Executive Assessment Technique For Executive Search: How?

Finding the right candidate with the potential to stay on board for a long time and bring the company to the next level is a considerable undertaking in the executive search. Unfortunately, this kind of challenge may become insurmountable due to various factors.

One of the reasons the executive search is challenging is imperfect workflows with inefficient candidate assessment approaches. But with a suitable method, the recruitment process is less jumping over hoops and more walking in the park. 

Our team uses the Executive Assessment Technique for executive search-related candidate assessment. It is straightforward, and it goes straight to the point. This article explains why it works.

What is the Executive Assessment Technique?

First, the systematic approach to executive search candidate assessment is the solution to avoiding bad hires. In one way or another, the system includes: 

• Having a clear vision of what kind of candidate the company is looking for 
• Using appropriate tools to assess the candidate’s skills and experience regarding the vacant position.

But that’s a general statement. Here’s the meat to the bone. 

Executive Assessment Technique is our go-to candidate assessment approach. The Methodology revolves around the concept of compendious comprehension. This concept features an assessment of understanding, ambition, uncertainty, uniqueness and aptitude (more on that later). 

• Executive Assessment Technique is designed to get as much information about the candidate as possible. The approach aims at collecting relevant information gradually. 
• Each stage expands the candidate’s portrait in the position’s context. For example, first, you review the candidate’s background and relevant career experience. Then you study the niche knowledge and its particulars. Then you assess the practical skills through various test exercises or behavioral questions. As you can see, each stage assesses a different candidate’s facet.  

Executive Assessment Technique’s ultimate goal is to form a comprehensive candidate portrait, with personal traits, professional skills, values, and other aspects laid down and mapped out. In other words, Executive Assessment Technique gives you everything the company needs to make a well-informed decision that will ultimately benefit the company in the long run.

• When done right, Executive Assessment Technique presents you with a complete breakdown of a candidate within the position’s context with his strong suits, weak points, advantages, and disadvantages ready for consideration. 

Let’s break down what each Executive Assessment Technique means.

Executive Assessment Technique Breakdown

Executive Assessment Technique revolves around several key aspects. Let’s look at them one by one:

• Understanding – putting pieces together to form the big picture. How the candidate performed in the past, his relationship with superiors, his expertise, etc. That’s the defining element of comparing a candidate’s “stats” with the position requirements. 

• Ambition – what the candidate wants to achieve, what he aspires to, what drives him to succeed, etc. That’s what makes a foundation for building a company’s mutually beneficial relationship with the new hire. This information creates a connective tissue. 
• Uncertainty – everything that might become an issue in one way or another. It essentially assesses the candidate’s motivation – how his needs correlate with career decisions and worldview and whether it fits with the company’s culture and organizational values. 
• Uniqueness – the candidate’s competitive advantages, which make him stand out from the rest and make him distinct. This includes the candidate’s managerial skills, knowledge of relevant technology; having relevant skills to get the job; teamwork skills, and how the candidate measures and assesses his achievements. 

• Aptitude – aka candidate’s career potential and what it means for the company. This aspect contextualizes the candidate’s skills within the company and assesses whether the combination of the company’s environment and the candidate’s skills will result in a positive change.

As you can see, Executive Assessment Technique provides an efficient framework that allows you to gather as much valuable information about the candidate as you need. 

The result is what the company strives for – a well-reasoned decision regarding whether this particular candidate fits the position requirements and, what’s more critical – fits the company’s culture and shares its values.

But what makes it work?

As mentioned previously, the systematic approach is the key to a successful executive search hiring process. That’s what the Executive Assessment Technique is all about. 

• Executive Assessment Technique brings a transparent structure to the proceeding that is easy to follow and highly efficient for decision-making.

Here’s how:

• Executive Assessment Technique requires strong detailed job specifications coupled with an ideal candidate profile. It is a foundation of an efficient recruitment process, allowing recruiters to understand what to look for and how to find it.

