How to hire a chief executive officer/manager

How to hire a chief executive officer/manager, step by step

Here's a step-by-step chief executive officer/manager hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a chief executive officer/manager job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new chief executive officer/manager
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a chief executive officer/manager do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   The chief executive officer/manager hiring process starts by determining what type of worker you actually need. Certain roles might require a full-time employee, whereas part-time workers or contractors can do others.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

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   Hiring the perfect chief executive officer/manager also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   This list shows salaries for various types of chief executive officer/managers.

   Type of Chief Executive Officer/Manager	Description	Hourly rate
   Chief Executive Officer/Manager	Top executives devise strategies and policies to ensure that an organization meets its goals. They plan, direct, and coordinate operational activities of companies and organizations.	$48-94
   Deputy Director	Deputy directors supervise a team of workers and oversee the daily functions of their organizations. They coordinate with the company's executive director in preparing long-term strategies to achieve organizational goals... Show more	$27-83
   Vice President	Vice presidents are usually considered the second-in-command in the organization, depending on the organization structure. They take over when the president is unavailable to fulfill duties... Show more	$51-112

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Financial Statements
   • Payroll
   • Product Development
   • Regulatory Compliance
   • R
   • Human Resources
   • Business Plan
   • Event Planning
   • Business Development
   • A/P
   • Real Estate
   • Construction Projects
   • Strategic Plan
   • Travel Arrangements

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Provide direct oversight and effective leadership through training and identification of strategic priorities to achieve program outcomes and organizational goals.
   • Provide oversight for overall product development, process engineering, and full production planning.
   • Analyze investment opportunities for both GAAP reporting and tax treatment.
   • Train staff to work with Linux and Unix operating systems.
   • Establish QA team and offshore organization to deliver embed products.
   • Develop a preliminary PaaS cloud SIEM architecture for a large federal banking agency.

   More chief executive officer/manager duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the chief executive officer/manager job description is a good way to get more applicants. A chief executive officer/manager salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a chief executive officer/manager in Idaho may be lower than in Hawaii, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level chief executive officer/manager. Additionally, a chief executive officer/manager with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average chief executive officer/manager salary

   $140,165yearly

   $67.39 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level chief executive officer/manager salary

   $100,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 20, 2025

   Average chief executive officer/manager salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	District of Columbia	$174,235	$84
   2	California	$166,746	$80
   3	Washington	$166,244	$80
   4	Illinois	$163,368	$79
   5	New York	$156,700	$75
   6	Virginia	$151,465	$73
   7	Massachusetts	$147,332	$71
   8	Pennsylvania	$143,900	$69
   9	Texas	$143,071	$69
   10	Delaware	$139,125	$67
   11	Oregon	$137,662	$66
   12	Ohio	$133,873	$64
   13	Georgia	$133,200	$64
   14	Arizona	$131,804	$63
   15	Minnesota	$130,803	$63
   16	Florida	$121,939	$59
   17	North Carolina	$118,274	$57
   18	Wisconsin	$116,565	$56
   19	Missouri	$111,584	$54
   20	Oklahoma	$102,111	$49

   Average chief executive officer/manager salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Parallels	$143,548	$69.01
   2	MARTA	$141,553	$68.05	1
   3	Lane Transit District	$140,472	$67.53
   4	Accenture	$135,108	$64.96	35
   5	Best Buy	$134,589	$64.71	6
   6	Energy Inc.	$134,192	$64.52
   7	County Of Los Angeles Public Library	$133,403	$64.14
   8	Dairy Farmers of America	$132,071	$63.50	2
   9	Grant Thornton	$129,590	$62.30	39
   10	Department of Public Social Services	$129,411	$62.22
   11	Unilever	$129,168	$62.10
   12	Druva	$127,831	$61.46	4
   13	Affine Analytics	$126,958	$61.04
   14	DentaQuest	$125,572	$60.37
   15	Alltrust Insurance Company	$119,659	$57.53
   16	Icma-rc	$115,482	$55.52	63
   17	Land O'Lakes	$110,411	$53.08
   18	Go! Retail Group	$88,511	$42.55	3
   19	Wells Fargo	$84,756	$40.75	36

4. Writing a chief executive officer/manager job description

   A job description for a chief executive officer/manager role includes a summary of the job's main responsibilities, required skills, and preferred background experience. Including a salary range can also go a long way in attracting more candidates to apply, and showing the first name of the hiring manager can also make applicants more comfortable. As an example, here's a chief executive officer/manager job description:

   Chief executive officer/manager job description example

   Leading the future in luxury electric and mobility
   At Lucid, we set out to introduce the most captivating, luxury electric vehicles that elevate the human experience and transcend the perceived limitations of space, performance, and intelligence. Vehicles that are intuitive, liberating, and designed for the future of mobility.
   
