For decades, some nearly ubiquitous hiring principles, practices, and precepts regarding what to look for in a candidate, and what to look out for, have been considered commonplace.There are features of their background, history, and experience that—whether it’s for sales and marketing roles or the emergence of positions in the fast-growing ecommerce arena—ecommerce recruitment specialists can steer you in the right direction for making an educated hire.

Deal-Breakers You May Want to Reconsider

Years of Experience

Experience is among the hiring holy grails, and with good reason. There are absolutely some positions (most or all of them, some would argue) that simply require some practical, on-the-job know-how. However, all too often hiring managers treat experience like it’s a simple equation: More years equals better performance. But it’s just not the case. Being dazzled by Candidate A’s 15 steady but uneventful years of experience in the field at the expense of Candidate B’s 10 years of experience, during which they increased their department’s profit, output, growth, or performance by 150% is bad math.Fortunately, skilled C-level recruiters are industry experts and know the key indicators to look out for beyond just number of years of experience.

Personality Tests

Particularly in data science and analytic recruiting scenarios, those doing the hiring are often fond of demonstrable metrics. It makes sense—good data and well-fleshed metrics are incredibly powerful and precious tools for any business. That’s precisely what makes pre-employment personality tests and temperament inventories so attractive. And, once again, it’s not to say that those are useless or untrustworthy tools. Experienced C-level recruiting firms, for instance, have developed practical processes and systems that can prove incredibly helpful to determine culture fit and the like. So leave this one to the recruiting professionals who know how to assess top-tier talent from the rest and can detect when someone isn’t quite as good (or bad) as their personality assessment seems.

They’re Happily Employed

Skilled executive recruiters know that the best candidate for your C-level position might not be actively looking or have even applied. Fortunately, by partnering with an experienced C-level recruiting firm with industry expertise,you’ll benefit from working with a team that already has a lay of the land and knows skilled people in your area of business. They’ll also have the necessary sourcing skills and experience needed to find and discern top C-level talent.

Who Can Help

If sorting through this often seemingly contradictory and confusing dynamic seems overwhelming, especially with higher-level hires, a good solution is to contract with an experienced, trusted executive recruiting firm. Systematically culling through applicants and finding potential candidates in order to identify the top talent and the right person for the right position is what they do. For the success of your business, it’s a worthwhile investment.

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