During an executive recruitment period, timing and luck play important roles. Your company may overlook great CEO candidates because of factors that are beyond the job seekers' control, such as their resumes getting lost in the shuffle or prematurely being judged on a small flaw. Ignoring these professionals represents a possible lost opportunity for your firm.
Dr. John Sullivan touches upon this in a recent article for ERE.net on 'silver medalists,' the candidates who almost get hired and might deserve a second look later on.
He says that applicants are often rejected during the hiring process because of poor search planning, not the candidates themselves. For example, Dr. Sullivan writes that an inefficient hiring manager could reject a qualified person, or that they may have been lost in a "flood" of too many other excellent possible hires. The priorities of a company can change, too, making a candidate who used to be a bad fit suddenly more valuable.
"During the recent tight economic times, many recruiters and hiring managers got into the bad habit of rejecting a high percentage of their candidates for minor flaws, simply because there was an ample supply of qualified applicants remaining," Dr. Sullivan said. "As a result, many 'more-than-qualified candidates' were turned away."
According to data posted on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website last year, top executive employment will likely rise by more than 10 percent in the period between 2012 and 2022, depending on the industry. Following this and Dr. Sullivan's suggestions, hiring managers should look closer at the way they assessed candidates in the past: the current business environment might not require them to reject someone for a small error anymore.
A sure way to address problems in the hiring process is to work with the staff of a retained executive search firm, who will judge applicants fairly.
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