C-Suite talent is the new oil: tough to find, hard to extract, and difficult to deliver.
When you are looking to fill a C-Suite spot, it’s quintessential that you put your best foot forward. Yet, often it so happens that companies short-sighted by transitory cost concerns may weaken the process.
In these times, it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of making a hire through in-house system vs engaging executive search firms. Fairly frequently, the cost of engaging the expertise of a top executive search firm can be framed as an investment resulting from a fitting hire.
Finding the right executive from six to seven-figure talent market can quickly escalate your in-house costs including, among others website building, labor, software building, advertisement and listing fees. Further, these costs don’t account the opportunity costs arising from a bad hire.
A top executive search firm can take complete responsibility for the entire process—identifying and accessing the talent—and gauge the potential pitfalls in advance.
Along with expediting the hiring process, giving external validity to your decision, reaching out to passive candidates, enhancing diversity and maintaining secrecy, top executive recruiters will stand with you throughout the process, even after you have made your hire.
Expedite the C-Suite hiring process.
It’s a general knowledge that CEO succession is a two- or three-year project, sometimes even longer. It might not be possible or be expensive for your in-house team to sift through thousands of resumes while completing daily business responsibilities. Appointing an executive search firm will accelerate your search, simultaneously widening your reach and process effectiveness.
Get External Validation.
Its only human to look outwards for complements on your human capital. Going through professional consultants at top executive search firms to make your top hire will act as a market validation to your final decision or will benchmark it, per global businesses standards.
Tap in the passive talent pool.
Harvard Business Review reports that the majority of people who took up a new job last year, weren’t looking for one, but somebody came and got them.
It is obvious that some of the best candidates would be working somewhere and might not be actively searching for a new job, but this doesn’t mean they don’t want a job change. By pulling in their larger network, a top executive search firm can be that invisible force for you, to get the precise talent.
Maintain Secrecy.
Companies may need to keep C-Suite hires covert for several reasons. To prevent the present executive from knowing about the replacement. To keep competitors from poaching talent. To protect company in marketplace. In the case of passive candidates, keeping their candidature secret is also vital for them. C-Suite hiring is vulnerable to these situations, as it’s an influential position. A new hire doesn’t have to lead to making enemies or damaging relationships.
Top executive recruiters can help you reach out to the talents discreetly.
Increase diversity.
Most top companies are in favor of bringing diversity and with-it unique perspectives in the boardroom. Also linked with diversity are high financial returns and higher cash flow per employee, as per Leaders 2020 study by SAP and Oxford Economics. Executive search firms will have the resources to present you with a slate of candidates representing diverse options.
Onboarding new C-Suite Blood
If your company is looking to hire talent for new titles, executive search firms would know where to look. For instance, the first wave of hiring of Chief Digital Officers (CDO) is already underway. It is the responsibility of top executive search recruiters to be abreast with the roles and qualities required for these least understood new titles.
Wrapping Up: Why consult a top executive search firm for C-Suite hire?
Finally, and most importantly, looking for a trailblazer to lead an organization is a complex task that needs to be undertaken with precision. Diverting your in-house resources to hiring for this position will eat away your capital and all that work will be in vain in case of a bad hire. Furthermore, the challenge of recruiting for leadership positions has become arduous with individuals looking for more than money. A purpose. Inclusive culture with high prospects of sustainability. The top executive recruiters help marry your company’s insights and culture with apposite candidates.
