Challenges in selecting Senior-level executives - Puppala Mounika
During an informal meeting with one of my relatives who owns a medium sized software company, he shared the challenges his organization faces to fill senior level positions. He invited me to work on a project to resolve these issues. His invitation coincided with my course requirement to do a summer project for two months. I found it interesting and chose to take up the project.
I first started interviewing employees (especially HR managers and supervisors) which gave me sense that root cause of this problem is the selection process itself.
In order to propose a robust selection process, I referred to extant literature on recruitment processes, HR practices and organizational culture. Thereafter I went through literature on popular and successful selection processes and practices of Indian organizations, and also interviewed senior managers at some of those organizations. In the end, I proposed a framework which included a step-by-step procedure for the selection process.
Observations from interviews:
•Majority of interviewees said that Sourcing of applicants and Salary negotiations are the biggest challenges faced by companies in selecting senior level executives
•Around 77.78% of the organizations have a formal process to keep in touch/engage with the selected candidate
•On an average 80.28% of the candidates offered a job join the organization. The count is between 90% - 100% in 50% of the organizations
•Other important challenges mentioned:
-Deciding on the perfect fit for the organization
-Defining a meaty role for a senior level executive
-Time lag between offer and joining and thereafter retention
•Methods suggested by the interviewees to address the challenges:
-Better strategy and preparedness for different scenarios
-Plan early
-Effective communication
-By being in touch with the senior level executives outside office hours
-Training internal candidates for projected needs
-Cross cultural work
-Automated data gathering and analytics tools which help make right recruiting decisions
•Organizations expect these features from a service or a product which would help them in the selection process of senior-level executives:
-Quantitative measures or percentile for each factor of selection
-Getting the right people to apply for the job
-To maintain a separate data base (with reach across geographies, networks, organisations) of senior level executive profiles (this should be very confidential)
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