The document discusses how to find and hire executives with digital skills and social media savvy. It recommends positioning job opportunities to emphasize their digital aspects, spotting candidates who actively contribute online content and continuously learn new skills. Tactics include empowering leaders to recruit, highlighting digital behaviors in the workplace, and promoting credentialing tied to career progression. Retention strategies involve experimentation, content strategies, reverse mentoring programs and flexibility.

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FINDING THE RIGHT STUFF
How Executives Hire for Digital Agility
and Social Media Savvy in 2015
Perry Hewitt
CDO, Harvard University

2. Day in the life: how digital transformed work over two decades
Expectations for execs and all leaders
Tactics for finding and hiring
Ways to retain and develop great people

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1995-2015: A day in the life

4. INBOUND15Source: J. Mark Bertrand

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Mobile connectivity 24/7
Collaborative work
Data in the DNA
It’s a new world:
tech affects the how

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“content creator”
“brick and mortar dismantler”
“web design complicator so users
will accidentally click on ads”
It’s a new world:
tech affects the what
Source: Ruben Bolling

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It’s a new world:
tech affects the where
New freedom, new tether
Virtual teams and companies
Rise of the “digital nomad”

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2 Expectations for execs
(and other senior hires)

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1. Mastery of agility
2. Collaborative work
3. Social media savvy
4. Attention management
What’s needed today
Source: http://www.digitalskillsgap.com/

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Mastery of agility

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Collaborative work
results
focus
clear roles
common
purpose
diverse
views
open
commun-
ication
mutual trust
Benefits include:
 Time to market
 Morale
 Innovation
 Millennial nectar

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Platform flexibility

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Social media savvy
Source: Altimeter Group, McKinsey
“One sign that social
business has matured is
the involvement of
executives, which grew
by 146% in the past
three years, from just
11% of organizations in
2012 to 27% today.”

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Attention management
It's easy to get lost in the Lumascape.
Put a premium on execs who can be even
more focused on identifying specific,
business-driven needs and opportunities,
and who can be results-focused, and not
implementation-focused, in their pursuit.
Source: Force Five Partners, Markus Lütkemeyer

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3 Tactics for finding and hiring

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Position the opportunity
Invest upfront in briefing the search firm
or HR/Recruiting team:
 Interview peers and subordinates as well as
supervisors – what kind of digital acumen is
needed for success in the role?
 Provide specific, tangible examples of digital
behaviors

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Position the opportunity
Sell the power of the idea to be realized via
digital, or the scope of the problem to be solved.

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Position the opportunity

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Spot the joiners and contributors
 First, the obvious: robust social
presence including LinkedIn,
trade associations, events
 Then, the next level: content
creation and engagement, blog
posts, contribution to initiatives
from IAB standards to Github
repos

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Find the continuous learners
We’re no longer in a world solely consisting of
episodic, location-based learning. Higher ed still
matters, but so does a commitment to learning
beyond a degree. Examples beyond standard exec ed
might include:
 MOOC (experimentation, if not completion)
 Google Analytics certification
 Teaching (because it’s nearly impossible to teach
without learning)
 Creative side projects with a digital component

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 Empower every senior leader to identify as a recruiter
 Partner with HR in position the opportunity: from the
digital scope of the role to the style of the outreach
 Embrace “show, don’t tell” when evaluating capabilities
 Find creative (paid!) ways to try before you buy
 Ensure reference checks aren’t performed by lowest paid
individuals
Checklist for hiring success

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4 Retention and development

26. INBOUND15Source: http://www.alphaila.com

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400%
Cost of replacing a senior level
marketing executive

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Encourage digital behaviors
 Create a safe experimentation zone for new ways
of working: software, hardware, and seating
 Find ways to bring successful experiments to
wider deployment
 Reward digital practices like rapid iteration and
measurement, in cycles more frequently than
once a year
 Embrace content strategy to highlight the work of
digital-focused execs

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Promote digitally-focused credentialing
 Decide where it makes sense to build versus buy
the right learning opportunities
 Tie credentialing to career progression – and
don’t limit by rigid title stratification
 Consider implementing real-time recognition and
feedback

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Reverse mentoring programs
“The 47-year-old has since come
to lean on his mentor, 23-year-
old Eric Leist, for guidance on
everything from the latest
smartphone apps to the layout
for a new office. Mr. Graff says
the most important lesson he
has learned is how to be flexible,
including allowing employees to
work unconventional hours and
to check in from home or a
coffee shop.”
Source:: WSJ

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Thanks!
perry_hewitt@harvard.edu
@perryhewitt