ALISON BEARD: I’m Alison Beard.
ADI IGNATIUS: And I’m Adi Ignatius, and this is the HBR IdeaCast.
ALISON BEARD: Adi, many of our listeners, many people who read HBR, who go to business school, are or have aspirations to be senior leaders in their organizations. Maybe C-suite, maybe they even want to be CEO someday. And that, of course, means building a resume that will impress a lot of stakeholders. But one increasingly important group is executive recruiters.
ADI IGNATIUS: Look, I co-ran HBR for a long time, and we’re a different organization from a lot of corporate entities out there, but even we bring in executive search firms for the big roles. And the senior leaders I talk to, these are people who have great skills, great experience. They’re politically savvy. They’ve made all the right career moves. Even they say they need to figure out how in the world to persuade recruiters that they are C-suite material as both internal and external candidates.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah, exactly. It’s a tricky process. And today’s guests say that companies are bringing in search firms more often than ever, in part because it’s so hard to discern who is really ready for senior leadership in a business world that’s changing so quickly. They need objective, independent advisors to help them not just see what someone has done in their past, but also gauge their potential for growth into the future. And so, anybody who wants a senior role has to be ready for the recruiting process.
ADI IGNATIUS: And the process, I assume, means the behavioral interviews, the assessments, the reference checking, all of that.
ALISON BEARD: Yes, it is an onerous process, but thankfully we have some experts here to talk us through how to navigate it. Mark Thompson is chairman of the Chief Executive Alliance, and Byron Loflin is global head of board advisory at NASDAQ. Together, they wrote the HBR article, How to Stand Out to C-suite Recruiters, as well as the book CEO Ready: What You Need to Know to Earn the Job and Keep the Job. Here’s our conversation.
Obviously, there’s a lot that goes into positioning yourself for senior leadership in any organization, but why is understanding the executive recruiting process so important, especially today? Mark, why don’t you start?
MARK THOMPSON: It’s changed dramatically in the last five years, particularly where they’ve played a much, much bigger strategic role in vetting the talent internally. And historically, we’ve always thought about them vetting external talent. And so now that they’re involved in the process inside and out of an organization, they are ones that are now curating what some of the criteria are, what the job description might be, how you might be a cultural fit or not, and how relevant your experience might be. So we took it on in the book as something that was a real developmental change at all levels in the organization where the recruiters and the independent assessment firms are playing a bigger role than ever in history.
BYRON LOFLIN: One of the aspects I’ve observed in working with Mark is connecting the dots between the board, the recruitment firms, and work that folks like Mark do, and how that brings a more holistic approach to the CEO transition process. That it’s not just a start and stop, that it’s a long-term development process. And having those parties working together interactively, I think is and probably will continue to deliver in a sense a better product or more effective stewardship, particularly by the board as they select their candidate.
ALISON BEARD: What are CEOs and boards looking for in advice from recruiters? What are the recruiters giving them and telling them about the candidates that they can’t see themselves?
BYRON LOFLIN: Let’s say a board selects one CEO during the lifetime of nine board members. They only get one chance at this, where the recruiter – these are excellent recruiters providing a high value service. They’re looking at this possibly with as many as 20 to 50 candidates and seeing this prism. Being able to pick it up and looking at it to help the board identify. One image I like to use is a Rubik’s Cube. I’ll take one and I’ll hold it up in the middle of a boardroom and I’ll say, “How many squares can you see?” It’s half of the 54 if you’re on one side of the room. If you’re on the other side of the room, you can see the other half of the 54.
And so, that’s an image of the recruiters helping them look at that Rubik’s Cube of risk and assessment of this candidate, or candidates, in a way that they can see more elements than otherwise they would do.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah. They just have so much more experience and have seen so many more C-suite candidates over the course of their careers. Do both internal candidates for C-suite roles and external ones need to think as carefully about the recruiting process?
