Hiring the boss
By Alexandra Roginski | thebigchair.com.au | 01 February
Image: Judy Green
The process of filling the leather-bound executive seat poses recruitment challenges far greater than those in the regular job market.
Some recruiters claim that replacing a head honcho can cost up to 400 per cent of that person's annual salary. As a result, they will labour through pages of psychological profiling and multiple half-day interviews when vetting a candidate.
Executive applicants are expected to possess technical expertise and a knack for big-picture strategy. But they increasingly also need to be in touch with softer management styles, displaying emotional intelligence and an ability to analyse the strengths
of their workforce.
"When I started my career thirty years ago, the leaders were more dictatorial, more focused on people as a commodity and less as a resource for investment. And I think these days, leaders have to be more inclusive, more egalitarian, patient,'' says Paul
Lyons, managing director of Ambition Careers and Recruitment.
Due to its small population and low number of corporations, Australia's talent pool of people possessing these three crucial ingredients (expertise, strategy and emotional intelligence) remains low in comparison to larger western nations. Currently, there
is a shortage of risk-management candidates possessing intricate knowledge of finicky United States corporate governance rules. Aside from being scarce, executive candidates are also less professionally mobile than junior employees. Stuart Lindsay, national manager of recruitment company Drake Executive, points out that while graduates will rapidly switch roles in the years following their studies in the hope of garnering skills and a reputation, high-flyers generally pursue less tangible goals.
"Executives are more interested in the opportunities to make an impact on the business: can they make some changes; can they see those changes through? Yes, the dollars are important, but not as important as working with a good team, working with
people they respect and trust, people that have a good reputation,'' he says.
This reduced willingness to jump ship turns executive recruitment into something of a lateral-thinking exercise. Candidates for highly specialised roles are sometimes sourced through headhunting or quiet networking. And they usually expect silver
service treatment.
For workers with distant aspirations of driving in the fast lane, Nick Deligiannis, senior regional director of Hays Recruitment, recommends choosing an employer who will foster personal growth.
"If you bridge that gap by getting more and more exposure and experience and training and development, obviously that assists... I think it's one of the main reasons why someone looks to stay at an organisation,'' he says.
