Hiring the right C-level executive is one of the most critical decisions a company can make, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Executive leadership shapes strategic direction, drives performance, and influences company culture. Yet, the cost of making a poor executive recruitment decision is staggering. A bad hire at the C-level can cost an organisation over $1 million in lost revenue, decreased productivity, and team morale.
So, how can you ensure you’re making the right choice? By leveraging validated, data-driven psychometric tools like The Predictive Index (PI). The Predictive Index (PI) was specifically designed for workplace use, including during recruitment, and offers tools and assessments to ensure that your executive candidate’s behavioural drives and cognitive abilities are an overall fit for the role and the strategic goals of your leadership team.
The Cost of Executive Recruitment Hires
Have you ever had that gut feeling that a candidate is perfect for a role… only to be surprised or even disappointed 6-12 months later when it’s not working out? With the significant impact of a C-level hire, it’s a risk you just can’t take.
We strongly recommend The Predictive Index to eliminate the guesswork in your executive recruitment search. With over 350 validity studies across 65 years and 37.5 million assessments completed worldwide, PI offers unmatched accuracy in C-level executive recruitment. The Predictive Index assesses your candidate’s behavioural needs and cognitive ability, which when combined with a structured interview process account for up to 51% predictability of a candidate’s success in a role.
Given a C-level hire’s impact on your business, having over half of the critical decision-making guided by proven science-backed data significantly increases your chances of making the right hiring decision… because a mismatched executive hire is costly.
When Executive Recruitment goes wrong: A real-world example
The Founder of one of our clients sought a successor – a CEO to take his place and continue growing the business. Finding the right fit for such a high-stakes role can be a real challenge, not to mention the personal, emotional and financial investment the Founder held in this important decision.
This Founder was introduced to a candidate through his network who seemed like a perfect fit, but when profiled with The Predictive Index (PI), the results revealed otherwise.
While the candidate appeared to have the required skills and said everything right, their behavioural profile highlighted that they preferred working independently and avoiding social interactions. This raised concerns for the departing Founder, as the role demanded a hands-on leader who would engage face-to-face with multiple teams across multiple locations.
So here you have a Founder who has a positive feeling about a candidate and the PI data showing a potential misalignment with the role and its requirements.
Ultimately, the Founder decided to follow their gut instinct and hired the candidate.
A year went by… and then the phone rang.
It was the Founder, who said that they had to step back into the business, and we were asked to help find a replacement.
So, what had happened? Well, the new CEO had struggled in the role, spending most of their time in the office and avoiding the required team and face-to-face interactions that were crucial to its success.
Everything The Predictive Index had flagged that year earlier came to light, costing the company and its Founder over six figures and twelve months in lost time, productivity, morale, and resources.
Now, it’s important to note that this is not to say that the candidate was bad or unskilled for the job. What it does say is that the candidate’s behavioural needs were not aligned with the role and this created a deep level of disengagement and a negative domino effect throughout the company.
Unfortunately, this is a story all too common, but there is hope. With PI, you can avoid these costly missteps and ensure you have science-backed data in your recruitment process to ensure you are hiring the right person in the right role from the get-go.
Now, there is a happy ending to this story: the Founder leveraged PI again when trying to find a replacement, and we are pleased to report they found a suitable candidate who is behaviourally aligned and fits the role perfectly.
Understanding Team Dynamics is the only way to ensure you’re hiring the right fit to achieve strategic objectives as a leadership team
By understanding a candidate’s qualifications and abilities, behavioural drivers, and how they fit within your Leadership Team Dynamic, you can minimise the risk of a bad hire and increase your chances of hiring the right Executive Leader to achieve your strategic objectives and growth ambitions.
Predictive Index’s Design module includes the Team Discovery Tool, which maps your Leadership Team’s behavioural dynamics to 4 quadrants, revealing how well-equipped you are as a leadership team to meet your strategic objectives.
For example, if your company objectives are really innovative (imagine new and unique products or services), you will need a person in the team with a Venturer or Captain behavioural profile pattern or similar – as these are the types of people who thrive in taking charge in ambitious scenarios.
The absence of this profile within your Leadership Team Dynamic is the strongest signal you need for your next executive hire to be a behavioural match in this quadrant.
Similarly, if your strategic objectives relate to Teamwork and Employee Experience (such as growing customer advocacy and retaining employees) but you’re missing people in your team in this quadrant, you’ll need a profile like a Promoter, or a Collaborator, as these are the people who really bring your team together and along the journey.
Making the right executive recruitment decision is essential to drive success and achieve growth ambitions
Relying solely on intuition or traditional hiring methods can lead to significantly costly missteps and setbacks for any role, but especially when hiring for critical roles like C-level executives.
The Predictive Index (PI) Behavioral Assessment offers a proven, data-driven approach that assesses a candidate’s qualifications and reveals their natural behavioural drivers, cognitive abilities, and strategic fit within the team.
With PI’s insights, you can minimise the risks associated with executive search and recruitment, ensuring that your new leader is qualified, skilled, and behaviourally aligned with your company’s culture, team dynamics and strategic goals.
The stakes are too high to rely on gut feelings – using PI allows you to make informed, strategic hiring decisions backed by over 65 years of research and data and enables you to find the right leader to propel your business forward.
The bottom line? Strategic recruitment decisions backed by data will always lead to better business outcomes.
Get in touch with our team to learn more about how The Predictive Index can enhance your executive recruitment process or try it for free yourself here.