C Level employees are the highest-ranking professionals in your business, who have a direct hand in executing your business strategy, but also hold the responsibility of team management and influencing decision-making.
Given the distinct level of responsibility, the recruitment process at C Level, should and must be different from your normal recruitment process, in such a way that is not only aligned with your business objective from a financial and strategic performance perspective but also from an engagement perspective encompassing both internal and external stakeholders.
Let's break it down into these two distinct areas:
1. Alignment with your financial and strategic performance objectives
When you hire at C Level, you should have crystal clear clarity on the:
- Status quo: company performance against expectations, team markup, skills gap, bottlenecks
- Strategic objectives: what does the business want/need to achieve across key timeframes – 6, 9, 12, 24, 36 months – this will vary depending on your business size and market segment usually.
- Financial performance: turnover, cost vs sales, cost per employee, investment appetite where necessary, attrition rates, etc.
By understanding these key areas closely, you can assess the level of input that the C Level Executive must bring to the table and the skills, experience, and knowledge they should clearly demonstrate to actively contribute towards your business objectives, both financial as well as strategic.
C Level professionals expect such clarity during the selection process.
They want to know that the business in front of them has a clear picture of the status quo and where they are heading and what is necessary to do to get there.
Naturally, C Level appointments do carry a high degree of advisory, such as the expertise of the professional in implementing strategies and procedures to help the business achieve its goals, but that doesn't mean that you, as a business, should leave a carte blanche in that area.
By not demonstrating clarity in your business objectives and a road map for the future, you are risking one of two things: hiring the wrong person and/or competent individuals withdrawing from the process, or accepting other offers due to lack of clarity and vision.
Both scenarios are frequent, unfortunately, and both have a negative impact on your bottom line.
2. Engagement with internal and external stakeholders
C Level hires have a high degree of influence over internal and external stakeholder relationships and it's crucial that you assess their behavior, character, situational awareness, and agility in the context of your unique dynamics.
Psychometric testing can be a very useful tool to help you gain a more holistic understanding of the individual, but it must be tailored and specific for it to facilitate your decision-making process.
However, it is not sufficient on its own, and one of the best ways to get a more thorough understanding of engagement indicators, is by involving external parties in the process – this could be, for example, a recruitment advisor or your business advisor, as well as team leaders in your business.
The idea is not to rest solely on a single point of evaluation, but to combine several evaluation methods, to help you and the candidate better understand the fit.
Another often forgotten evaluation is the future skills development and strategic mindset – a lot of interviews focus on "today" – what are the skills today, what we need to do today.
As a business owner, you should have a clear understanding of the future factors that will influence your business, such as digitalization, for example, and assess C Level professionals against these future factors that will certainly influence the course of your business.
Failing to evaluate across multiple facets may blindside you further down the line, such as risking a high turnover rate due to misalignment with the teams.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