MARK THOMPSON: Absolutely. It’s interesting, because the internal candidate that may have grown up in the business would’ve been someone who has developed so quickly with their expertise, but we also remember how he or she stumbled along the way. Being a part of a leadership pipeline where you get known over a number of years, that should help de-risk the decision-making process about whether you’re the right individual.
And so you have both the scourge of, in a sense, being known with your history being at the organization. On the other hand, you have the huge advantage. And the reason why boards most still predominantly hire the internal candidate is that you have so much context. You have relationships, you can hit the ground running.
The external candidate has to now think about that in exactly the inverse way. She or he is coming into the organization needs to demonstrate they can hit the ground running, and that they can make a definite difference in the business because for both parties, both internal and external. As I sit there alongside the candidates over and over dozens of times, the one thing that always goes over very well is saying that we’re at a crossroads as an organization. That we need to embrace and harvest the best of our culture, the best of our products, the best of our services, the great history that we’ve been able to contribute to being innovative. And at the same time, we have to open another chapter. You know, I have to be the next person who is going to chart a future that makes sense, and be able to demonstrate that they’ve got that clear to them internally and externally. And that’s why the internal and external candidates will all be asked to be presenting a strategic plan, and those will be compared rather vigorously.
BYRON LOFLIN: And it’s also where a recruiter can be beneficial internally and externally to help evaluate the candidates on an objective basis. Because if the person’s high performing, the board’s going to tend to be biased towards that internal because look, they’re high performing.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah.
BYRON LOFLIN: But does that mean they’re going to be a great CEO for the corporation?
ALISON BEARD: When a candidate, a senior leader who has C-suite aspirations, eventually wants to position themselves to become a CEO, when they start interacting with recruiters, interviewing for a particular role, for example, what’s the first step in being ready for that? Whether you’re an external or internal candidate, how should you be thinking about the right way to present yourself? What mindset should you have?
BYRON LOFLIN: So first, I would emphasize learning the board and understanding the company that you’re interested in. Or companies, the sector, and what you’re going to bring. So preparing oneself to, one, establish what’s their credibility in the market? Two, why will an organization want you to be their leader? Why will they cheer when the day comes when you step up on a podium or in front of a group and they say, “This is the person we’re looking for”? What will that feel like to you?
And finding that synergy is one of the essential elements that you want to communicate to the recruiters. How do you stand out differently from your competition in terms of your ability to step into that role? That’s where productive paranoia, understanding who you are, self-awareness, courageous humility. These are the kinds of areas that start to stand out because it leads to active listening, the ability to interact with people at a level where they feel authenticity when they’re with you.
MARK THOMPSON: The authenticity ends up being a big point that Byron helps the reality check with the board, because they can sniff a person being fake about any part of this process. It’s about digging deeper into the successes and failures that you’ve had, what you’ve learned from those changes. It builds so much credibility. Everybody doesn’t have a perfect trajectory. They want someone battle tested, someone who can work well in peacetime and wartime. And those recruiters are really testing for that, that’s why they’re also using a lot of these independent assessment tools. Then they check your references, the recruiters triangulate you. They really are looking at every dimensions. They’re doing a 360 on you, and the recruiters are extraordinary at really vetting that sort of part of your development.
ALISON BEARD: Because recruiters are not just evaluating you for a particular role, but then also putting you in their database for potential roles in the future, how do you balance the specificity of giving those stories that are fully pertinent to the job at hand versus presenting a bigger picture of your talent so that they know the breadth of your skills and experience and might consider you for other roles?
BYRON LOFLIN: This goes back to the authentic self piece, and part of that is knowing what you’re capable of delivering and being able to communicate that in an interactive way. The recruiter becomes your advocate at a level. It’s important to develop that persona that communicates that who you are, how you’re going to lead, what does that look like in a given industry?
