COVID Disrupts Recruiting Rhythms for Credit Unions

Strange. Unimaginably slow. Delayed. Surprising.

That’s how some recruiters have described COVID’s impact on the current and future state of credit union executive recruitment.

“It is strange,” David Hilton, president of D. Hilton Associates in The Woodlands, Texas, chuckled. “We have over 50 searches going on right now, which is probably 10 more than we normally have. The problem is that we can only do a search to a certain point and then we have to stop because the client wants to meet the candidates. They can’t meet the candidates in this kind of situation. No one is comfortable meeting and greeting, and taking their masks off and sitting in a board room or conference room in a hotel.”

Nick Hayes, founder of Smith & Wilkinson in Scarborough, Maine, said he sees the executive landscape as good news and bad news.

“The good news is everything we’ve been working on has been going through and there’s been a very quick adoption of remote capabilities to conduct interviews. Now everyone wants to Zoom with us,” Hayes said. “But the bad news is that things are moving unimaginably slow. I can’t even think of better words to describe it. Everything that used to be done in a week now takes three to five weeks. I think there are a lot of ‘deer in the headlights’ feelings right now.”

Shawn Cole, president and founding partner for Cowen Partners in Portland, Ore., said he has found executives are interested in other positions but they are staying put for now.

“Our business has not slowed down, but it has been delayed,” Cole said. “I’ve seen a lot of what I’m calling ‘old fashion loyalty,’ which is nice, actually. Candidates are saying, ‘Hey, this sounds like a great opportunity, but I can’t leave my employer right now. We got to get through this together. I’m not going to leave, certainly not now and I don’t know when I can leave.’ That’s the delay factor that we’re facing.”

Another factor is safety, as some candidates are concerned about moving to a different area where the number of coronavirus cases and deaths are spiking.

The Hartford, Conn.-based Jill Nowacki, president/CEO of Humanidei + O’Rourke, said she has seen a surprising development.

“I feel like it went from organizations clamoring for talent to candidates reaching out who are seeking new opportunities,” Nowacki said. “I think employees who are working in organizations said they didn’t like the way their employer initially responded to COVID, or that they didn’t feel physically or psychologically comfortable. It caused them to say, ‘I’m going to look and see what else is out there.’”

In addition, some candidates are also looking for organizations that are still hiring because they may have a greater financial viability going forward in a weak economy.

Nowacki said her clients are hiring new executives after holding a slew of video interviews. In addition to video interviews, some of her clients are also personally meeting with candidates while practicing social distancing and wearing masks.

“I’ve had quite a handful of candidates that have made the relocation since March,” she said. “Organizations have had to be very intentional about their onboarding process because it’s a unique thing to bring in a new employee in a time when offices are totally, or at least partially, remote.”

Both employers and employees have been in a position where they’ve been able to be flexible about things like their actual start date and start location.

“For example, a credit union that has their employees working remotely right now has the ability to be flexible in allowing their new employees to start in their current geographic location and do the relocation further down the line, once things start to become more clear,” she said.

Hilton said very few of his clients are hiring new executives after video interviews. But when they do, it’s either because they desperately need the executive to fill the job or they already know of the person and are OK with making the hire following video interviews.

He said he believes the problem among board members who are not comfortable hiring candidates based on video interviews alone is generational. The average age of a credit union board member is 60. But he also noted that the video conferencing technology is sometimes an obstacle.

“We try and do our very best to explain that when you get on a video with a candidate after about five minutes, it feels like you’re in the same room,” Hilton said. “But it’s very difficult for the client to buy into that.”

While the video conferencing technology works well, sometimes the audio and video imaging is lacking.

“If we had one more notch up in the technology, I think it would be perfect,” he said. “What I would love to see is for all searches to be done by video because not only is it an inexpensive way of doing it for everyone, but you can go back and re-watch the video interviews again. If you forgot to ask a candidate some questions, you can ask them during another video interview. There are so many things you can do with video that you couldn’t do before.”

Although the $287 million Simplicity Credit Union in Marshfield, Wis., has been incorporating video interviews into its hiring process for four years, it still completed an in-person interview with candidates before COVID. During that time, the credit union was in the process of recruiting three top candidates remotely for Simplicity’s vice president of IT position, but had to place everything on hold during the stay-at-home orders. Later, Simplicity interviewed the candidates via video and was in the process of making an offer to one of them in June.

“Is the video interview or an in-person interview better? If I had a choice, I would rather do it in person, assuming all things are normal,” Katy Zaleski, Simplicity’s vice president of human resources, said said. “I just think that the reality going forward is that we’re going to have to figure out that new normal. I think best case scenario right now is video interviews. In person will be best case scenario, again, in the future, but right now its not.”

Whether the candidate interview is conducted via video conference or in person, what’s probably the most crucial element in making a good hire is the questions asked of candidates and their responses that can provide the board with crucial insights into make a sound hiring decision.

Simplicity, for example, has landed good hires by using questions, developed by a consultant, that help them determine whether the candidate is good at interviewing and truly has a positive mindset, which Zaleski believes is the key to making a good hire.

“We call them our positivity questions. I think that that gives us a really good perspective on the candidates whether we interview them in person or [by] video, because we are looking for very specific answers to those questions,” she explained.

The credit union has found hiring people with a positive mindset brings many workplace benefits. Indeed, a University of Michigan research study published in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science in 2015 showed that when organizations implement positive practices, they achieve higher levels of financial performance, customer satisfaction and productivity, a Harvard Business Review article reported.

Perhaps one silver lining the pandemic has created within executive recruiting is that it has encouraged financial institutions to spot potential executive talent internally among their managerial ranks.

“One of the coolest trends we’ve heard is that a lot of C-level executives are finding out who really is stepping up,” Hayes explained. “I think you need something like this to push the layer of sand away and understand what you’re working with. I think that could lead to a lot of internal hiring.”

Cole has also been advising his clients to consider internal candidates and other qualified executives who may be working nearby.

“It’s been all too easy for organizations to just hire someone across the country that is qualified, but later it’s found out that they may not be qualified for other reasons or may not be a good culture fit,” he said. “I think that it’s a good thing for credit unions in general to look locally and within the organization for future executive hires.”