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Planning executive succession for your organisation requires careful consideration. Whether you want to hire a CFO, CEO, CIO, or any other C-suite leader, you should be ready to overcome several challenges.
But don’t worry because we have got solutions.
Let’s take a look at the top three challenges faced by organisations during executive search and how partnering with an executive search firm can help.
Finding Suitable Candidates
Identifying and securing suitable candidates is often the biggest challenge organisations face during an executive search. With fierce competition for high-calibre candidates and a widening skill gap, you may find it increasingly tough to source candidates.
With limited resources, your organisation may even fail to reach out to passive candidates, who could have been the ideal C-suite leaders. These are qualified individuals, who may not be actively seeking new positions but could be enticed to make job switches with roles that align better with their specific career aspirations than their existing positions.
Since the relatively small market for executive talent often makes sourcing candidates difficult, it could force your organisation to widen its target talent pool and consider both global and local C-suite executives. However, without adequate industry contacts and networking, locating and onboarding such talent could be difficult. This is where an executive search firm can help.
Using modern technologies, industry contacts, networking, and their painstakingly built talent pool, such a firm can help you find candidates suitable for handling the roles and responsibilities of your organisation’s vacant, newly-created, or about-to-be-vacant position.
Speedy Hiring
Due to a demand-supply mismatch, the time to hire a C-suite candidate today could be as long as 9-12 months, especially for the roles of CXOs and CEOs. The time taken for a quality hire goes up when you seek to recruit for specialised areas like high-tech manufacturing, semiconductors, automotive and electric vehicles, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, and hardcore product engineering.
In executive search, quick hiring without compromising the quality of hire is crucial. Since modern businesses grow fast, propelled by tech-based trends, there’s a rising demand for hiring top-tier talent swiftly, who can help the organisation navigate this rapid growth. Not finding a leader fast enough could adversely affect your organisation’s growth trajectory.
Delays in hiring could also make suitable candidates drop off. Executive search is a complex and lengthy process where thorough vetting and approvals by multiple stakeholders are involved. However, suitable candidates often get multiple offers from competing companies. When your organisation takes a long time before making a final offer or fails to create a positive candidate experience during the hiring process, the top talent you found could decide to accept a competitor’s offer.
An executive search firm can offer the ideal solution by accelerating the hiring process and tapping into its extensive talent pool to help you hire talented executives fit for the open role. With prompt and regular communication, genuine interest in candidates’ career aspirations, and transparent updates, an executive search firm can keep top talent interested in your organisation. This deters them from ghosting you and reduces their chances of accepting a competitive offer.
Managing Diversity and Inclusion Goals
Despite the importance of diversity and inclusion in C-suite roles, organisations find it challenging to have a more diverse mix of executives.
One roadblock preventing better diversity and inclusion is the hiring process of most organisations. Many rely on their limited industry relationships and professional networks to hire new executives. Some may even have unconscious biases about recruiting from specific universities and colleges with largely homogenous backgrounds.
Limited access to a diverse pool of talent is another challenge as it interferes with the ability to create diverse and inclusive executive teams.
An executive search firm can help with its nuanced searches, aided by modern technologies like AI, to create a diverse talent pool. From including underrepresented candidates to those with special abilities in its talent pool, an executive search firm can offer candidate diversity to ensure your organisation meets its DEI goals.
Final Words
Finding suitable candidates, speedy hiring, and managing diversity and inclusion goals are the top three executive search challenges faced by organisations. If you too are troubled by them, it’s time to bring an executive search firm on board to ensure your C-suite hiring needs are met efficiently and promptly while helping you meet your DEI goals.
If you are looking for experts who can handle your executive hiring needs adeptly, you can connect with us at InHunt World right away!
This article was written by InHunt World