Senior level hiring has become more complex fastcollab blog

SENIOR LEVEL HIRING HAS BECOME MORE COMPLEX October 21, 2014 Krishna Yerra

In the corporate world, the professionals at senior positions are expected to successfully manage a broad­range of both operational and leadership responsibilities. The higher the position is, the more is requirement of intellectual skills rather than technical abilities. Senior level management deals with unpredictability with which to tackle there is need of high level of farsightedness and leadership skills. Thus hiring for senior positions is an extensive and lengthy process.

“Even though the job market has ample prospective candidates, businesses are having trouble finding employees to fill senior­level roles. As these candidates have an immediate and larger impact on the organizational work and results as soon as they join as an employee, their hiring is a crucial decision.”

Various skills and competencies of the candidates that influence the decision of a recruiter or hiring manager while hiring for senior posts are as following: 1) Strategic Perspective 2) Global Competence 3) Business Acumen 4) Cross­functional Experience 5) Technical Knowledge The accuracy rate of hiring is reflected in attrition rate and value addition brought by hired employee in the long run. The hiring

strategy need to be carved comprehensively with focus on all aspects of the process. Company needs to drive its hiring process with clear parameters and communication flow while taking the candidate from one stage to the other. While hiring for senior level positions, companies need to take following points into account: Wide and quality network Many recruiters refer candidates of diversified background to different companies with job requirements in various roles. They use their qualitative analytical skills to judge who is the best­fit in which organization. This comes from their sources in their network.

It improves the accuracy of the candidates too.

Past experience record The past experience of the prospective candidate gives a wide and clear perspective about his/her fit in the organization. A few details like the team size supervised, number and nature of industries where he/she has gathered experience from, professional network developed etc. are very helpful.

Hiring Process Stages The process for hiring must be structured elaborately. It should test the practical applications related knowledge along with theoretical aspects. Similarly cognizance of ground reality is very important for a senior level personnel to take decisions.

Hiring Process Panels Many a times the companies fall short of team members who should be taking a final call or taking the interviews for prospective senior role candidates. In such situations, company must welcome the choice to take assistance from external sources. An Applicant Management System provides an end to end hiring solution with an exclusive feature to hire interviewers possessing various skills and experiences. This Staffing Management Software has rich pool of interviewers that can provide an external perspective towards prospective candidates and lead to accurate hiring.

Background Verification Hiring process must not stop as the offer is made. An extensive background verification is required to testify all details provided by the candidate. A flaw exposed later on can be fatal to the candidate as well as the company’s reputation. Applicant Tracking System is also used to do background verification for the candidates hired with utmost focus and accuracy.

Technical Knowledge Depending on the demand of role and responsibilities to be handled, a careful decision should be taken if the candidate must possess deep and extensive technical knowledge with specialization in one particular industry or he/she must have an experience in a gamut of industries to handle the challenging role.

Though it is assumed that for top level management professionals, it would be easier to track new jobs, it is not completely true. For

them the challenge is to seek the right match for their skills, experience, career succession and, most importantly, will power.

Similarly, the companies face challenge to get the right candidate on board. A good hiring strategy carved after collective brainstorming sessions can help both achieve the result.