An in-house executive search team may be composed of a leader who has recruiting experience, fellow executives from within the company and outside it, a middle management representative or two, and members who specialize in research and can help move the search along by finding and looking into candidates. Your team may be the best possible people for the job of executive search within your company, but the members may be doing some of the following things that discourage potential executive candidates without meaning to. 1. Making the Process too Cumbersome. Executives are typically busy people with many responsibilities. When someone on your team convinces a prospective candidate to participate in your recruiting process, it will be discouraging to them if you put them through a time-consuming ordeal that involves a long application, lots of documentation, and multiple lengthy interviews. Keeping the process streamlined and user-friendly will encourage them to stay with you and not drop out until the end of the process. 2. Being Careless With Privacy. Executives can’t afford to have information about their candidacy become public or get back to their current company, so the recruiting team needs to be very discreet and protective of information and data about candidates, including the way they make inquiries and conduct research about them. If candidates hear that any information they shared with you has gotten out beyond your team, they will quickly lose trust and will be unlikely to want to accept a position with your company no matter how attractive your offer. Thrive TRM offers encryption for all data in order to safeguard it and protect candidates’ privacy. 3. Communicating too Sporadically. While executive candidates are likely to be busy, they will want periodic updates on the search process as well as answers to their questions so they know where they stand and what time frame to expect for the decision process. You can use Thrive TRM to set up automatic messaging to keep everyone in the loop while maintaining privacy and keeping things personal enough to let your candidates know you’re still interested in their talents. 4. Failing to Make an Attractive Offer. Part of the interview and research process includes finding out what a preferred candidate needs in the compensation package, and if your team neglects this important step and puts out a canned offer that isn’t customized for a particular candidate’s needs, you are likely to lose the candidate rather than making a successful hire. Hiring teams don’t intend to discourage the talent they are considering for an executive position, but in-house teams haven’t always developed the methods other recruiters may use to keep candidates engaged and in the process. By avoiding these pitfalls, you will maximize the chances of getting the talent you want instead of losing them along the way. Thrive TRM offers features that can improve your recruiting and hiring process, including communication, data storage, and integrating with other software programs to speed up and streamline the process. Contact us for more information about what we offer to in-house teams.