Transparency: A Key When Recruiting Leaders

When hiring for a job opening, especially a leadership position, it’s essential to give the job candidate a clear, accurate, and honest vision of what the job entails. This ensures you are attracting and retaining the best candidates.

Some hiring managers feel they need to sell the job and put the most positive spin on it. But in the long run, this is counterproductive. To make an informed decision, the candidate needs to have the most comprehensive picture of the job – both the good and bad aspects.

Here are some of the aspects of the company and the job you need to share:

1. Culture

The company needs to be candid about its culture, the expectations, values, and viewpoint that drive the business. This is crucial to communicate to anyone moving into a leadership position.

2. Lynchpin employees

The job candidate should also receive an overview of the company’s organizational structure, who the important people are, and their roles.

3. Company operations

What are the important factors that the candidate needs to know about how the company operates and the various processes and procedures that are key to the company’s continued success and growth.

4. Projections

You also need to be open with the candidate about the company’s financial situation. What are the prospects for future growth? How is the current company situated within its market and industry? What are the competitive pressures like?

As a general rule, the more transparent you can be with candidates, the better. However, there are some situations when you do need to withhold information. You don’t want to share financial documents with candidates, trade secrets, commercial methods, or similar kinds of information.

However, there are exceptions to this injunction, such as when interviewing people for CEO, CFO, or COO. In these cases, you need to share this type of confidential information. You should also, however, put together a non-disclosure agreement.

You also need to take measures to maintain the confidentiality of the candidate’s job search. You don’t want to put them at risk with their current place of employment. That means delaying reference checks until just near the end of the hiring process.

Find Your Next Leader

If your company is looking for qualified, reliable people, G.A. Rogers can provide them. We thoroughly screen all of our job candidates to ensure they have the skills and experience you need and that they will be a good fit for your company. Give us a call today.