Hiring the right leaders for your business is critical to success, they are the people that will define and implement short and long term strategy so its extremely important that the right candidate is selected.
I speak to lots of businesses who have made a senior appointment based on a referral, the risk averse part of us will naturally feel reassured by a personal reference - but does this potentially hinder a process, and at times get in the way of a business making the best hire.
To ensure the best candidate is hired, in my experience it’s critical that a robust and thorough process is followed to ensure you recruit the right candidate. A personal reference is brilliant, but that candidate should form part of a complete process and be assessed and bench marked in the same way as the other candidates
In this talent-first era of business performance, having the right person in the right position is essential. Hiring by word of mouth means talent referrals from someone you know and trust, and the speed and power of the grapevine is clear. However, word of mouth hiring can introduce bias into the process by potentially limiting the number of candidates for consideration. It also discourages diversity of the talent pool by highlighting candidates with a connection to the company.
