Do you own a company and are considering hiring an exectutive? How do you know when you should hire from within or find an external applicant? What kind of questions should you ask during the interview?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When your startup grows and you find yourself in need of an executive, the first step is to decide whether you should hire from within or externally. The next step is the hiring process and determining who is the best fit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep reading for advice on the executive hiring process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Editor\u2019s note: This article is part of\u00a0Shortform\u2019s guide to team-building<\/a>. If you like what you read here, there\u2019s plenty more to check out in the guide!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you\u2019re a startup, you may prefer executive hiring process that promote people from within. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So why hire senior executives at all? To move faster. They know how to do things that your company doesn\u2019t know right now, and bringing in outside knowledge will help your team learn faster and grow more quickly<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For any senior executive, consider how much of their job requires inside knowledge vs. outside knowledge. This will influence whether you should promote from within or hire from outside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s a process for hiring executives:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Executives at big companies and executives at startups have very different working styles.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In big companies, executives have lots of demands on their time, from departments they manage, to colleagues who want help, to customers and partners who want attention. Thus, big company executives are great at prioritizing, improving processes, and designing organizations. They don\u2019t need to create as much as they need to filter, triage, and optimize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In startups, nothing gets done until you do it. No one wants your attention, and the ball doesn\u2019t move forward unless you push it. Therefore, startup executives need to be able to do the functional work well, know how to build a team<\/a> from scratch, and know how to build processes from scratch. Startup executives need to create new directions themselves and push them forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, a big company executive might be a poor fit for a startup<\/strong>. He might land in your company and sit around waiting for things to happen. Then nothing gets done, and people resent his high compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t a total dismissal of all big company execs. You just need to be careful when hiring them and when onboarding them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When interviewing a big company exec, ask questions that indicate awareness of the difference in job needs:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nWhen to Hire an Executive <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Executive Hiring Process<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Hiring Executives from Big Companies<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n