It's only natural that as businesses grow a need arises for senior managers and executives to support the business' founders. As business owners, hiring key leaders to take your firm to the next level can be much more challenging than choosing new employees to fill tactical roles. As an executive recruiter for the past 20 years, I've seen some common mistakes made by business owners when hiring those first key executives. Unfortunately, mistakes on senior-staff hires can have devastating effects on your business. Time and again, we see the effects of a hiring process that works great for finding good employees, but fails miserably for hiring key executives.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to make the hiring process go much more smoothly when you're positioning senior managers within your organization. By following these guidelines, you should be much more effective in finding and hiring personnel to take you to the next level:

1. As with any aspect of your business, networking and keeping your business contacts thriving are important when hiring. It's important to keep a "bench" of candidates fairly warm for any key role you might wish to staff down the road. Whether or not you have a vice president of sales position budgeted in the next three or six months, or a new controller, keep your contacts recent and always be looking for talent. Forecast the critical roles you might need to fill in the next year or 18 months. It's vital to have strong business associates in specific functional areas, for example operations, finance or sales.

2. At a senior level, most potential candidates don't have their résumés on Monster. Keep in mind that you will be spending at least three months searching for and interviewing candidates for your position. Using a search firm is definitely one way to save time. If you plan to work with a search firm, make sure you use a company that specializes in the functional area in which you're hiring. They should have that 'bench' we spoke of earlier ready to go. If you can afford it, a retained search is a powerful way to make sure your position is a priority with the search firm. Either way, it's important that you have strong references for any search firm you may choose to use.

3. Next, have a realistic timeline for hiring this individual. Three months at a minimum is usually what it takes to find a key player for your organization. We've found that the single most important factor in keeping the hiring time shorter is a solid job description. Make sure you have a strong understanding of your needs and prioritize the skills list of the candidate you desire. Finally, do a competitive salary analysis so you know what you'll have to pay for this person. Too often we find companies who want Superman for Boy Wonder's salary. Making sure you have your ducks in a row in terms of job description and salary requirements will facilitate a faster search.

4. In-depth interviewing skills is another critical success factor at this level. Ask open-ended questions, and understand the logic behind every move and decision in your candidate's career. Make sure your candidate is not "shopping" for offers in order to better his or her situation at his/her current employer. In other words, take care to really validate that his/her reason for interviewing with you is legitimate. Ask all the hard questions at this stage, and know what that candidate needs to have in an offer before the interviewing process is done. Here's the final note on the interviewing process: Don't drag your feet. We've seen many companies lose good candidates because they can't move fast enough. At this level, understanding the pace of your candidate's decision-making process and matching that to the hiring process is vital.

5. Think you've found the right person? Has your interview process yielded all the right answers and your gut tells you it's a good fit? Don't forget about background checks. We recommend both an outside, formal background check, as well as an internal one. If you can, try to conduct confidential referencing as well. By networking your own business connections, the old "six degrees of separation" idea will help you get to people who have worked with your candidate before. These types of back-door references can get you an off-the-record, objective opinion of your candidate. Finally, do assessment tests. Make sure you have every candidate take the same tests for a baseline. The combination of formal outside reference checks, confidential referencing and testing should give you a thorough picture of your candidate's history.

6. As I mentioned, it's important to know what your candidate's parameters are for salary, bonus and benefits before you make an offer. Don't make an offer and just cross your fingers that you can negotiate successfully. Make sure there is a process in place that guarantees a commitment before the offer goes out. And don't burn any bridges during the hiring process. You never know how you may run across your candidate in the future.

These steps may seem like a lot, but it's important to use them. Your first VP of operations, CFO or director of sales is a crucial role for your company. By taking the extra steps to hire the best person for the job, not just the best person who is actively looking, you can help ensure the ongoing success of your firm.

Paul Beard is president of McKinley Group, a Minnetonka-based executive search firm. He can be reached at paul@mckinleygroupinc.com.