   We plan to lead in this new era of luxury electric by returning to the fundamentals of great design - where every decision we make is in service of the individual and environment. Because when you are no longer bound by convention, you are free to define your own experience.
   
   Come work alongside some of the most accomplished minds in the industry. Beyond providing competitive salaries, we're providing a community for innovators who want to make an immediate and significant impact. If you are driven to create a better, more sustainable future, then this is the right place for you.
   
   This role requires a blend of expertise in business analytics and business intelligence. You will have a unique opportunity to build and drive business intelligence and have broad exposure across many functions.
   
   The ideal candidate has a passion for transforming raw data into useful information while providing potential solutions and will take pride in building a world-class data-driven culture at Lucid. In addition to technical skills, strong synthesis & presentation skills, influencing, cross-functional collaboration and business acumen are critical to the success of this role.
   
   The Role: Interpret both internal and external data to enable strategic, tactical, and operational decision-making for the CEO and the executive leadership team Design intuitive visualizations that communicate actionable insights to business leaders Utilize data science techniques to conduct ad-hoc analyses to predict and optimize business outcomes Collaborate with executive business leaders to create and track KPIsWork with and lead an analyst to drive data integrity and build data generation processes that will scale Build dashboards and data products that provide real-time / daily refreshed data that can be referenced 24/7Collaborate and communicate with other data teams across the organization Provide opinions and advise the executive leadership based on insights driven by data analysis See around corners and have the curiosity to explore internal and external data that may be impacting our future, and the courage to follow through and communicate findings
   You bring:10+ years relevant experience in a Business Intelligence, Data Science, or Data Analytics role5+ years' experience in B2B industrial sector; experience in automotive industry is a plus BS/MS degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Statistics, or a similar quantitative field Experience in Hardware company is required, experience in Automotive industry a plus Advanced expertise in Excel and SQLExposure to ETL development and data warehousing technologies (AWS Redshift or similar) Fluency in a data processing language such as Python or RProven proficiency with Tableau (or related BI software) and data visualization creation Experience with statistical data science techniques (machine learning, data mining, predictive analytics) Excellent technical and non-technical communication skills Willingness and flexibility to tackle a broad range of responsibilities in a fast-paced environment Resilience, flexibility and a service-oriented mentality Superb prioritization skills with the ability to pivot Effective presentation skills to C-Suite level stakeholders The ability to influence and drive decisions based on data and facts Comfort around C-Suite level management
   At Lucid, we don't just welcome diversity - we celebrate it! Lucid Motors is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and expression, marital status, and any other characteristic protected under applicable State or Federal laws and regulations.
   
   Notice regarding COVID-19 protocols
   At Lucid, we prioritize the health and wellbeing of our employees, families, and friends above all else. In response to the novel Coronavirus all new Lucid employees, whose job will be based in the United States may or may not be required to provide original documentation confirming status as having received the prescribed inoculation (doses). Vaccination requirements are dependent upon location and position, please refer to the job description for more details.
   
   Individuals in positions requiring vaccinations may seek a medical and/or religious exemption from this requirement and may be granted such an accommodation after submitting a formal request to and the subsequent review and approval thereof by our dedicated Covid-19 Response team.
   
   To all recruitment agencies: Lucid Motors does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our careers alias or other Lucid Motors employees. Lucid Motors is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

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5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right chief executive officer/manager for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your chief executive officer/manager job on Zippia to find and recruit chief executive officer/manager candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting chief executive officer/managers requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match your ideal candidate profile. If you think a candidate is good enough for the next step, you can move on to the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new chief executive officer/manager

   Once you've found the chief executive officer/manager candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new employee's start date, you can create an onboarding schedule and complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9 forms, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Human Resources should also ensure that a new employee file is created.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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