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By: Sierra Rogers on August 16, 2022
No matter the industry, recruiting and preparing organizational leaders to step into C-level roles is an ongoing responsibility for HR professionals. And with 10,000 baby boomers hitting retirement age every day between now and 2030, identifying the next generation of leaders is becoming an increasingly urgent task.[1]
If you’re a recruiter or hiring manager with minimal experience recruiting executives, this guide will prepare you to build out your leadership bench. In it, we’ll give an overview of the three main strategies used by HR professionals to recruit executive leaders and provide tips that will help you decide which approach is best for your business.
Executive recruiting refers to the process of sourcing and engaging with candidates for senior-level positions. Because of the high stakes associated with placing C-level leaders, executive recruiting is often either outsourced to executive search firms or seen as its own function within the HR department.
Executive search firms are third-party organizations that specialize in recruiting for senior level positions. Even if a business has their own recruiting team, they may opt to pay an executive search firm to find qualified executives and negotiate with them—more on this later on.
Based on a survey run by Gartner[2], there are three main tactics HR teams use when it comes to recruiting executives:
We’ll talk about each option in more detail below, including who the strategy works best for and tips for deploying it at your business.
63% of HR leaders stated that they have one or more dedicated executive recruiters in-house, making it the most common strategy used to fill senior roles by far.[2]
There are a few drivers behind businesses’ preferences to bring this responsibility in-house.
For starters, the cost of outsourcing this task is rising. The overall fee charged by a search firm is estimated to be 35% of the candidate’s first-year salary, which, as you can imagine, quickly adds up. Especially considering that the median number of executive positions the average recruiter is hiring for is steadily increasing as well. For example, the average recruiter filled 25 executive positions in 2016, 49 in 2017, and 60 in 2018.[2]
On top of that, it’s no secret that we’re currently in an era where business models are constantly evolving, making it difficult for external agencies to possess the organizational familiarity that’s necessary to make a high-quality, senior-level hire.
Who this strategy works best for: Large businesses (500+ employees) that frequently need to fill executive-level positions.
How to deploy this strategy at your organization:
Just under a quarter (22%) of HR leaders reported that their existing recruiting teams share the workload when it comes to hiring executives.[2] And of those that opt to use this strategy, the responsibility is most often handled by recruiting leaders (as opposed to a recruiter).
The reason why this is the second most common strategy is simple: Not every organization has the resources or demand to make hiring executive recruiters or outsourcing the task to a firm a good business decision. Instead, it makes more sense to take advantage of existing resources to get the job done.
Who this strategy works best for: Small to midsize businesses (< 500 employees) who only need to fill executive-level positions a few times a year or less.
How to deploy this strategy at your organization:
If the amount of senior-level roles you have to fill quarterly begins to pick up, consider promoting your point person into a permanent executive recruiter position.
Only 11% of HR leaders stated that their organization uses an executive search firm to fill senior positions.[2] Even still, this strategy should not be written off, because there are benefits to outsourcing this responsibility. For example, with a limited pool of executive talent, search firms have the advantage of sourcing qualified individuals from an established network of candidates.
But beyond that, search firms are typically made up of a team of high-performing headhunters, many of whom are industry experts and have built relationships with the candidates in their network.
Who this strategy works best for: Partnering with executive search firms can get expensive, which is why this strategy works best for established mid- to large-sized businesses who have a hiring need that falls into one of the use cases covered in the box above.
How to deploy this strategy at your organization:
The difference between a good company and a great one is often determined by its leaders. Having the right executives in office can bolster your bottom line, while having the wrong ones can lead to a total breakdown—John Foley’s recent step down from his role as Peloton’s CEO is the perfect example of that.
As a recap of what we’ve covered, here’s a brief overview of the three most common strategies used by businesses when recruiting executives:
Use the information we provided about each of these strategies to determine which one would work best for your organization, and if you need more guidance when it comes to your leveling up your recruiting function, check out these related resources:
Sources
Why You Should Add Candidate Experience Surveys to Your Onboarding Process and What To Include in Them
Looking for Candidates in All the Wrong Places? Try One of These 6 Recruitment Sourcing Strategies
Passive Recruiting: Playing The Long Game in Talent Acquisition
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