What do recruiters look for in leadership positions?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

When we write resumes in early stage of career, we try to list down what all technical skill (or soft skills in some cases) to be projected out while you render different work assignments you got into. We expect that recruiters will look at those necessary skills in our profile with the one that are required for the job to get shortlisted, interviewed and hired.

By the time you are one of the senior profile, there is a lot of detail in specific work you do, including technical and managerial. Yet, as the technology and times changes, things you learned earlier are rather less relevant; instead your leadership (or leadership skills) are your greatest virtues.

When you work in an organization, it is easy to identify who are real great leaders, and who are not. However, when one is trying to put this in a resume, I wonder how do recruiters judge weather you are one of the good/great leaders or you are not a fit leader.

of course, I don't think just writing "Great leadership skills" - or even a couple of recommendations by your colleagues on Linked-In can assert that quality. By looking at the actual details of the work - how does one judge whether or not a person is a great good leader or not. How do recruiters actually derive this judgment about people in real life? And what one should highlight in their resume for the recruiters to identify them as good leaders?

manpreet 2 years ago

I am not a recruiter, but if I had to put together a resume like that I would go for these:

• Evidence that the candidate has been leading several teams in different positions.
• Loads of technical experience relevant to the area.
• Evidence that the candidate is relatively well-known in his area - look for contribution outside of just work experience (blogs, conferences, books, ...)

Finally, keep in mind that depending on how high you aim, a recruiter may not be of use at all - the processes for hiring really high profile people are quite different.