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A Hiring Mistake
At Bank Director, we often put job candidates through a grueling process. It’s not uncommon to go through four or more rounds of interviews. We fly people in who live elsewhere and can make journalists report and write an article for us.
That might be overkill, but when it comes to hiring good candidates, it takes time to find someone who has not just the skill sets but the qualities we’re looking for in a colleague.
At Bank Director’s 2025 Bank Board Forum last month, many speakers talked about the importance of hiring for soft skills and cultural fit, not just the job’s qualifications. Maureen Gillan-Myer, chief administration and human resources officer of $16.7 billion Community Financial System in Dewitt, New York, said one mistake her bank has made was hiring people without agility. She’s noticed that those who lack that trait hit a wall after only two or three years while the bank and the job changes around them. “It’s tough,” she said. “They’re losing productivity.”
Her solution: Slow down the hiring process and encourage managers to find the right candidate for the bank, not just someone with the basic skills to do the job.
Those struggles are common, including for high-level positions. Twenty-six percent of respondents to Bank Director’s 2025 Compensation & Talent Survey said their bank has hired or promoted a candidate to the C-suite who turned out to be a poor fit. To find more candidates, almost a quarter had hired from outside the industry for senior roles; another 44% said they would consider it.
In Bank Director’s “Strengthening Your C-Suite” webinar in August, $7 billion Lakeland Financial Corp. CEO and Chairman David Findlay said he was open to hiring outside the bank to fill C-Suite roles “as long as they fit the culture of the organization.” The CEO of the bank based in Warsaw, Indiana, added: “We just can’t afford to bring people in that don’t fit our culture and fit our organizational vision.”
• Naomi Snyder, editor-in-chief for Bank Director
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