A fractional executive is an individual hired by a company on a part-time or on-demand contract. Such executives/employees bring specialized expertise without being a full-time employee of the company. The concept of fractional hiring has evolved significantly in recent years and many startup companies are leveraging fractional hiring to fulfill their hiring needs.

Startups need the services of executive talent at certain stages to sustain their growth. However, it is often the case that they are cash-strapped and may not have the budget to hire a full-time executive. In some cases, they simply do not need the services of a full-time executive. In both cases, small businesses and startups can opt for hiring fractional executives. There are several reasons for which  companies hire fractional executives. They may range from establishing financial control, developing a marketing campaign, devising or revamping a core IT strategy, or seeking expert advice before launching a new product.

LinkedIn can prove to be a highly effective tool to fractionally hire top executive talent. It could either be a CFO, COO, or CTO, etc. This article will focus on some key steps the startup companies may employ to bring in a fractional executive through LinkedIn. LinkedIn is widely used by recruiters to hire talent across the globe. Its global outreach makes it an effective hiring tool for recruiters. Here are some tips that startups should use while hiring a fractional executive on LinkedIn.

1. Create a LinkedIn Account:

Creating your account on LinkedIn is the first step to kick-start the LinkedIn recruitment process. You can create an account on LinkedIn the same way as you sign up on any online social platform. Simply go to the LinkedIn homepage and create a new account. You will be required to provide your full name, email address, and professional details along with a profile picture.

2. Create a Company Page on LinkedIn:

Once you are done with setting up your account, then the next step is to create your company page on LinkedIn. Simply log into your personal LinkedIn account and click on the ‘Work’ tab at the top right corner. You will find the option of ‘Create a Company Page’ at the bottom. Click on it and it will land on a new page where you can select the ‘Company’ option. You are needed to provide the company name and a brief intro about the company along with the core services or products your business is offering. The description needs to be very discrete and comprehensive at the same time as it cannot exceed 2000 characters. 

The company page serves as a first impression for prospective candidates and clients. Therefore, you must try to design it in a way that grabs their attention. Presenting the company page as a compelling story to the audience is always a good idea. 

The company’s vision, mission, values, products, services, and work culture can be highlighted in a way that your company can stand out. You may also highlight the unique features that make your company desirable as an employer. Moreover, adding employee testimonials on your company’s LinkedIn profile can also prove to be an effective approach to building upon your company profile. The testimonials depict the way existing employees feel about the company and can inspire the audience to work for your company. Importantly, it also reflects that the employees’ personal goals are aligned with company’s mission and goals. 

After completing the company page, you can initiate the process of hiring a fractional executive. There are approaches that you may adopt to shortlist the talent via LinkedIn. One is a job posting on LinkedIn and the other is to run a manual search using the LinkedIn search feature and generate a list of passive candidates. Both techniques are effective tools to hire talent. However, it depends on the nature of the role and the recruiter’s preference in determining the approach to be used.

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Hiring Fractional CXO through Job Posting on LinkedIn

To post the job on LinkedIn, you will click on the ‘Jobs’ icon in the top menu and open the respective page. You will then click on the ‘post a job’ button which will route you to a LinkedIn recruiter page.On this page, you must provide some key details related to the job. These include ‘Job Title’, ‘Company Name’, ‘Workplace type (on-site, hybrid or remote)’ ‘Location’, and ‘Job Type’. Since we are focusing on a fractional hiring approach, therefore, it is best to use a job type as ‘part-time’.

On the next page, you need to provide a detailed job description. The most important thing while sourcing an employee is to conduct an effective job analysis. You need to come up with a clear job description explaining the tasks that are expected to be performed.

Since you are looking for a fractional executive, you must ensure to come up with a well-defined list of tasks needed to be performed by the potential employee. The job description must be compelling and engaging. It must contain information regarding the number of hours the employee is expected to work per week. It should emphasize the value that the posted job will bring for the potential employee. Moreover, it must in some way relate to the personal values and ambitions of the candidate that the startup company intends to hire. For example, innovation can be a huge motivator for an executive specialized in launching successful marketing campaigns. Therefore, a startup planning to onboard a fractional CMO can magnify the innovation-related aspects of the job.

Similarly, there should be a clear job specification describing the skills and capabilities required from the employee to perform the job. On this page, you will also find a field named ‘Skills’ where you can mention the key skills that are needed to execute the job efficiently. After entering the job description and skills, you will proceed to the next page.

You will enter the details through which you will receive the applications of the candidates. You can provide any email on which you intend to receive the applications. It will save you from an influx of applications on your work email. Moreover, you can also add screening questions here. For example, if the job requires a certain minimum of years of experience in a particular domain or industry, you can specify those requirements on this page. Similarly, any certification requirements can also be updated here.

