How to Hire for Vice President and Executive Roles?

How to hire a president of a subsidiary business unit or a vice president of a large company is a question that has been put up by a lot of business owners and HR directors. Whom should you work with to hire a president or a vice president? How should you frame the executive search process? Find answers to all these questions and other questions about how to hire a president or a vice president.

Hiring Vice Presidents and C-Suite executives are pivotal in any organization. The vice-president and executive job roles come with high responsibilities that decide how the company will function and progress.

Vice Presidents and top executives need to mentor directors and senior managers and participate in decision-making about organizational policies, goals, and strategies. Hiring a Vice President or filling a C-suite position is best done with the help of a C-suite executive search agency or headhunter. Here are points taken from what top C-Suite recruitment specialists advise and recommend about vice president recruitment and C-suite recruitment.

What To Look For When Hiring For Vice President Positions?

1. Strategic Planning Experience For Increasing Revenue-Generation

Every company’s top goals are to increase sales and revenue and to achieve that goal, you need a strong marketing strategy, and it is only fruitful when it comes from experience. Vice Presidents play a huge role in planning and directing revenue-generating activities. They take accountability for achieving the business goals related to sales, business development, order management, and account management. It becomes necessary to hire a candidate with adequate experience in making strategic plans for revenue generation.

2. Financial Understanding To Improve Budgeting And Operations Costs

If your question is about how to hire a president of a financial company or a Vice President of Finance Operations, then the first and foremost criteria for judging eligibility for the roles are track record, skills, business acumen, and industry knowledge related to financial operations management.

Even if the position is not Vice President of Finance, a vice president has to supervise and play a key role in all decision-making related to financial planning, budgeting, and operational cost management. Before shortlisting candidates for the second round of interviews, find out all you need to know about candidates’ track records in financial planning, budgeting, and operations cost management.

3. Ability To Lead, Drive, And Mentor Key Departments And Teams

A Vice President of Operations, Sales, or other areas must be capable of leading their teams to achieve set goals and targets. In organizations where most employees are from specialized fields and academic backgrounds, Vice Presidents need to provide servant leadership and act as facilitators. One more essential quality is to be good at analyzing each division’s performance and offering their heads or directors corrective feedback.

4. Superior Skills in Liasoning and Investor Relations Management

According to C-suite recruitment experts, vice presidents in many companies are also actively involved in supervising or leading key liasoning and investor relations activities. The activities involve guiding and managing functions that concern building relationships with target investors. These activities play an important role in the growth of an organization, as they are critical in evaluating the feasibility and viability factors related to various projects and business moves.

5. Ability To Oversee And Improve Compliance and Risk Management

Compliance with rules and regulations is key to a company’s reputation and survival in a highly tough multi-industry and multilevel governance environment prevailing across countries. Knowing risk management is a bonus point. How to hire a President or Vice President is a question that also needs to be understood from a C-level perspective.

C-suite recruitment experts identify best-match candidates for Vice President roles not only based on their experience, track record, past performance, and knowledge but also based on behavioral traits and personality strengths that are relevant in terms of working with the C-Suite and board of directors.

What To Look For When Hiring For C-Suite Positions?

1. Outstanding Track Record in Business Performance Improvement

A candidate being selected for a C-Suite position must have a good track record of their past job describing their achievements, strengths, and failures.

There are various methods to measure and improve business performance: the year-over-year profit margin and revenue growth, brand reputation, image and value of the company and its product, organizational efficiency, financial performance, etc. C-suite executive search experts advise that the interview panel should deeply scrutinize candidates’ real achievements and understanding in these areas.

2. Experience in Strategic And Implementation Planning – Growth, Technology, Transformation, Risk Management

C-suite leaders should be experts in strategy and implementation planning for key areas such as business growth, technology-based value transformations, and related risk management. C-suite executives need to be proactive rather than reactive when it comes to coping with market changes, regulatory changes affecting their operations and markets, and technology changes.

3. Excellent Collaboration Skills With Internal Leaders and Employees

C-suite executive search experts often find during due diligence of departing leaders that superior listening skills are a big asset for C-suite positions. The ability to listen to new and creative ideas, open-mindedness that supports diversity, and getting high performance from employees from diverse backgrounds, etc. are some of the key skills that enable greater collaboration.

4. Ability To Lead Key Enterprise-Wide Initiatives To Improve Operational Efficiency And Profitability

A C-suite leader has to initiate new operational programs and initiatives for improving operational efficiencies across business units and prepare the right strategies to increase business performance and profitability year over year.

5. Sound Knowledge of Technologies Key To Project and Process Management

When hiring for new C-suite roles, a candidate must hold a good knowledge of new technologies. Whether it is about business process management systems, Cloud storage, data science, insight-driven enterprise-wide improvements, or customer experience management, C-suite leaders take all the key decisions.

Partner With A C-Suite Executive Search Agency To Hire Vice Presidents And Top Executives

Wide, Diverse, Superior Talent Attraction And Engagement From Target Locations (Nationwide or Global)

A C-suite executive search agency allows organizations access to a wide, diverse talent base from strategic geographies for C-suite and Vice President hiring. Headhunters of a C-suite recruitment agency can approach the best talent in the market and persuade them to consider working for your company.

Less Time To Hire

Without the help of an expert C-suite recruitment consultant, the average time to hire for Vice President and C-suite roles is 5-7 months. A competent C-suite executive search firm enables companies to reduce this time to 2-3 months.

Optimized Recruitment Management

Optimizing recruitment management has become very important and necessary in this fast world. It is wiser to use tech-enabled techniques to optimize the recruitment process. Enhancing candidates’ experience, giving preference to proactive hiring, encouraging gender diversity, and speeding up offer management are some of the recommended practices.

Conclusion

Hiring for top roles requires the services of experienced and brilliant C-suite recruitment consultants. Take a note of the points mentioned above and find out how your organization can improve its hiring practices for top roles.

Alliance International

Alliance International is a global company offering recruitment services in India, the USA, Canada, the UK, EMEA, South Asia, Asia-Pacific, and Australia. We have worked with thousands of companies and helped them hire outstanding leaders for top and senior management positions. We have an outstanding track record in top leadership recruitment that spans 12+ years.

Please get in touch with us if you want to learn more about the vice president and executive roles recruiting.