And being selective – one of the things that we emphasize in the book is self-selection and the idea that I do or don’t want to be in this role. But it could also be, I don’t want to be in the role in this company, but I feel the capability to do it in another place. There is demand for CEOs. So developing that relationship so that the recruiter understands and has a vision for how you could fill the role depending on what comes to their plate is an opportunity.
ALISON BEARD: Is it worth it or possible to develop relationships with recruiters before you’re interviewing for a specific job?
MARK THOMPSON: That’s what I recommend always. Isn’t it nice to be out there in the marketplace getting known, building relationships before you need them? That is perhaps one of the most authentic ways to do that. And so, if you’re thinking about becoming a chief executive in particular, there’s a short list of firms that are specialists in that area.
Meet as many of those people as possible and think about it as a developmental opportunity. Because the point you’re making is, Alison, that you’ve got to think about this, anticipate and develop yourself, and part of that will be to learn from the recruiters, what are they seeing right now? Because they’re at the tip of this very changing marketplace out there, and they can also help you understand what might be available to you. Also, how your resume might translate, especially when you’re not in a position where you’re having to look for that work, you have considerable more gravitas.
ALISON BEARD: Okay. What should C-suite aspirants know about how the interview process will go with recruiters? What should they expect?
MARK THOMPSON: The first step will be, they will want to think about the context when they’re being approached for this of as much as they can possibly learn from their network in the organization about how the role is being defined. And this is an extension of what you were asking, Alison, earlier about you want to be able to have the breadth of being seen as a credible candidate across companies since you’re going to be a part of the recruiter’s network, on the one hand. On the other hand, once we’re starting the process that you’re talking about, it’s highly specific. It’s going to be very much about, what is the board thinking about and looking for in that next candidate? And so, even prior to that first meeting it’s wise for someone who’s on that shortlist or who’s in the C-suite with aspirations to be watching for that when they’re in board meetings and at the dinners.
It’s a context in which you’re not always thinking about how they’re evolving their evaluation of the current CEO, and how you could add value in that process. If you have a deep resume, there are going to be parts of your resume that you can feature, you can underscore, and maybe need to further illuminate to demonstrate to the recruiter that you have what it takes for this next version of the chief executive.
ALISON BEARD: And I know recruiters are known for doing behavioral interviews.
MARK THOMPSON: Yes.
ALISON BEARD: Tell me a little bit about what that means for how we all need to prep.
MARK THOMPSON: This process of going back almost to childhood, depending on the behavioral interviews. And looking for instances of character, looking for instances of a learning mindset, to think about the way they’re framing who you are and how you might be showing up for this organization, how you build relationships, how you are resilient and bounce back. Think about those major themes as you look at your resume, because what we often do is think about it in a technical way. It’s sequential, it has to do with what happened and what happened next, and maybe weaving and stitching the rationale between them. That’s not exactly what the recruiter’s looking for. They’re looking for a whole person who can think expansively and enterprise-wide, and seeing that demonstrated through thick and thin, through highs and lows.
The person who has the EQ and the IQ, a person who turns that emotional setback into the resilience that says, “Okay, what can I do? What steps will I take? How can I show up better for this?” A person who’s taking responsibility, not necessarily blame, but responsibility is what the role is about. Being accountable for recruiting others and having the, what I always feel is that unusual combination of hubris and humility. Where on the one hand you have to have this, in a sense, outrageous belief that you can run this company and something this complex at this time of disruption, and that it could be a company that continues to lead its industry or redefines what it means to serve those customers.
That takes a lot of ambition and stubbornness and belief that you can be the best. And at the very same time, like Sarah Hirschland tells me, as CEO of the Olympics, if you’re going to be great at something, the way you’re going to do that is with the humility of knowing that you have to learn each and every day. You have to get better. Because once you’ve broken the next world record for the mile, there’s going to be a hundred other folks that beat you next year if you aren’t humble enough to learn how to do it better next time. It’s not a paradox. It’s one of the core competencies those recruiters are looking for is that combination of hubris and humility.
