We just finished our first search for a CEO in health care IT. I can't even believe I won the search, much less closed it in well under 90 days. Since I'm passionate about this space, this one really, really mattered. They all matter, but this one was possibly a do or die situation in my ambition to build a killer, dominant practice in this exciting field.
This is a crazy fun space, but like a lot of technology categories, you have the dinosaurs and you have the newcomers, and not a lot in between that would be your sweet spot hunting grounds, which I would define as "companies who grew solidly, delivered great results and exited or developed enough leadership talent that it's worth exploring for CEOs." You don't want people from the old world dinosaur companies like GE, and the newcomers are usually too under developed for a bunch of experienced leaders to be running around and mobile. And they're trying to do what your client is trying to do half the time, get religious about their approach, or are flaky enough to jump from one situation to another before it's an appropriate time to do so. So what do you do? Classic conundrum in a growth space in technology.
Here's what we did:
1. Map the market. No, really MAP IT. No one else in our industry can map markets as fast as we can, because our research arm is LOCAL, not outsourced to India, and they're all Stanford, Cal, come from great schools, MBAs, etc. A client once told me she was impressed by Heidrick's ability to map the market, so I got ahold of one of their maps. It was hard not to laugh out loud. Our maps are vastly more detailed, more thoughtfully developed and rendered, etc. Who are the people who develop this data? People who would have otherwise gone into Financial services in another era, have now figured out that our industry is a better racket than other categories and we successfully recruit and develop these people. We spend 10% of revenue on research. Not a single other firm in our industry does that. And we think it's money well spent.
2. Who are the M&A's that are nine figures and above and who were the top 3 people in those companies? Who IPO'd? Who made money for investors or outperformed peers and were really clever, hustled, took nothing for granted and above all, grew shareholder value. Track the lineage of the out performers and track the people down who made it happen. They could be anywhere. In PE firms, living overseas, about to hit the ejection button after getting acquired, etc. You can't fake this work. It's a grind and these spaces need to be DRILLED hard to get to the "gems" underneath what can, at times, look like massive lumps of coal.
3. Network like crazy. You can't delegate this to junior people as many search firms do. Killer people want to hear from senior people who are genuinely interested in them. The project leader and other senior people need to do this work personally. Talk to everyone you can, as fast as you can, get to the thought leaders out there, the well-known professors on whom the smarter leaders in a given space will lean for advice, get to VC's and investors in the space, find out who they liked, convince them to work with you vs compete with you for this talent, etc. This seems obvious but way too many people in our industry do this in a half-assed way.
4. Your client cannot sit around in "shop" mode for very long. They have to be in "buy mode" where, if you have a tight spec, and you deliver really interesting candidates to that spec, they know they have to MOVE FAST.
5. Sequester the time to do it right. Too many search people just bill everything in sight. You have to have the capacity to do CEO projects the right way. If the search person is overloaded, they won't make that extra call to the candidate between various interviews or events, and they might miss something. Every candidate in a tight spec search is a precious asset and needs to be treated as such.
6. Be prepared for hard conversations, weekend conference calls, late evenings, etc. If you let your calendar have no gaps or aren't willing to chip in a little "free time" to make it happen, you won't make it happen.
7. Be aggressive in comp. Understand it's a buyers's market, get over it and be ready to invest in people.
8. Don't mess around with silly things like change of control on second trigger. You've sold the company, Board voted for it, be aggressive here. And don't get cheap on stuff like relocation. This is where people get angry. The core offer will be what it is. But don't shoot yourself in the foot messing around with the "trimmings" of a deal.
9. Keep your interview team and search committee, small, tight, influential and empowered to act.
10. Resolve that any serious candidate will be "resolved" within 2 weeks max. First interview to final interview. You don't have a month. You might not even have two weeks.
