Find the right match
The first step in any executive search is to identify what attributes the ideal candidate should have. That can be determined by a number of factors, including your company goals, cultural principles and requirements of the specific job.
But von Seldeneck says there are some universal traits that every executive is going to need, regardless of the specifics of the position for which you are hiring.
“You need people who are good listeners,” she says. “You need people who are really good at getting a read on other people. You should try to find someone who has had attained some life experience, both professionally and in their overall life. They have to have an ego and be ambitious, but they need to be able to balance that against the team concept.
“Sometimes it can be easy to get prima donnas on your staff who want to bring in lots of business so they can make lots of money. But you really can’t have people like that in an organization and expect to sustain any type of culture or cohesiveness.”
Identifying people who could potentially damage your culture is never easy, but you can find out a lot by asking many background questions during the interview process. You need to look for answers that focus on the team as opposed to the individual accomplishments of the candidate.
“We interviewed somebody the other day who was from another firm,” von Seldeneck says. “The individual had a really impressive book of business and set of clients. But the person just kept talking about ‘I’ and ‘me,’ and how all these firms are always after him. Those are just red flags. The answers were all about the individual, and that’s a show-stopper right there.”
What you really want to know is the role the individual played, how the candidate fit into the overall scheme of the company. You want to know how the person helped the organization attain its goals.
Von Seldeneck says there are several sources you can tap for that kind of information, including assessment tools like questionnaires, asking thorough follow-up questions during the interview process and inquiring with outside references.
“You need to find good references, particularly for an upper-management candidate,” she says. “As a search firm, that’s what we do, using primary and secondary references. You do research and really find out about the person and what kind of team member they are, because a lot of times, those kinds of things are not readily apparent.”
During the interview process, you should ask management candidates to think of specific examples of their performance. Ask them to demonstrate a time when they were a part of a successful team and what role they filled. Ask them the opposite, as well — a time when they found themselves in a team environment where there were some problems, and how they handled the situation.
“Those are direct questions you can ask,” von Seldeneck says. “Ask them to point out both the good and bad examples of when they served on a management team. Ask them why the good examples worked and why the bad examples didn’t work and what was their role in both outcomes.”
However, if you’re hiring someone for a decision-making position, you’ll probably need to find someone who can both build a consensus and take a stand when needed. That can be a problem if you’re hiring someone from a major company with a large, stratified management team.
“Some of the larger companies are so team-oriented that it can be a bad thing,” von Seldeneck says. “You find someone who is so used to consensus and being part of a team that they can’t make decisions on their own. You want team builders, but if you’re hiring someone to help execute a strategy and vision, they need to be able to make decisions, as well. Again, it comes back to developing a culture, developing your expectations for your leaders prior to making a hire. You need to understand the process of decision-making in your company so that you can pass that understanding along to the people you hire.”
