Recruiting Leaders: Key Points You Need to Keep in Mind
When you’re a recruiter or HR professional, it’s important that every employee you recruit be the right fit for their position. All team members contribute to an organization’s success.
That said, when recruiting those who will fill leadership roles at a company, it is particularly imperative that you’re identifying candidates who have the necessary strengths to excel in their roles. Their ability (or lack thereof) to effectively lead other employees will have a major impact on everything from morale to efficiency.
Thus, you should keep the following tips in mind during the recruitment process. They’ll help you find candidates who will best serve your organization’s leadership needs:
Look for Experience
Let’s cover a basic (but vital) point first: it’s easier to know someone will succeed in a leadership role if they have already held and succeeded at such a role in the past. Because managing a team can be difficult, it helps to look for candidates who’ve already developed the necessary skills.
That’s not to say you should reject candidates who lack this experience in all cases. Additionally, this type of experience doesn’t always guarantee a candidate will be successful at your company.
There are instances in which a factor such as poor culture fit can result in a new hire being less successful at your company than they were at another. In general, however, experience tends to be an important quality when recruiting people who will take on management responsibilities.
Pay Attention to Honesty
A strong manager acknowledges employee contributions instead of trying to take credit for them. Effective leaders are also willing to honestly admit when they make mistakes.
During interviews, ask leadership candidates for examples of instances when they made mistakes in the past. Candidates who are more willing to discuss their mistakes (and what steps they took to correct them) are most likely honest and trustworthy leaders.
You might also ask candidates about instances when they were particularly happy with one of their team members’ contributions. If they can enthusiastically give credit to a former employee during an interview, there’s a good chance they will do the same for their subordinates if they are hired at your organization.
Ask about Their Approach to Goalsetting
Setting goals for their teams is one of the most important responsibilities managers have. That’s because it’s a very difficult skill to master. Not many people can effectively review a project, breaking it down into steps and delegating responsibilities accordingly. You should definitely consider potential hires who can clearly describe their process of setting goals when asked about this.
Because the specifics of the process will likely vary from one project to another, leadership candidates should also indicate how they remain flexible. You are looking for evidence they are capable of being open-minded and sensitive to a situation’s particular context.
It’s also important to find out how managers set growth expectations and goals for their team members. First, it’s been shown that employees who are provided with growth opportunities are more likely to be engaged on the job. This results in greater productivity and retention.
You also want to hire leaders who are reasonable when setting goals. They need to strike the right balance between holding their team members to high standards and knowing when a goal is too ambitious.
For instance, a good leader will set a goal that involves an employee eventually mastering a new skill that will allow him or her to move up to another position at the company. This is the kind of growth opportunity employees respond to. That said, it must be expected that these skills will take time to develop, particularly if they are not a central component of the employee’s current job duties. While it is important to provide professional development opportunities, make sure all performance evaluations are based on the employee’s current responsibilities.
Ask about Tough Decisions
Leaders also need to be able to make tough decisions. On the one hand, they definitely need to be willing to listen to other viewpoints. You should never hire someone who thinks they are always right.
On the other hand, however, you should hire leaders who are willing to make the right call even when it is unpopular. Knowing this, you might want to ask candidates about times when they made challenging decisions in the past. Consider hiring those who clearly explain how they made a choice that wasn’t popular because they knew it was the right choice to make at the time.
Perhaps most importantly, seek out candidates who seem to be optimistic and passionate. There will be times when your company faces challenges. Those challenges are less likely to get in the way of the organization’s success if you hire leaders who can inspire their team members.
