While every recruitment decision that a studio makes is important, hiring the ideal candidates for senior positions is critical to its success.
Here are 3 reasons why hiring the right seniors is so important:
- The senior team of a studio will be participating in decision-making processes that not only shape the firm’s culture, but also determine its future.
- They can also significantly affect the levels of employee motivation and engagement, and overall collaboration, which are crucial for a studio’s success.
- They are the face of the studio, managing projects and client relationships, and also networking with future clients and developing current and new sectors.
Here are 3 reasons why attracting seniors is so hard in the current market:
- Talent Acquisition is also one of the most challenging tasks that a firm can face because the present-day job market favors employees that are exceptional and every firm is trying to attract the best industry talent.
- This means the best senior talent know that they are in demand and this gives them the liberty to put forward their conditions for working at a firm.
- Another factor that makes hiring the best people for senior positions even more difficult is that most of them are not actively looking for a job.
Here are 5 ways to attract seniors:
- The very first step is to think about the compelling message – why do staff enjoy working for us? What makes your firm and the role unique?
- Secondly think about the next bounce of the ball, seniors by nature are ambitious, and so they will want to know not only the now, but how they can progress in their firm. Create a roadmap or career progression plan
- From here you can start to craft a job description. This will help to figure out your needs. Think outside of just technical abilities, think about where the position fits into the structure, and objectives both here and now and 6 months’ and 12 months’ time.
- Once you have identified the requirements of a position, create a candidate persona to define your ideal candidate.
- Think long term and strategic what can they bring to the studio, what level of mentoring are you prepared to provide, what are the must have’s and where are the flexible points.
Persuading a Senior to quit their existing job and move to a competitor firm is a challenging task and if done the wrong way, can waste time and money for all key stakeholders.
At Glue Executive, we see finding, nurturing and present senior talent to our clients as our key value add.
We either already know the potential candidate(s) where they are working, what drives them; money, power, ability to make an impact, or the desire to lead.
We also spend time taking a deep dive strategic approach to every assignment, and often challenge our clients to create better compelling messages for both the role and their firm.
As mentioned earlier, recruiting for senior positions is challenging, but highly important task, so don’t rush through it and be patient.