I, like everyone else here, have no idea of how the selection process has been conducted.
I suspect that AIB have made no real effort to attract external candidates.
People at that level are headhunted, advertising the job is not enough. I'm just not convinced that AIB have retained the services of a recruitment consultant with appropriate experience to approach potential candidates in a targetted manner.
Maybe I'm wrong, but from the outside they seem to be championing their own internal candidate.
PS: What do the asterisks around the word 'you' mean?
I think that government involvement (in parallel) in the recruitment process might be helpful. I think what is happening now is that AIB does indeed want an internal candidate; it may be that they are less well disposed to external candidates merely because they are external. This is not acceptable (and is, in fact, quite worrying) and, if this is the reason that more external candidates (if they are qualified) have not been put forward to the govnt, then we have a serious problem.
It is certainly in the recruitment consultant's interests to put forward high quality candidates (to get their referral fee, which would be substantial). I don't know what govnt involvement (if any) there was in either picking the recruitment consultant (assuming there even is one) or monitoring the CVs that come in and the quality of the recruitment services provided. I don't know if the recruitment contract has been awarded on an exclusive basis (it shouldn't have been). I don't know if the govnt only gets involved once AIB has screened candidates, which means that AIB may have already discounted otherwise qualified candidates. All that said, AIB is the right body to hire for this position - much as we'd all like to put Michael O'Leary in there, there can be a point at which a candidate that is so objectionable to the existing staff that it becomes counterproductive (if all AIB staff at a certain level decided to up sticks and leave, we'd be in a pickle). The structure of someone having a final veto over a candidate selected by a company is unusual and is bound to lead to problems.
I agree that there's a lot that isn't public about this entire recruitment process, which is a bad thing. We can't all be told all about the potential candidates
a la the Ireland soccer manager, but it would be good to get at least a summary of the number of applicants, the general level of qualifications and confirmation from a source outside of AIB if/that the salary level was a blocker for otherwise qualified candidates. Recruitment processes are normally quite private but, in this instance, the post is such an important one, I think there needs to be more transparency.
I still think that this job is a hard sell to someone - it's like taking on the HSE, a thankless task that will be scrutinised by every informed citizen in Ireland. Coupled with a ceiling on the remuneration that can ever be offered for the job, I think it's a hospital pass. I'd dearly love someone external who was qualified and perfect for the position to pipe up and say "I'd do it for €250k a year but they didn't even interview me" - then we'd see exactly how the land lies. There's an interesting point of reference in
Forbes relating to executive pay - of the Fortune500 companies, 10 (of 500) CEOs earn less than $600k a year. I am not saying that we shouldn't be able to find someone to do this job notwithstanding the cap, I just think that the cap is restricting us from finding the right, qualified candidate. I work in software and know of CEOs who are running marginally profitable businesses (sometimes not even profitable) with a turnover of $20-50M earning €200k-€250k in base salary (before bonuses). The size and complexity of AIB dwarfs those companies. Like I say, I'm not saying that the position *deserves* such a high salary scale, I just think that market forces are dictating that we can't find quality candidates at that level of salary.
I was heartened to hear Brian L sounding fairly resolute yesterday that the salary cap would not be breached - I hope he sticks to his guns.
PS the asterix is used for emphasis only (as in: here's what *I* think, what do *you* think?)