Practical Tips for Continuous Board Recruiting

Every year brings turnover of Board membership due to retirement, role changes in the C-Suite, and the natural completion of membership terms. My colleague Jane Hiscock recently shared a blog, ‘Always Recruiting: The Secret to a Successful Advisory Board’ outlining the importance of continuous active recruiting and shared guidelines for overcoming Board membership challenges.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you look to stay ahead with recruiting:

Maintain a tracking document for all recruiting candidate information. Building a strong membership pipeline for your Board can often feel like a puzzle with all the various aspects to consider (i.e., industry, geography, roles, diversity, etc.) and the actions that need to be taken. A membership tracker is an effective method to assign and follow the recruiting-related actions internally and can provide a quick view to who is sending the invitation, when follow up is needed, as well as all outreach efforts made. By routinely checking your membership pipeline, you can easily highlight any potential gaps in your membership and keeping the recruiting rolling.

Sustaining membership takes time and ongoing attention. As you develop your membership prospect list, regular reading on leaders in the space can help identify fresh, diverse new ideas for membership candidates. Account leaders who are fostering strong relationships at the C-suite can help open doors in recruiting from existing and new organizations. Systematized efforts of reviewing membership candidates in monthly / quarterly calls can help you to establish a current, robust, and diverse list of candidates and will enable you to act swiftly when facing sudden member turnover.

Persistent follow-up communication is key to keeping recruiting progress on track. Following up on recruiting efforts at all levels is imperative – from invitation approvals to chasing the status on invitations extended. Steady follow up on membership prospects with the relationship owner in a timely manner is critical, as you never know if your original ask was overlooked or ended up in the wrong folder!

Make recruiting a team effort. The strongest Board membership is the result of team efforts. As no one account leader holds the keys to every client relationship, having multiple people / account teams invested in the success of the Board will lead to a strong, diverse pipeline of member candidates. Engaging senior executives in emphasizing the importance of the Board is another effective way to get all hands-on deck with recruiting.