Lastly, you will find an option of ‘Qualification Setting’ at the bottom of this page. You can send rejections to applicants who do not get shortlisted. As an employer, you must show empathy towards the candidates whose applications are not being considered. Since this is an executive-level fractional role, you may write personalized notes to the candidates.

After clicking the ‘Continue’ button, you will land on the last step of the job posting process. Here you have the option of either posting the job for free (limited features) or you may promote the posted job. There is a certain fee LinkedIn will charge for promoting the job. It is up to you whether you want to promote the job or not. For startup companies, it is usually a good approach to promote the job. You can find tips regarding the benefits of using LinkedIn paid promotion on the right side of this page. If you choose to use paid promotion, LinkedIn will ask you to enter your credit card details and your job will be posted. You will ‘proceed to checkout’ after entering all these details.

One thing to keep in mind is that LinkedIn will charge you based on how many candidates click on your job listing. LinkedIn will also provide you with an estimated budget based on the job you’re posting. Subsequently, you will be charged if more than 10 applicants click on your job listing. 

Some of the ways to promote your job are to post it with your company profile, share the job in relevant groups on LinkedIn, and share the job on your profile. In addition, you may ask your fellow recruiters to post the job on their personal LinkedIn profile to maximize reach.

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Monitoring Posted Job

Once the job is posted, the next important step is to keep an eye on the posted job. There are multiple ways through which you can monitor the job posting. These include applications received in your email inbox, applications received on LinkedIn if that feature/option was enabled by you while posting the job and you may also refer to “Who viewed your job” feature on LinkedIn. The last feature can help you in finding suitable profiles that you can use for passive recruitment. This will be discussed in detail later in the article.

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Recruit Passive Fractional Executive

In some cases, posting a job and generating a list pool of candidates may not turn out to be a fruitful approach. There is a possibility that your inbox gets swamped with irrelevant profiles and it is always time-consuming to shortlist good candidates from a large list of applications. In such cases, a good approach can be to recruit passive candidates. Recruiting passive candidates can be effective in some situations:

• Time constraints
• Looking to hire someone with unique expertise/skills
• Hiring someone for an executive role
• Fractional hiring

In this article, we are primarily focusing on hiring fractional executive talent for startups. Hence, there is a high probability that you need to go with the approach of recruiting passive candidates. According to a recent study, 70% of the workforce is passive talent. It means that the candidates may not actively seeking a job but are open to switching amid a good offer. Therefore, if you as a recruiter reach out to such candidates with the right offer that aligns with their motivators, you are in with a great chance of hiring them. However, you as the recruiter must be mindful of candidates’ needs and expectations.

LinkedIn being a global platform provides an opportunity to the employers to tap the right talent and create a win-win situation for both the employers and the candidates. Startups are usually working in a very specific niche and their hiring needs can be highly domain specific. The scope of  hiring may become even more narrow when it comes to sourcing executive-level employees. The needs can be industry, domain, or niche-specific. Keeping in mind the complexity of hiring a fractional executive, recruiting passive candidates just could be the right approach for startup companies.

Sourcing passive candidates on LinkedIn can be a large task. However, you as a recruiter may use your functional expertise along with good interpersonal skills and empathy can hire the right candidate. Some of the key steps for hunting passive candidates are:

1. LinkedIn Premium Subscription

Firstly, it is important for you to have access to Linked Premium as it provides several unique features. The premium account grants you access to conduct advance searches, post jobs, and send direct emails/messages to candidates through LinkedIn’s InMail feature. Moreover, the LinkedIn Premium account allows the recruiter to direct their search based on a candidate’s demographics, skills, and experience which can prove very helpful in conducting an effective candidate search. Subsequently, the recruiter can do the shortlisting of candidates based on the advanced search. In the case of recruiting passive candidates, it is very important to have a premium subscription.

You can subscribe to LinkedIn Premium if you have a LinkedIn account. There are multiple options including LinkedIn Premium for job seekers, recruiters, and salespeople. You as a recruiter will be needing the recruiter account. There are two packages named LinkedIn Recruiter and LinkedIn Recruiter Lite. Their features vary and you may choose a plan based on your hiring needs. You may find the details of the packages on the below link:

https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/recruiter

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2. LinkedIn Company Profile

The significance of a compelling company profile gets much higher when you as a recruiter are looking to find passive talent. The mission, vision, and values of the company must be highlighted on your LinkedIn company profile. Similarly, it is always advisable that the company profile should depict the organization’s culture. As you are looking to target executive talent, the company’s culture may play a crucial role in shaping a candidate’s decision-making. 