Executive Assessment Technique focuses on four crucial candidate aspects that impact his relevance to the position requirements and the company’s expectations. 

• This approach balances the candidate assessment as you can sort out available information into an easy-to-follow system and understand whether you have everything you require or need to get a bit more information.

The other important thing that Executive Assessment Technique brings to the hiring workflow is pace. Executive search is not a race, but it doesn’t mean that recruiters try to get things done faster than usual. That can lead to missing some important information, making an uninformed decision, and ultimately pulling a bad hire. 

• Executive Assessment Technique aims at gradual information collecting – it allows recruiters to structure the candidate assessment in a mutually comfortable and efficient way. Instead of tiresome interrogation, the candidate gets an engaging conversation, while the recruiters get to inventory the candidate’s features without getting clinical about it. 

How does Executive Assessment Technique Solve Executive Search Challenges?

Let’s look at a couple of cases that showcase the Executive Assessment Technique’s effectiveness in executive search.

Case 1

The company was looking for an executive to handle the company’s entry into the new market. The primary focus was on candidates who knew the niche and had experience with the local market. 

The choice came down to 2 candidates. One of them was a seasoned executive with several successful cases of entering new markets. The other candidate was an up-and-coming top manager who took part in the company’s entering the new market, but he wasn’t at the helm. 

• Candidate A core strength was market knowledge and networking coupled with relevant operational experience. He went through the process a couple of times and knew everything the company needed to make it smooth. 
• On the other hand, A’s approach to management was more by-the-book, which could somewhat dissonate with the company’s more agile management style. However, A’s aspirations were more about getting yet another achievement for himself without significant long-term ambitions within the company. That was a big concern. 
• Candidate B’s core strength was an on-hand knowledge of most activities required to get the results coupled with solid onboarding skills and creative thinking. While his experience was not as impressive as Candidate A, B’s more intuitive management style was more fitting to the team, pointing out a much stronger culture fit. In addition, B aspired to build a legacy in the company and grow and evolve.

Executive Assessment Technique allowed us to break down the pros and cons of each candidate and consider the long-term potential of each regarding accomplishing the position’s goal.

The company took the risk and chose Candidate B over Candidate A. As a result, they entered a new market and established themselves in the niche while Candidate B was still with the company, busy managing the team.

Case 2

The company was establishing a local office in the new market. Our job was to find executives with local market insight, relevant niche networking, and solid cross-cultural competencies. 

The challenge was finding candidates with relevant experience that fit the company’s organizational values and culture. The catch is that it was deeply rooted in different national cultures (finding British candidates who would work well with Westernized Japanese). 

Because of that, our job was a balancing act. Here’s how Executive Assessment Technique helps us out:

• The company expected to find people who would be instrumental in establishing the company in the new market. This requirement means people with skills and market knowledge. These things alone may not benefit the company. Culture fit and cross-culture skills were critical.  
• In terms of business insights, our candidates were more or less equal. However, the crucial difference was how they contextualized their decision-making in a different cultural environment.

Our ultimate goal was to find people who would “grow” in the company. Therefore, we looked closely at what candidates aspired to – candidates with a “journey, not the destination” mindset had a stronger culture fit than goal-oriented candidates. 

• During interviews, open-minded candidates with cultural awareness made a better impression on the management. 
• At the same time, candidates with a more structured and systematic approach with less cultural awareness showcased a better fit into the company’s results-driven workplace culture.

On the surface, it seems like open-minded candidates would take the cake. However, the company expected to find long-term anchors in the market, so choosing systematic ones made more business sense to go with them. 

The result: the company established itself in the British market and is now one of the leading companies in its niche.

In conclusion

Executive Assessment Technique methodology is like a “method to the madness” of executive search. It brings a much-needed transparent, easy-to-follow approach to candidate assessment. As a result, the company gets a firm foundation for decision-making that will benefit them in the long term perspective.