There’s a standard executive search process: defining the job, planning the search, sourcing talent, interviewing candidates, assessing candidates, narrowing down the candidate field, making a job offer, and hiring. However, within this basic framework, a number of strategic moves can increase the effectiveness of the search process, including completing a search faster and finding a better candidate to hire. Here are some of the steps you can take to be more strategic in your in-house executive recruiting. 1. Make sure your job description aligns with company goals. It seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many companies fail to consider overall goals before they create a job description for an executive position. This alignment doesn’t happen by accident, and it may involve having one or more meetings with the executive team or a representative as the search begins. Once you get the job description nailed down, the rest of your process will become much easier, and you’ll be highly inclined to follow this strategy moving forward. 2. Focus on passive talent. In the search for executive talent, the search team’s focus should be on finding passive talent. Given the tight labor market and the importance of having experienced executives, the best talent is likely to already be employed. Referrals, cold calls, and prior relationships are the primary tools your team should use in its executive search efforts because these are the methods that are the most likely to bring passive candidates to light. 3. Develop a smooth candidate experience. Making sure your candidate experience is positive will not only keep busy executives engaged, but it will also help you develop your own talent network that can be used for future hiring needs. A good candidate experience focuses on user-friendliness and relationships. Really, the bottom line is the Golden Rule—treating other people the way you would want to be treated. It takes some extra time and effort to observe the Golden Rule in your recruiting, but it will yield positive results. 4. Evaluate and track your process. It’s nearly impossible to improve on your executive hiring process if you don’t have a way to collect data and evaluate it. Thrive TRM can help with many aspects of your executive search process from collecting data and comparing candidates to tracking time to hire, retention, and more. With Thrive TRM, you can establish automatic communications that will save you time and improve your candidate experience by keeping executive candidates and your team updated on the search process. Schedule a demo to learn more about how Thrive TRM can help.