Mark J. Haluska

These days, strong leadership is more important than ever. Companies with great leaders significantly outperform their peers. At the same time, globalization, attrition, and changing demographics have led to a scarcity of executive talent. As a result, the competition for top leadership talent is fierce. If you want to ensure your company's survival by hiring great leaders, you'll need some effective way to find them, hire them, and ensure they stick around.

One way to source candidates is to place job ads on your company intranet, on online job boards, and in print publications. But if that ad is lousy, it could do your search more harm than good. A-players respond to challenges — the opportunity to have an impact — not the typical laundry lists of "desired skills and responsibilities," which appear all too frequently in job ads.

Hiring the wrong executive will cost you, it really will cost you! For example, in the six months after Marissa Mayer took over as CEO of Yahoo!, the company's market value increased $17 billion. Around the same time, JCPenney, guided by new CEO Ron Johnson, saw sales decline by $4.3 billion.Regardless of what comes next for either Mayer or Johnson, there's never been a clearer example of getting an executive hire right versus getting it wrong.

Your first search stop when recruiting executives — especially for a C-suite hire — is LinkedIn, a social network for professionals that boasts more than 480 million professional profiles, with more posted every second.Why LinkedIn? Simple. Unlike other social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and so on, LinkedIn is designed specifically for the sharing of professional information.

If your hiring process takes too long, odds are your top candidate will no longer be available by the time you're ready to make an offer — which is bad. Whether HR, an internal recruiter, a contingency recruiter, or a retained recruiter is running the show, reasons for this problem (and suggested solutions) may include the following: Top talent isn't inclined to wait months for an offer.

Nine times out of ten, you need the candidate way more than the candidate needs you. After all, she probably already has a job — and one she likes. So you don't want to blow it by conducting poor interviews. That's why you write an interview guide: to usher you through the interview stage.Prospects form impressions of the company with each interaction — especially interviews.

Research is often laborious — even tedious. But it's through research — and only through research — that you can tightly target your prospects. Research lets you hone your message and deliver it to exactly the right person. And, thanks to research, you can speak knowledgeably about that person, his industries, and his challenges, enabling you to emphasize the positive aspects of your opportunity.

These days, top executive recruiting firms scour countless sources for outstanding candidates — both active and passive. To achieve this, many firms employ two types of investigators: Researchers: These professionals focus on targeted industries, companies, and functional positions, compiling competitive intelligence from a multitude of sources.

You can use a confidential candidate brief (CCB) instead of a resume to quickly and unobtrusively obtain an accurate picture of a prospect's qualifications. Indeed, the CCB essentially acts as the first interview — only better. With the CCB, the prospect can take her time to answer your questions thoughtfully and with as much detail and color as she chooses.