of calibration or data to validate it. Roles get massaged to fit candidates with missing competencies and behaviours get passed over. Hiring at any level should be supported with
data; a critical piece when hiring into positions that have the potential to knock your company backwards. Organisations that continue to experience the
revolving boardroom door should focus their attention internally, asking fundamental questions before embarking on any hiring. Instead of asking ‘what do we need for this position’, ask ‘why are we recruiting for this role?’. As an organisation that focuses entirely on
A
ccording to research from McKinsey & Harvard Business Review, 50 per cent of executive hires fail within the first 18
months, and hiring talent is still the number one concern of CEOs. With a market worth over €18b this would suggest that half of these companies got it wrong and paid the price for doing so. How can this be when so many tools and
networks are at our disposal, and information is freely available? The world is awash with job boards, AI solutions, sector specialist search firms, and databases all purporting to provide the greatest talent networks available; yet there is catastrophic amount of money wasted every year by companies who got it wrong; errors regularly repeated. The truth is, typically the process adopted by
companies remains traditional. Organisations focus on backward looking attributes in the hiring process to provide surety such as past experiences, complimentary markets and shared customers, comparable roles etc. Rarely is consideration given for what they will do, and more importantly, how they will go about doing it in future. Discussion is often aspirational
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building better workforces, and with over 25 years’ personal experience, I’ve often sat in boardrooms with eight different stakeholders and asked a question about the organisations strategy, only to receive eight different interpretations, invariably turning into a free-for- all conversation. All roles in an organisation must be aligned to
commercial strategy. The values and behaviours must be clear and congruent, and the role competencies must be clearly defined and agreed. If you are unable to agree on what ‘good looks like’ for high performance in a role, you are destined to become part of the statistics. Too much emphasis is placed on past
experiences where an individual can recount method and past glories as supportive evidence. Yet, past experience is a biproduct of having a job, not a predictor of future success. When considered alongside the fact that only
11 per cent of hires are a result of internal promotions - businesses typically focus on external talent more than on talent they have. This appears to be incompatible with a well-
orchestrated succession plan. It suggests people are being hired to do a role, not considered for their capability, suitability and stretch for future
opportunities. Perhaps more significantly, they’re not being measured against progressive benchmarks continually refined in-line with the commercial ambitions of the organisation. There is a myth that downturns and recessions
create an abundance of exceptional talent. The truth is, whilst there will be many exceptional people who have unfortunately lost their jobs, possibly from competitors within your market, it does not automatically make them right for your organisation. I have recently spoken with many company
owners and exec teams from large organisations, clients and colleagues, all of whom are making changes and redundancies resulting from the impact of Covid-19. All are simultaneously recruiting in some shape or form. The solution? Get your house in order first. All
hiring decisions need to be aligned to the strategic aims of a business, and reflective of what has gone before.
‘Too much emphasis is placed on past experiences where an individual can recount method and past glories as supportive evidence’
Ask the painful questions. Why does this
vacancy exist now? What has changed? What went wrong before? Bad hires often get the blame when boards and management teams are not clear or unified on what they need and why they need it. Use data to substantiate the past (and current situation) to predict the future. Create world-class benchmarks, recruit for
congruent values first, and supportive skills second. Evidence capability, stretch and fit in your
interview or assessment process rather than seeking surety from past experiences and expecting it to turn out well.
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