CLEVELAND -

It’s a scenario perhaps not too uncommon to many finance company executives. They determined one of their key employees is incapable or unwilling to succeed with the company.

To illustrate why it’s important to focus on six root factors that drive search success, Automotive Personnel founder Don Jasensky shared a case study about how a finance company first went about finding a new top executive.

Jasensky recapped that a finance company hired his consulting firm, and he met with its five-person hiring committee. This initial meeting was to assemble the experiences, traits and qualities the finance company was seeking for its new executive. 

“I asked this group of executives what are the objectives for the position — metrics — the numbers to understand where they are at and where they want to get to,” Jasensky said. “They were flummoxed. No one really had a handle on what success would look like in terms of numbers.

“Bad start, but typical,” he added.

Then Jasensky moved to a key question he thought would help the committee formulate a strategy.  A year from now, what will this candidate need to accomplish to be considered a great hire? After posing that question, Jasensky said, “a hockey game broke out.

“It quickly became apparent that each committee member had a different idea of what the responsibilities and authority level would be,” he continued. “‘Authority creep’ may have been on the minds of some of the members to cut up a little bigger piece of the corporate pie for themselves. Another member was looking to unload several of his undesirable responsibilities on this new executive.

“Their interviewing questions were mainly perfunctory with little substance to get to the true ability of an interviewee,” Jasensky went on to say. “We helped the group form a list of intelligent interviewing questions that would be their road map for conducting productive interviews.

“I encouraged an open discussion, room for respectful arguing and helped lead them away from hiring a camel and getting the race horse they were seeking,” he added.

To get that executive to help the company flourish, Jasensky recommended that the hiring committee focus on the six root factors that will drive success. That rundown included:

• Define success by position objectives and goals. What are the numbers now and where should they be? This is a metrics question.  Understand the numbers before you start your search.

• Define problems the new employee needs to correct.

• Define opportunities the new employee can leverage.

• With experience, setting a hard number is usually a mistake. Never be married to a number. Why? Jasensky explained some people are doing a better job after five years than others after 15 or 20 years. “You need enough experience to excel at the position, but ‘enough’ can vary greatly among candidates,” he said. “Allow for this in your search.”

• Who will be part of the hiring committee?  Discuss the position with them so each is looking for the same candidate. “Remember that a camel is a race horse selected by a committee,” Jasensky said.

• Prepare a list of intelligent interviewing questions that will lead to a great hire.

More suggestions about hiring quality employees can be found at www.searchpro1.com.