The Close with Krumroy: episode two

In the second edition of The Close with Krumroy, Senior Associate Recruiter Ryan Krumroy shares the elements that went into one of his most successful searches.

Read the full transcript below:

Hello and welcome to The Close with Krumroy. This is Ryan Krumroy from Charles Aris Executive Search, and I want to say thank you so much for tuning into this podcast.

Today’s topic that I would like to talk with you about is what constitutes a great search to find an executive for your business. And I want to highlight in today’s conversation a client of mine that I had recently where we closed the search from inception to close in 23 days.

Now, to be fair, in my 17 years of recruiting and time spent in the CFO space working with private equity investors, this is amongst the shortest of the search cycle times that I’ve ever had, and I want to call out some of the facets that really directly influenced how that was possible.

Number one, I want to just say up front, there was no particular secret sauce that was mustered up to generate this phenomenal result in getting this closed as quickly as it was. However, it was really the net sum of multiple different small little facets that came together perfectly to create a highly advantageous cycle time for both the client as well as myself.

So, a few things that I’ll make mention of. Number one: We had a very motivated and highly engaged client. Not overly aggressively, where that was just repressive on my end or anything of that sort here at the firm, but a client that was clearly motivated and clearly engaged.

You may be asking yourself: ‘Well, aren’t all clients motivated?’ They’ve written you a check to retain your services, they’ve prioritized and budgeted it in. Of course, they’re going to be motivated. There are varying levels, however, of motivation. You might have a hiring manager who’s like, ‘Yeah, I know I need to hire somebody, but it’s not my top priority right now.’ With this particular client, it was their number one top priority.

You might also have someone that’s thinking, ‘you know, maybe we’re going to see if we really find somebody out there in the marketplace, but I don’t know, I’ve got some internal networks (or whatever the case may be) that I want to go and explore.’ Really coming to terms with, hey, you’re ready, you want to do this, and this is front and center priority number one.

The second component that I’ll mention here is that they had realistic compensation structures. Not meaning that they were going to overly pay for the talent that they were bringing into the organization, but they understood that: Number one, we’ve got some suspicions around what competitive compensation is going to look like, but secondly, we want you guys there at Charles Aris to provide compensation data to us, so if we need to make the adjustments or anything of that sort of we’re not surprised at the 11th hour. My client was welcoming input on what we’re hearing from folks as far as their expectations in order to make a change from an employer perspective. That was good.

Third aspect: They were bringing the individual into a compelling environment. What I mean by that is the culture of the organization was positive, the macroeconomic circumstances surrounding this, it was just an attractive environment for someone on the outside that was looking at the prospects of going to work for said employer. They looked at it and said, ‘you know, that’s really caught my attention.’

Now, I will say in this particular search, the industry was pretty blue collar, pretty gruff and nothing super innovative. But that being said, they really understood how to position themselves to where someone from the outside will look at this thing and say, ‘you know what, this is going to be a success from a business venture standpoint in the long run.’

Fourth component I’ll call out: My client enjoyed a target-rich candidate market. In other words, they were positioned in a major metropolitan market in the southeast that has a strong candidate pool of talent to be able to pull from, which meant that we weren’t trying to relocate somebody into this market. We were able to do that in their backyard. We were able to find strong candidates in the immediate vicinity.

Now, as you’re listening to this, you might be thinking, ‘well, you know, I’m not in a great location. Our climate, where our business is headquartered, is less than desirable. It’s a high-cost-of-doing-business area. Cost of living is expensive, or it’s an economically depressed market or whatever the case may be, or it’s very inconvenient; we’re not near a major airport, or maybe the housing options are really limited.’

As you’re thinking about this for your own business, you may be realizing that ‘hey, maybe we won’t enjoy a target-rich candidate market, so how do I open up the aperture to close my needed search in an efficient way?’

Thinking about hybrid models, or having this person in maybe a satellite location for your business, or getting creative around, ‘hey, could we structure this to where the person could have some options that we’re looking at or we can open up our option pool for our target markets that we’re going to recruit someone in?’ That may be helpful for you.

Let’s talk about another component: That is a point that I’ll mention of having a streamlined, yet very thoughtful interview process. Oftentimes, we work with clients that candidly need our help, and helping them optimize their process of attracting talent to the organization.

Having a well-defined, upfront kind of expectation to the candidate that you’re going to be bringing into this courtship process is important. You know, having an individual feel like there’s just always one more step in the process, or, ‘they had me speak with this person who covered this topic and now we’re covering this yet again for the third or the fourth time of the fifth time,’ that can often leave a sour taste in the mouth of the prospective candidate where they’re feeling like, you know, ‘this business isn’t as well put together, they’re not as well strategically aligned with each other and they should be. I don’t know if this is going to be quite such a strong enough environment for me to get excited about.’

You don’t want that to be the reality or the perception of the candidate that you’re trying to court into your business. My client, in this situation, had a very, very well-thought-out interview process.

Next point I’ll mention: Align executives, align stakeholders and even align board members that are key; have a prioritization on particular characteristics or skill sets or experiences. Not having alignment among the stakeholders is a huge problem. And this comes out front and center when I debrief with clients and hear from the people that interviewed on the interview panel: Two people liked them, two people didn’t, there’s concerns from the two people that didn’t, the other two are over the moon and we’re trying to figure out, ‘well, how do we bring this together, what is actually going to be the prevailing ‘winnable’ kind of profile that we’re looking for in this circumstance.’ Figuring that out in advance of kicking off the search, or at the very onset of a search, is hugely important. That’ll prevent us, as your search partner, or your HR executive or whoever it is that’s trying to find that talent out there in the marketplace, from spending an enormous amount of wasted effort in the marketplace, really making sure that they’re hunting after the right prey.

Final thing that I’ll call out is having timeliness in the execution of an offer. What I mean by that is we’ve finished the process; we can come back to the candidate with quick feedback. Let them know that we’re working on putting together an offer, and then extending that offer within a matter of a few days, at most. Sometimes, clients that are really good and onboarding world-class talent can turn from a final round interview to an offer in less than 24 hours. I recognize that’s not always possible, but giving an indication to the candidate that they are indeed the selected individual, that we are working internally to get that together and that we can in turn efficiently follow through with the conversation surrounding the offer specifics and things of that sort, is hugely important also.

And one of the reasons is that no one likes to ever feel like they’re the bridesmaid. When there’s been any delay in feedback coming to that interviewing candidate, candidates will emotionally begin to disconnect their hearts from really the consideration of, ‘this is going to come together for me.’

If it’s something that’s going to require them to relocate, if it’s something that’s going to require them to turn into resignation with people that they enjoy working with, it’ll have them start putting second thoughts into this of whether or not they should be accepting of an engagement ring: ‘Am I actually going to receive that engagement ring at the end of the day?’ Whether or not you get that candidate to walk down the aisle the day of the wedding, and actually say ‘I do,’ that tends to be influenced by all of these facets, and not the least being of which is a very efficient, timely and thoughtful extension of offers.

Folks, we’ve been doing this for a very long time: 54 years here Charles Aris. I have been with the organization since 2006, and we’re still learning at the end of the day. We see best in class, we see worst in class, we see everything in between, and this is not an easy process to land world-class talent, especially with the labor pool being as tight as it is right now. So, hopefully there’s something in this that is helpful for you, as you’re thinking about courting talent into your business.

We’d love to speak with you at some point in the future if our services may be of help to you, and we wish you the very best. Thank you again for tuning into the Close with Krumroy. Have a great week.