You’ve got a vacancy in your C-suite. The circumstances resulting in that vacancy can vary — retirement of an invaluable leader, a new opportunity elsewhere lured one of your best away, even a less-than-amicable parting — but one factor is a constant. You need to fill that vacancy as soon as possible with a stellar, impressive hire. Not to be too dramatic about it, but your company’s future depends on it.

Unfortunately, making that kind of crucial hire is easier said than done. Even if you and/or your internal HR department are great at hiring entry and mid-level employees, when you’re talking about hiring for the C-suite, it’s a whole different ballgame, from how you advertise the position to how top execs find you to how you screen and interview them. You need an executive search firm for this crucial hire. Here’s why:

Job hunting today is a brave new world for a C-suite executive. We don’t want to overstate the obvious, but the person who ultimately fills your vacancy will be an experienced, qualified candidate. That’s a given. But C-suite execs don’t get to the top of the corporate ladder by job hopping. They’ve likely been in their positions, or at least with their companies, for a long time. The job search process is different today than it was even a decade ago. They might not be up to speed, know where to start, or even have a LinkedIn page. How will you find them? How will they hear about your vacancy? This is where an executive search firm with a wide network of contacts can be invaluable.

You want discretion and confidentiality. The last thing you need is every competitor knowing you have a vacancy in one of your top positions, especially if that vacancy has been the result of some sort of bad behavior on the part of your ex-exec. Even more importantly, you don’t want it to get out that your VP of sales isn’t cutting it and you’re looking for a replacement before you let him go. An executive search firm can make inquiries discreetly.

Your top candidate may not know he or she wants a new job. We in the search business call these “passive candidates.” They’re people who are not looking for a job, but may be open if the right offer comes along. Reaching them is all but impossible if you don’t already know them. We can reach out to people quietly to let them know about your opportunity and see if they might be interested in talking with you.

C-suite positions are oftentimes filled by networking … Your next CEO isn’t going to hear about the opportunity on Indeed. It’s going to come from networking. But relying on your personal network or referrals by those in your network is limiting.

… and that can hamper your quest for diversity. Again, relying on your network or referrals from those in your network not only limits your candidate pool, but it also limits the diversity of that candidate pool. Study after study from Bersin to McKinsey to Glassdoor shows that the more diverse the company, the more successful the company. Casting your net wide via a search firm can help bring more diverse candidates to your door.

You can’t afford to take the time to search. In small-to-mid-sized companies, oftentimes the HR department is a one-person operation. And even more often, it’s the company owner who is wearing many hats. The lost productivity caused by dropping other duties to tend to the hiring process can cost your company real, bottom-line profits.

At Andcor, we specialize in filling C-suite vacancies with the perfect match. Get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.