Recruiting leaders is one of the most important tasks you’ll be faced with when it comes to the growth of your company. Recruiters have a different approach when it comes to finding ideal candidates for leadership roles within your business, and they tend to be a little more thorough. It’s extremely important that their values and ideal align with your views for your company, so that you can fully place your trust in them to carry out their duties in a manner you’d be happy with. When choosing candidates to fill the leadership roles in your company, you’ll indirectly be deciding what direction the company will grow in, or if it’ll grow at all. Choosing people who will inspire and motivate employees to keep working hard and putting forth their best effort will guarantee success—but the hard part is finding the applicants that can do that. Staffing agencies can be a great help when looking for new leadership or management, but it’s always good to know what to look for, even if you’re just doing the final screening. To learn about what you should look for in potential leaders for your organization, keep on reading.

Qualities to Look for in Candidates

Relevant Knowledge

First and foremost, you’ll want to make sure that they’re knowledgeable about your industry, and know what they’re doing. Keep in mind that your employees will likely be going to them for guidance, so you want to be absolutely sure that they know the ins and outs of your industry, so they can advise staff accordingly. Employers can also look out for experience in similar industries—sometimes, having worked in another environment or industry for some time could further develop their knowledge, which can be applied to their position with your company.

Approach

Another quality to look out for is their approach to teaching, learning, and managing. Some candidates have stellar knowledge and all of the credentials you’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean that they also know how to work with people, especially in an environment that you’re creating. Chance are, you have a vision for your business and idea of how you’d like things to work. When hiring leaders to help you achieve that vision, you need to make sure that their approach on how to do things align with that vision. Once you gauge how they approach things like problem solving, managing employees, and more, you’ll have a better idea of how well they’ll fit into your company.

Substantial Management Experience

Management experience is important when hiring new leadership, since it’s a completely different ballgame from whatever industry work they may have done before. Managing people can be even more complicated and difficult to navigate, and it’s imperative to make sure that the person you hire is able to handle it. That’s not to say you shouldn’t hire someone with little or no management experience—but if you do, you should plan to keep them under your wing and teach them the ropes of management for a while before you let them go out on their own. Letting an inexperienced manager take the reins before they’re ready can be detrimental.

Stability and Consistency

When assessing a candidate’s work history, look out for consistency on their resume. How many positions have they had in the past five years? Ten? If it seems like they jump from job to job frequently, it may be worth asking them about it during the interview. They may have a perfectly good explanation, but you want to make sure that it’s not a habit they’ve become partial to—it won’t be good for morale if employees experience a constant change in leadership.

Personality Traits They Should Possess

Attitude

During the screening process, take note of their attitude towards their current job, and the responsibilities of this one. While some work conditions may be particularly unfavorable, it`s important for prospective leaders to make the best of situations—that means they should put a positive spin on anything that comes their way. If they express disdain for their current employer, keep an ear out to see if they’ll counter it with something good they’ve gained from the experience. If they only speak of the negative, it’s a signifier that they’re unable to focus on the big picture, and are generally affected by negative experiences.

Vision & Will

To prove themselves as a good leader, candidates should have a solid vision for the organization, and a plan of how they plan to get there. Asking them about their future plans and where they’d like to be in the next 5-10 years will help you understand whether their own plans align with where you’d like to take the company, and if they’d be a good fit.

Awards and Achievements

While award and achievements aren’t usually a requirement for positions, it’s nice to see that applicants have been recognized for outstanding work. It can be a signifier that they tend to go above and beyond their duties, and do whatever it takes to get the job done, and support their staff members. No one wants just satisfactory leaders—they want them to be exceptional, so that they can inspire team members to be outstanding as well.

Collaborate with Recruitment Agencies

A great way to find the ideal candidate for your leadership roles is to collaborate with a top recruitment company, like Resolve Recruit Inc. Our recruiters will find the best fit for your company, regardless of the expectations you set—we pride ourselves on being able to make mutually beneficial relationships between clients and our extensive database of job seekers. Contact us today to learn more about our recruitment services, and to ensure your company can choose its staff from the best candidate pool there is.