While recruitment forecasts remain quite high, companies are still having difficulty attracting executive profiles. APEC investigated how to seduce executives in companies.
The frame is “an employee with expertise in a specific field, and who has a certain autonomy to achieve their objectives”. He is a versatile employee with responsibilities. On average, in 2021, it took a company 11 weeks to recruit an executive, compared to 9 weeks in 2020. For certain sectors of activity, such as IT, the recruitment period can go up to 6 months. However, recruitment forecasts remain high with 5% more executive hires expected in 2022, compared to 2021.
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Executive Recruitment: The Need to Adapt
One of the main strategies of companies is to adjust recruitment practices. The tension in recruitment represents a significant risk for the economic development of companies. Thus, they must adapt in particular to the profiles sought and the level of salaries offered. Unlike a few years ago, it is no longer the recruiter who has all the power over the recruits.
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The problems encountered by companies
APEC revealed in its survey that 7 out of 10 companies favor social networks in their recruitment strategy. Half of these companies have had difficulty recruiting executives and the figure is even higher in large companies, climbing to 61% compared to 41% in 2020. The difficulties are mainly due to two things: the lack of profiles available, and the gap between the profiles sought and that of the candidates.
Social networks: a new weapon for recruiting executives
To successfully hire, recruiters had to adopt a new way of attracting executives: multiplying recruitment channels. Last year, across all companies, regardless of size, 69% of recruiters used social media at least once. This is a record number since 2008. For companies with more than 250 employees (ETI and large companies), social networks were the second most used channel in 2021.
To maximize the chances of finding candidates, 36% of companies (compared to 29% in 2020) use more than 5 recruitment channels. We find in particular: the offers on the career site, but also those posted on dedicated sites, the mobilization of their networks, requests from schools and alumni associations, for example.
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The evolution of executive criteria
The job offer is the showcase of the company and therefore the major asset of recruiters since it remains the No. 1 recruitment channel. But this showcase must be neat. For 66% of executives, the quality of working conditions (which notably includes teleworking or RTT days) is important. 71% of the companies present in the offer the interest of the missions. This second point is deemed essential by executives, just behind compensation.
More than half of SMEs have raised the salaries offered to candidates to facilitate hiring. Adjustments were also made by the companies to the profile sought. 47% ended up recruiting a manager who did not have all the technical skills required. 46% accepted a candidate with less experience than initially envisaged.
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