Finding the Right Management: Some Jobs are Easier Than Others

When searching for candidates to fill middle-to-senior level management roles, some positions are easier than others to find. We previously revealed the results of a Criterion survey listing the most difficult positions to fill, which included those in IT, marketing, operations and R&D. Now it’s time to list some of the easiest. Once again, our survey was conducted directly with businesses – so the results reflect the real experiences of those out in the field.

Sales
It should be no surprise that the job position at the top of the list is less technical than some of the others. There is every reason why sales specialists should be easiest to find – starting with the fact that any good salesperson ought to be able to sell themselves as a good investment for a company to make. The instincts and simple human insight that sales positions require may be relatively common compared to other skills needed in business, but they are no less important for that. Businesses may be the best at producing their widgets, but in order to turn those private victories into public ones, they need sales expertise to finally get off the ground and connect with their true audiences.

Production
Joining sales roles at the top of our list is the position of production manager. Production is at the heart of any business, and it takes a knowledgeable and versatile leader, often with a background in engineering or a related field, to manage the manufacturing side of any business. Having the right people skills here is just as important as in sales, as the workforce on a production floor should resemble something like a machine with smoothly interlocking parts. Assembling, motivating, and coordinating an effective team requires a set of interpersonal skills, just as surely as production itself requires a familiarity with the materials in a factory.

Human Resources
Monitoring the workforce at any given company is the human resources manager, which also made our list of the managerial positions that are easiest for companies to fill. This position also requires a talent for interpersonal success, but it must be joined by a separate talent for evaluation and organization. An effective human resources manager will need to understand the legal responsibilities of their company, the compensation rights of its employees, and the right approach to take as a liaison between the workforce and the upper management. HR managers must be impartial in evaluating complaints and other workforce issues, as well as in hiring new staff for the company.

Administration and Management
Rounding out our list of the easiest middle-to-senior level positions to fill is administration management. The right candidates must have a talent for streamlining work systems within a business environment, as well as training other personnel in the proper function of systems in use. There is a heavy organizational component to the admin manager’s role, in terms of delegating responsibilities across the workforce and ensuring that proper training and procedures are in place to make the effort successful. Admin managers must also be willing to take a detached role in assessing the performance of the team they are in charge of overseeing.

While qualified candidates for the above roles may be easier to find, the roles themselves are not easy to succeed in. Candidates should always aim to improve their skills, as the strong competition for roles means that only the best will be selected. For their part, companies seeking to find the most highly qualified in the candidate pool would be well advised to take on the services of a recruitment agency for the purpose.