In this episode, we are joined by members of the Cerius Executive team. Their experience spans decades of executive-level work in a wide array of companies and industries. We asked them what last minute advice they would give business owners for thinking of hiring executives that are temporary, part-time or contract.

Kristen McAlister is President/COO and Co-Owner of Cerius Executives. She has extensive experience in leading major acquisitions, sales and operations initiatives with small and large privately-held companies to publicly-held international companies.

She shares her advice on hiring executives:

“I’d start by telling them what I needed to be done. I’d want to know that they’re done it at least 3-5 times in other companies. I talk to those companies; I talk to the co-workers because I know that they’ve had used that expertise in those situations.

I want to know that they’ve got the expertise that I need and they’ve got proven results on it. Not just they’re a great person to work with, and they’ve accomplished so much. Have they accomplished what I need to be done?

I wouldn’t hire somebody right out of college. There’s some incredible executives out there that have accomplished a lot of things. They just haven’t actually done, and they have a light team for balance. They haven’t actually done and been involved in my types of situation. It needs to be specific.”

Matt is a Senior Human Resources Executive who has extensive years of experience with two Global Fortune 100 Companies. He tells us his thoughts on hiring executives:

“Our interims have both depth and breadth of experience in their specific discipline. The other thing that they have is that they come with usually 20-plus years of experience in larger organizations or in large consulting firms. So what they bring to a CEO is that they bring that expertise, that is far-reaching under than just what that CEO is looking for us to come in and help them with. They can come in and provide advice on their whole organization, not just on the specific discipline that that CEO is looking for.”