Developing Effective Hiring Strategies in the 2024 Boom: Focus on 'Key Players

The year 2023 marked a return to the balance between risk and decisions. With a more open landscape, companies began to resume and launch their aggressive growth and consolidation projects. This year, 2024, will be filled with opportunities for companies of all sizes, and the need for qualified personnel for this purpose is crucial.

Marketing, technology, and personnel will be the key elements to add to the strategy this year. In this article, we will focus on discussing how to recruit "Key Players." The first thing to note is that not all Key Players will be willing to accept your offer. Therefore, it is essential to execute recruitment processes aimed at finding individuals in the top 10% of Key Players willing to accept your offer.

Based on our experience as an international headhunting firm, we have observed that the best recruitment process begins with defining the problem that hiring a new person aims to solve. Creating a list of the eight main outcomes you expect from the new person in the company is crucial. This approach helps eliminate decisions based on gut feelings and emotions during interviews. While emotions are relevant when they are significant, the selection of executives and directors should be directly associated with the candidates' achievements and experience in delivering the desired results.

The best hiring does not depend on the best search or the best interviews; it all starts with defining the need. Invest time for yourself and your team in creating a list of attributes that define your Key Player. It is not necessary to delve into every aspect of a candidate's professional life, but rather focus on the parts of their career that enhance the probability of achieving the results required by the company and the vacancy today.

To achieve this, we recommend answering and writing responses to the following questions to use as a guide in the search, interview, and decision-making process for a Key Player for your team:

1. The current role's mission – In simple terms, without fancy bookish phrases. What does this position entail?
2. Origin - What triggered this vacancy? Why does it exist?
3. Achievements in 1 year – A list of 5 to 8 tangible achievements that the new person should accomplish in the first 12 months.
4. Immediate rejection criteria - What are the critical points in the Key Players' profile that, if absent, lead to the immediate rejection of a candidate?

Allocate at least 1 hour to each participant; the interview should trace the candidate's professional trajectory, and curiosity should be present during the conversation. Following these steps has proven to intelligently filter candidates from the beginning and successfully recruit individuals who will solve the initial problem. Greetings!