Groupon just grabbed a killer engineering executive from one of our clients who really wanted the guy. A very senior, A player. GROUPON! Yes, the same one that is a spectacular flameout. How? They moved from first conversation to close in 7 days, went "yard" with the deal, focused like crazy and grabbed the guy. That is how you close people. You move fast and you be aggressive. Be focused. It's really not rocket science ultimately, but far too many people are living in a dreamland that there are lots of candidates running around. There really are not great candidates running around. You have to RUN THEM DOWN.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Interview 2.0
People need to understand that to be effective, interviewing actually matters again. Gone are the days of taking a first meeting to "get to know" people. Candidates getting to know companies, companies getting to know candidates. "Culture fit" is an aging term, and one that in my view is totally useless. No one gets anywhere these days if they have an iffy culture or an iffy, jackass vibe. They wear it on their sleeves if it's an issue, in most cases. So set that aside to later meetings, is my advice and focus on having an effective interview. Otherwise you'll lose candidates, and candidates will lose opportunity. There is little margin for error, so if you want to execute, in my opinion, here are the basics and I believe this is "interview 2.0":
Companies:
1. Read your own job description. Everyone who meets the candidate should have a copy. Read the resume fully, and suspend judgment until after you've met the person. You'd think this is 1.0 but man, so seldom do people in an interview team actually read the job description. They think life is moving too fast. That's just being lazy. STOP. Do your homework.
2. Don't walk through the resume. That's old school. Interview 2.0 is, "here is what we're trying to do. These 3-5 things REALLY matter to us. Can you do it, and have you done it, where, and how might you approach THIS situation?" This is the core of the interview. Asking stupid, demeaning Google-ish questions like how many black cats are in Nebraska is immature, silly and arrogant. Not to mention unproductive.
3. Take a few minutes on the front end to capture the essence of why your company rocks. And then go back to it at the end of the meeting. Re-cap why your company is awesome, a great place to work, could enrich everyone personally and possibly financially (be balanced here, don't set crazy expectations), etc. Offer to answer questions the candidate might have. Talk about your views, if you're possible, about why they could make sense and make an impact, be embraced by the team, etc. If you don't think they're a match, keep that to yourself or defer to item 4.
4. If you're the CEO, tell them if you don't think it's a match. Too many Californians are nonconfrontational and want to "kick the can" down the road saying "this is good, let's keep going" when they really mean "this isn't a fit. I don't want to jerk you around or waste your time." If it is anyone other than the CEO, or a key Board member in the case of a CEO search, then keep your opinions to yourself, tell the hiring manager what you think and leave it to that person to decide whether to agree with you or not. Breaching this rule can cause a lot of internal problems.
5. Talk about next steps and process. What you think the person needs to do to reach conclusion.
6. Stay close to your search firm, because if you're saying different things, the candidate will lose altitude as they lose trust, or they're think you or the search firm aren't paying attention.
7. Sell for the right to buy...You can answer a LOT of questions in referencing.
Candidates:
1. Come prepared. Read the website, read the job spec, and be humble. No matter how bad ass you think you are, be humble.
2. Bring ideas to the table. Be bold with your observations about the space, market, company, etc., as long as it's constructive stuff. You don't want to present like you know the situation better than the person interviewing you, you just want to appear as someone who has thought about this meaningfully.
3. Be an open book. Let them get to know you. They'll open up more, the more they know about YOU. Yeah this is a "candidate's market." But always sell for the right to buy as I mention above. Give them a narrative story. Who you are, where you come from, how you've architected your career and most importantly, highlight where you made maximum IMPACT.
4. Be 21st century! Talk about "marketing 2.0" or "sales 2.0" or "leadership 2.0 for a CEO". Disruptive business models, best practices. Frictionless selling, freemium, digital demand gen, social, how to build a killer product company, etc. If you talk about old school practices, YOU'RE DEAD. And you're irrelevant so just retire now, is my advice. Get smart, get current, or just join silly and tired companies where you can fake your way through, thinking and acting like an old school executive. Growth companies want cutting edge. If you aren't interested in re-inventing yourself and really making an impact in an insanely fast changing landscape, don't even try. Because short stint job hoppers are not en vogue. Never have been, never will be.
