Final candidates for management selection – how many should there be?

Before embarking on the executive search and selection process, it is important to anticipate the possible outcomes and to identify what we consider to be a successful executive search. It is the responsibility of the recruitment company, if chosen to conduct the executive search, to forecast the eventual outcome and confirm accurate expectations. Once a recruitment company has been selected, it can be expected to have both a preliminary estimate of the final number of candidates and a specific plan to be followed to confirm the most suitable candidate at the final stage of the executive search process.

How many candidates should be involved in the final stage of the executive search?

1.The most important rule is not too many.

This is the most important rule, as too many final candidates in the executive selection process is a sign of a poorly conducted initial selection process. The biggest problem is that the final selection phase usually involves shareholders or board members, whose time is precious. Taking the time to meet with a group of more than 10 candidates is extremely costly in this case, followed by the question of what to do next.

When comparing 3 candidates, it is sufficient to schedule a board meeting and objectively identify the most suitable candidate, but comparing 10 or more different candidates is already very complicated and increases the likelihood of mistakes in selecting the best candidate for the executive search. Thus, too large a final sample of candidates at the final stage of the management search not only complicates the agenda of the deciding managers, indicating a poorly conducted pre-selection, but also increases the possibility of not selecting the truly best candidate due to an overload of information that is difficult to manage.

2.The second most important rule is not too little.

It is difficult to know which candidate is the most suitable, even after an assessment, when there is no one to compare them with. It is usually difficult for hiring managers or boards to compare two candidates against each other, because one additional positive attribute of one executive candidate immediately puts it ahead. It is therefore recommended that in the final stage of the executive search and selection process, there should be at least 3 equivalent candidates whose combined knowledge, motivation, personal qualities and leadership qualities can be compared objectively.

3.Technical rule – only those who have already been selected, i.e. those who have been most successful in the tasks and interviews.

It is important that only those candidates who have already been properly screened are selected for the final stage of the executive search. If the board or hiring managers can immediately see major weaknesses in the candidates when they receive the shortlist, the initial testing and interviews have not been carried out properly. Hiring managers must receive a shortlist of candidates for the selection of managers that contains only fully suitable candidates, and whose differences may be limited to financial expectations, personal qualities, management culture and other relevant parameters.

4.An additional, but not necessary, rule is that candidates who pass a reference check must be successful.

In order to avoid unnecessary interviews in the final phase of the executive search, it is important to prevent any unexpected scenarios. One of them is a potentially poor reference for a managerial candidate. Once the final list of candidates for hiring managers has been selected, it is useful to check the references so that managers can already select from those candidates who have successfully passed the reference checking stage. After all, it is possible that a candidate with negative references will perform best, which will cause additional concern for the hiring management team when revisiting the candidate screening process again.

So, what is the optimal number of candidates for the final stage of the executive search?

The ideal number of candidates at the final stage of the executive search process is usually 5. 3 is considered to be the minimum number of candidates to be submitted, while more than 6 is already too many, precisely because of the complexity of the subsequent process of selecting the most suitable manager.