A distinctive company profile can also help in developing a strong employer brand. Strong employer branding assists companies in attracting top talent. Employees take pride in working for companies that have a strong employer brand. Startup companies should heavily focus on developing a strong image and showcasing their employer brand. LinkedIn can be a useful tool in building an influential employee brand. You can utilize recommendations from your existing networks, share articles related to your relevant industry, post highlights of the company’s social events, participate in industry-related events, etc, to create an effective employer brand. Similarly, you can highlight the achievements or any awards which are granted to the company.

Startup companies are mostly very strongly knitted with their values. Therefore, they need to onboard the employees who not only understand their values but are also willing to adopt them. While hiring top-level employees small, businesses must be considerate of the fact that the hired employee relates to their goals and values.

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3. Job Posting Strategy

The strategy of hiring a fractional employee through LinkedIn is very important. One of the most effective approaches to search for passive candidates is to use Boolean search on LinkedIn. The Boolean search can help in shortlisting the candidates based on specific industry, niche, demographics, etc.

Here is an example of running a basic Boolean search:

For example, you are hiring a Chief Operating Officer on a fractional basis. There are 5 key elements for running an effective Boolean search:

• Quotes: Quote marks are used for searching the exact job for which you intend to hire. In this case, you may use “Chief Operating Officer”
• Asterik: Putting an asterisk at the end of your search can be used to include all the variations: For example, adding an asterisk at the end of “Chief Operating Officer” will include all profiles with COO and Chief Operating Officer, etc.
• Similarly, parentheses are used to use OR function in the search. For instance, Recruiter {Senior OR Junior} will search for both senior and junior recruiters
• AND: It is the simplest function that is used for search and used to enhance the search. For example, (human resource or HR) AND "United States" AND "New York" AND "5+ years’ experience" AND “part-time” will search for candidates working in HR residing in New York having experience of more than 5 years and working part-time.
• NOT: This function is used to limit your search. For example, if a certain skill is not needed in a candidate, then this function can be used. For example, NOT SAP means that the candidate must not have worked on SAP.

The Boolean search is an effective tool for getting a pool of candidates that match the job role. You can modify the search based on your requirements. After having a list of candidates/profiles you can go through them and shortlist the desired candidates.

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4. Communicating with potential candidates

Once the shortlisting is complete, the Inmail feature of the LinkedIn recruiter account allows you to contact the candidates. Contacting the candidates is the most important part of any recruitment process. Once the shortlisting is completed and the recruiter has come up with a pool of potential candidates the next step is to communicate with them. Remember that we are talking about executive talent here and any communication routed toward them must be very professional, clear, and engaging. Moreover, the message must clearly explain the unique aspects the role will entail. Below are some of the tips you can follow while contacting potential candidates. These apply to candidates shortlisted from job postings and passive candidates as well:

• Be empathetic: Most of the time, the top executives are not actively seeking jobs and there is a probability that they may not respond to your proposal. Therefore, you need to be patient and empathetic while contacting them. You should respect their privacy and try not to be pushy.
• Personalized engagement: The recruiter must ensure that they have thoroughly researched the candidate before contacting them. They must strive to get an idea about their profile, interests, professional background, and most of all their motivation. After gathering maximum information, they can send relevant information to them. 
• Using referrals: Another effective way to reach out to a potential candidate is to utilize your referrals and approach the candidate through them. The referrals can help arrange meetings with the candidates. Moreover, they can provide insights into the values and interests of the executive candidate you intend to approach.
• Showcase the company’s employer brand: Another important aspect while contacting top executive talent is to exhibit your employer brand. Employer brands can make it desirable for the candidates to consider working for your company.
• Emphasis on value: The job profile must be designed in a way that  brings value to the candidate. Monetary benefits may not be the core source of motivation for top executive talent. The recruiter must identify the non-monetary rewards that are important for the candidate they are reaching out to. Therefore, the job role must cater to non-monetary aspects which are valuable for the candidate.

Reference Check

Before finalizing a candidate, conducting a reference check is always considered a good practice. A reference check is critical as it may provide honest input regarding a candidate’s strengths, weaknesses, work ethics, and leadership capabilities from someone who has already witnessed it. The best way to conduct a reference check is to ask the candidate to provide the names and contact details of at least one previous supervisor and one peer. Before contacting the references, you can make a checklist that can be used while communicating with the references.

Fractional hiring of top executives is becoming a common practice for the startup companies. Hiring fractional executives can be a tough nut for employers. Startups looking to hire executives fractionally need to have a compelling pitch to initiate an introductory conversation and then explain the job proposal to the top executives. Efficient utilization of LinkedIn during the recruitment process can help startup recruiters in hiring desired talent.