How To Hire a CIO

Best Practises on How to Hire a CIO

Hiring a world-class CIO is complicated, and you need to make many unique considerations in your CIO Executive Search.  Given your specific business needs, corporate structure, and company culture.  When trying to attract top talent, you need to consider what makes your business stand out and accommodations you can make your offer their number one priority.  Here are my top best practices on how to hire a CIO.

Develop a search team

The biggest mistake you can make is searching for your CIO alone.  You will not be fully aware of your business needs and will lean heavily on your biases.  So I recommend that when you hire a CIO, you create a team with the various key team members with whom the CIO will interact most.  At the minimum, the CEO and CHRO would lead the search with the help of an external search partner.

Once the search begins, the core team you have put together will work closely with the search firm in evaluating interested candidates.  As you get closer to identifying a final candidate, other executive team members can be asked for input. 

Each member will not need to be involved in every step. But will need to take part in an interview or two to assess each candidate.

Executive search can be very time-consuming, distracting leadership from their day-to-day activities.  Most large companies use external executive search firms to aid in their search for a CIO.  They can offload the recruitment and help it progress faster, sourcing more qualified candidates.  The search firm will be providing up-to-date knowledge of what is happening in the job market, compensation trends, and utilizing best practices in hiring.  The first will help you establish your needs and wants and help clarify the things you don’t want to see in your next CIO.

Establish your needs, wants, and do not wants

The prime goal before you begin your search is to establish your needs.  What role does your CIO need to play?  What will their specific responsibilities be?  Who will they report to, and what will their team look like?  Have you evaluated the current org chart for accuracy?  Understanding where your CIO will sit on your executive team will help you and your search partner look for the right people.

You need to consider the It would be best to consider the qualifications your CIO needs to bring to the table.  Given the countless CIO Boyden has placed, here are some essential skills you should focus on:

• Leadership and communication skills
• Business acumen
• Leveraging technology for the benefit of the company
• Knowledge of your industry
• Change management skills
• Interpersonal skills

Laying out a comprehensive list of competencies you want the search firm to focus on will aid immensely in helping identify the best candidates in an expedited manner.

Please don’t forget to consider what you don’t want to see in your next CIO.  If the current or previous CIO had shortcomings that negatively impacted the business, what were they?  Clarity on this subject will help ensure that new candidates can bring experience that addresses your previous pain points.

Again, this just helps align your company’s expectations when searching for your next CIO.

Create a compelling job description

World-class CIOs are in high demand.  To attract great candidates, you need to write a compelling job description.  Talk to your search partner if you don’t have a draft job description for the CIO role.  Your search partner is an excellent resource to help you flush out the critical elements needed in a CIO.  An open dialogue with you will help speed up the process and ensure you quickly get down to the essence of the role. 

• Sell the business and the role, explaining the general goal you hope the CIO to achieve for your company
• Represent your business culture, showcasing the communication style of your business
• Highlight the personal characteristics you want to see in a candidate
• List the key duties and responsibilities
• make sure your job description will stand out to the people considering the position.

Making sure you have a detailed and compelling job description will help you stay focused on the right things being sought by internal and external individuals helping with the search.  Also, including a recent marketing document of the business will help those recruiting know how to represent your business most favorably.  Helping to get more top-quality candidates.

Work with Executive Search Firms

You may be able to find a great candidate through your network but to ensure you don’t make a bad decision because it’s potentially less expensive than retaining a search firm.  You need the best range of candidates possible from across your industry and possibly other compatible industries.

Executive search firms can proactively reach out to top-level talent on your behalf.  By using their established network, experience, and knowledge in recruiting CIOs, you will benefit from having better candidates to choose from.   Let the search firm do the heavy lifting while you and your team focus on your core duties. 

Please get in touch with me if you would like help in your CIO executive search.  I have over 25 years of experience in global executive recruitment.  I am currently a Managing Partner at Boyden, a global search firm, and I have partners in 45 countries worldwide.  If needed,  I can help you identify an executive search expert in your country or lead a specialized team to help you find your next CIO.