4 ways to hire tomorrow’s finest future leaders today

While hiring for a vacancy is a relatively straightforward task, hiring future leaders today is a different matter

One of the most complex and challenging aspects of running an organisation is the need to hire in employees who can meet your vision for the future, or who show the potential for future leadership. So, how do you screen for future leaders? Pay attention to every step of your hiring process to set your organisation up for future success.

The best hire the best

Talent attracts talent, so pack your interviewing panel with A-players and other future leaders to act as brand ambassadors and to attract the best candidates.

They’ll have the ability to recognise and screen for talent and potential, setting the bar high and ensuring that your talent pool of future leaders is deep.

Create a dynamic interview process

Your interview process should be as unique and as dynamic as the candidates themselves. Your normal hiring processes may be robust and foolproof, but they’re not designed to uncover future leadership qualities in the candidates.

In order to identify the qualities and information that will facilitate the decision-making process, you need to create a less standardised and structured process that can identify the skills, capabilities and qualities your candidates possess that match them to a future leadership role.

Focus on motivation

When you’re hiring for a critical position within the organisation, you need candidates with an ethos, values, purpose and culture that are a close fit with those of your organisation.

A vital step in the recruitment process is on-boarding talented individuals who also make a close ideological and motivational fit with your organisation now and going forward. Discovering what motivates and drives your future leadership candidates is a vital step in the process, allowing you to gauge whether an individual makes a good fit.

Simulate realistic challenges

You expect your candidates to come prepared to demonstrate their leadership skills, and you should create opportunities within the dynamic interviewing process for them to demonstrate these traits. But to relate that experience directly to the specific challenges of your organisation, focus on creating realistic environments and challenges that they’ll encounter in your organisation.

Go as far as to encourage interaction between candidates and potential colleagues to demonstrate leadership, teamwork and problem-solving skills. In this way you can assess their qualities, abilities and behaviours at first hand in order to gauge whether they possess the leadership skills that are relevant to your organisation.

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The British Institute of Recruiters is the Professional Body operating The Recruitment Certification Scheme

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