5. Put yourself in the job mentally. "I think I'd approach this THIS way," or "this is what I'm hearing so far, what do you think about THIS strategy or THESE priorities."
6. Tell them you're interested, if you are. Tell them if you aren't, and be gracious. It's a small world of technology people who actually matter. And people talk. Be the class act, someone they wish they had, no matter what you think about the situation.
7. Follow up. That one's a basic.
8. Be on time. That one's a basic.
9. Stay in front of the search firm. Don't be aloof.
Companies:
1. Read your own job description. Everyone who meets the candidate should have a copy. Read the resume fully, and suspend judgment until after you've met the person. You'd think this is 1.0 but man, so seldom do people in an interview team actually read the job description. They think life is moving too fast. That's just being lazy. STOP. Do your homework.
2. Don't walk through the resume. That's old school. Interview 2.0 is, "here is what we're trying to do. These 3-5 things REALLY matter to us. Can you do it, and have you done it, where, and how might you approach THIS situation?" This is the core of the interview. Asking stupid, demeaning Google-ish questions like how many black cats are in Nebraska is immature, silly and arrogant. Not to mention unproductive.
3. Take a few minutes on the front end to capture the essence of why your company rocks. And then go back to it at the end of the meeting. Re-cap why your company is awesome, a great place to work, could enrich everyone personally and possibly financially (be balanced here, don't set crazy expectations), etc. Offer to answer questions the candidate might have. Talk about your views, if you're possible, about why they could make sense and make an impact, be embraced by the team, etc. If you don't think they're a match, keep that to yourself or defer to item 4.
4. If you're the CEO, tell them if you don't think it's a match. Too many Californians are nonconfrontational and want to "kick the can" down the road saying "this is good, let's keep going" when they really mean "this isn't a fit. I don't want to jerk you around or waste your time." If it is anyone other than the CEO, or a key Board member in the case of a CEO search, then keep your opinions to yourself, tell the hiring manager what you think and leave it to that person to decide whether to agree with you or not. Breaching this rule can cause a lot of internal problems.
5. Talk about next steps and process. What you think the person needs to do to reach conclusion.
6. Stay close to your search firm, because if you're saying different things, the candidate will lose altitude as they lose trust, or they're think you or the search firm aren't paying attention.
7. Sell for the right to buy...You can answer a LOT of questions in referencing.
Candidates:
1. Come prepared. Read the website, read the job spec, and be humble. No matter how bad ass you think you are, be humble.
2. Bring ideas to the table. Be bold with your observations about the space, market, company, etc., as long as it's constructive stuff. You don't want to present like you know the situation better than the person interviewing you, you just want to appear as someone who has thought about this meaningfully.
3. Be an open book. Let them get to know you. They'll open up more, the more they know about YOU. Yeah this is a "candidate's market." But always sell for the right to buy as I mention above. Give them a narrative story. Who you are, where you come from, how you've architected your career and most importantly, highlight where you made maximum IMPACT.
4. Be 21st century! Talk about "marketing 2.0" or "sales 2.0" or "leadership 2.0 for a CEO". Disruptive business models, best practices. Frictionless selling, freemium, digital demand gen, social, how to build a killer product company, etc. If you talk about old school practices, YOU'RE DEAD. And you're irrelevant so just retire now, is my advice. Get smart, get current, or just join silly and tired companies where you can fake your way through, thinking and acting like an old school executive. Growth companies want cutting edge. If you aren't interested in re-inventing yourself and really making an impact in an insanely fast changing landscape, don't even try. Because short stint job hoppers are not en vogue. Never have been, never will be.
5. Put yourself in the job mentally. "I think I'd approach this THIS way," or "this is what I'm hearing so far, what do you think about THIS strategy or THESE priorities."
6. Tell them you're interested, if you are. Tell them if you aren't, and be gracious. It's a small world of technology people who actually matter. And people talk. Be the class act, someone they wish they had, no matter what you think about the situation.
7. Follow up. That one's a basic.
8. Be on time. That one's a basic.
9. Stay in front of the search firm. Don't be aloof.
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