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What Might the Process Look Like?
It’s likely you already have an established recruitment process in place. You may even have a partnership with a headhunter you trust. However, if you don’t, or you need to refine your process going forward, here are some logical and realistic steps to work through.
- Identify the gap. Have you actually got a need? What has been the trigger? Does the skills gap need a new hire or would re-training your existing staff solve the problem? And crucially, do all board members agree?
- Scope the role. What key elements make up the role? What type of person are you looking for? How will this role impact your current structure?
- Find a headhunter. If you don’t currently have one approved, you will need to conduct your own research and typically this will be via the web or working on recommendations made by other business owners you know. It’s important to find a partner that you can trust and you should look to gain a good understanding of the fee structure, and negotiate your deal in advance.
- Submit the role. Once you have established a relationship with a suitable provider you can send them the details of the role. Be open and honest and seek feedback from them i.e. ‘this is what we think we want and the remuneration package we are prepared to offer but what do you think?’ It’s better to find out early on if you are trying to find a ‘unicorn’ rather than go through several rounds of interviews and headhunter fees!
- Edit and resubmit. Depending on the feedback you receive you may need to amend the role, agree the revisions with your team, and resubmit it to the headhunter before a search takes place.
- Begin the search. Once the role has been reviewed, amended (where necessary) and signed off by the board it’s time to let the headhunter conduct their search. At this stage you’ll want to understand the timings involved in the search to make sure a) they fit your own requirements and b) they are realistic from the headhunters’ perspective.
- Review progress. The best headhunters will present you with a progress report during the search stage. This report is likely to include activity levels, i.e. the number of searches conducted, the number of conversations that have taken place etc. along with the type of results they are achieving, the caliber of potential candidates they have found and how close they feel they are in achieving their goal i.e. coming up with a suitable shortlist.
- Refine the shortlist. Once the headhunters have completed their search they should present you with a shortlist of suitable candidates to review. At this stage, you may decide to narrow the shortlist down further based on your own experiences.
- Assess the talent. Armed with your shortlist you can start conducting the first round of interviews.
Assessing the Talent the Headhunters have Found
We recommend you have at least two clearly defined stages in your interview process. You will also need a structured review/scoring system to record the results in order to keep your entire process objective and consistent. Before you start the process it’s important to be clear internally on what you consider a ‘must have’ or a ‘nice to have’ personality or technical trait. And finally, what are your ‘red flags’? What answers to questions or behavioral types simply won’t fit in with the culture of your company?
Stage 1
The first stage of the interview process will typically use competency based questions and could last anywhere between two and three hours depending on the position being offered. The purpose of this first interview is really for the candidate to convince you that they are technically competent to fulfill the role. After all, if they are not, there is not much point in moving onto the second stage!
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