ALISON BEARD: And you talked about assessments. I’ve heard horror stories of people being in a room for an entire day going through different psychometric tests. What is the best practice right now in terms of how C-suite aspirants, not just the CEO, but people even at lower levels are needing to undergo?
MARK THOMPSON: One of the best ways to think about this is to think about the assessments that you’ve been taking, either had a 360 at some point in your career. You’ve had some context. At this point, they’re used so broadly up and down the organization. And if you haven’t, it’s good to actually start taking them and getting a sense of the diversity of those because some may focus in areas like personality and the fit for the culture in the organization. Others are known better for business scenarios, analytical capacity. The best way to prepare for any test is to just practice and to try as many different ones. And get comfortable in your skin so that you aren’t either being forced through fatigue to start making things up, which we heard folks calling the audible and saying, “Give me a break. I need a break right now.”
Part of it is an endurance test, so taking a deep breath, taking some opportunities to practice as much as possible in other contexts. And we even had one very capable CTO, who is now running the technology operations for one of the biggest brands in the world, who practiced with AI so that she could find her voice on how to articulate exactly what Byron’s talking about, how to articulate both the bad and the good news in ways that were crisp. Because she’s very capable, has a very deep understanding of what she’s doing and the business, but also had not taken all that much time to practice how she presents to the board. Because being articulate is something that can be practiced and you can develop when you do more of it.
So, presentation skills. This is the other role of a coach is that among any of the advisors that you have, you do need somebody whose only agenda is to help you succeed, help you start to think about how to prepare for the assessments and the recruiter, to whom you can have a soft shoulder to cry on and then start to turn that back into action so that you’re ready for what’s going to be a marathon in that recruiter’s process.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah. Byron, what do you think the assessments show that the behavioral interviews don’t?
BYRON LOFLIN: They should, and they often show, how will this person respond under pressure? And when they’re in the pressure cooker and in the sprint and when it’s all hands on deck, how is this person going to respond? And-
ALISON BEARD: Because it’s psychology, emotional intelligence. Are those the types of things that the assessments are designed to gauge?
BYRON LOFLIN: Certainly. And the personality type, their style of leadership. Because different companies need different things at different times. We often see companies, they’re looking for a transformational leader, somebody that’s going to come in and change things. Another company’s looking for somebody that they’re losing a stalwart leader that’s carried the company to a certain level and what they want to do is go up a step. But that’s not transformational, those are two different types of leaders. And so, communicating how one will be the leader that’s needed in that organization at this point in its life cycle. It’s an important ability to communicate.
ALISON BEARD: We also talked about references briefly. I want to dig into more detail. These are obviously relationships that are built over the course of a career, you cannot manufacture them overnight. But what’s your advice on how to cultivate them over time and then choose the right ones when you’re asked for a list?
MARK THOMPSON: The right ones end up being very much in alignment with the criteria for the job. And to your point, you can’t just manufacture them overnight. The interesting thing is when I had this conversation with candidates, they know a lot of people, they have many relationships. You got here because you’ve been investing in people. You’ve been investing in challenging yourself to reach to the next level. You’ve gotten noticed, in a sense, in the marketplace because you’ve been hired for these roles. And yet, you haven’t thought about what you’re asking as a project, as a program of continuous relationship building and feedback.
So thinking about the people who you’ve touched, you’ve had influence on, and that you’ve been able to help improve that division, that department. And being in professional circles as people who could also be your advisors and reaching out to them on a much more programmatic basis so that you can be developing those references. Not when, “Oh, my goodness, I need to think about these people differently.” And you can also better know how well they can represent you. Because the most well-meaning people might not be able to be presenting the dimensions that are most relevant for that role.
And you’d like to be able to think about every one of your advancements up the ladder as being supported by a community of people who can be cheerleading and also be loving critics along the way. To think about that as a multi-decade project, start today. