Finding a good executive
can be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Just ask Caroline W. Nahas,
managing director of Korn/Ferry
International’s Southern
California office.
“The best executives — people who can really make a difference — are tough to find,”
says Nahas, whose office posted
2007 revenue of $23.2 million.
But that doesn’t mean the task
is impossible.
While managing the 60 employees at the executive recruitment firm’s Southern California
office, Nahas has picked up a
few helpful tricks, including
expanding your initial search
outside of your industry to others that yield the kind of executives you’re interested in.
Smart Business spoke with
Nahas about how to gain clarity
about the position you’re trying
to fill and how to approach an
outstanding potential candidate.
Q. What should every
executive know before trying
to recruit someone to his or
her leadership team?
First, they need to have clarity
about the role for which they’re
recruiting, both in terms of the
content of the role but also the
expectations for that role and
the person fulfilling it.
Secondarily, they need to be
prepared to give a scenario
analysis in an honest way of why
the opening exists and what the
potential is given outstanding
performance for the future.
Q. How do you gain that
clarity about the role?
A healthy exercise, whether
you’re using a search firm or not,
is to actually sit down and document the responsibilities and the
context of the position: The position is responsible for X, peer
positions would be X, Y, and the
position reports to the CEO.
So again, they know what the
role is, but also what is the role
in the context of the whole
company and how does it fit?
And then a description of the
actual content of the role from
the standpoint of the metrics:
How large is it? Is it a transforming role?
Think about the role and
responsibilities and the context
in which it’s positioned. The
next part would be what are the
requirements needed in terms
of a profile of an individual. What skills does a
person have to bring to
be successful in this role?
