Recruiting senior managers: the IRS report

Filling senior management posts is crucial to organisational success, and employers are willing to spend thousands of pounds and many months to find the best candidate, as this IRS report shows.

On this page:
Recruiting senior managers: in summary
Metrics: Time to hire
Problems with recruitment timescales
Metrics: Cost per hire
Problems with recruitment costs
Metrics: Agency fees
What are employers looking for in their senior management recruits?
Problems with role definitions and consistent recruitment
Organising recruitment: the appointment panel
The appointment panel's responsibilities
Finding suitable candidates for senior manager vacancies
Employers' responses to skills shortages
Internal recruitment
External recruitment
The role of succession planning
Search and selection
The performance of agencies
Problems with agencies and some solutions
The application process
Selection methods in current use
Interviewing: the preferred formats
Getting background information on candidates
Conducting internet searches on candidates
Recruiting senior managers: the public/private divide
Hints and tips about the recruitment of senior managers
Our research
Table 1: Time to hire - the typical length of time required to fill senior management vacancies
Table 2: Cost per hire - the typical cost of filling senior management vacancies
Table 3: Agency fees for senior management recruitment
Table 4: Appointment panels' involvement in the recruitment process
Table 5: The ways in which employers identify candidates for senior management posts
Table 6: The selection methods used when filling senior management vacancies
Table 7: Employers' interviewing formats for senior management appointments
Checklist: Recruiting senior managers
Resources
Tables broken down by broad economic sector and workforce size