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    Recruiting your organization's next leader: 5 things to remember

    Finding the right candidate for an executive position requires more work than filling lower-level positions, if for the sole reason that executives aren’t typically looking for jobs, and organizations can’t simply post an executive-level job on a careers page. But the payoff of finding the right candidate is exponentially larger.

    By Husna Haq

    In a global development organization, the right executive talent can attract millions of dollars to advance a nonprofit’s mission, engineer innovative ideas to break through intractable problems and unify stakeholders around a single goal.

    Yet failure rates for senior executives are high and rising. In fact, CEOs appointed in the last 25 years are three times more likely to be fired than CEOs appointed earlier, according to “The Search for Executive Talent” report published by the Society for Human Resource Management in 2010.

    Finding the right candidate for an executive position requires more work than filling lower-level positions, if for the sole reason that executives aren’t typically looking for jobs and organizations can’t simply post an executive-level job on a careers page.

    This article is free to read - just register or sign in

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    Read more Devex recruiting advice:

    ► How to compete for the next generation of development talent

    ► Compelling careers pages: Invite job seekers to explore your story

    ► Implementers face off in recruitment competition for midlevel talent

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    Printing articles to share with others is a breach of our terms and conditions and copyright policy. Please use the sharing options on the left side of the article. Devex Pro members may share up to 10 articles per month using the Pro share tool ( ).
    This article was last updated on 24 August 2023

    About the author

    • Husna Haq

      Husna Haq

      Husna is a Devex correspondent based in the greater New York city area. She covers national news, politics, and publishing as a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, and travel news for the BBC. She worked for National Geographic.com from 2006 to 2008, where she helped develop the organizations digital presence.

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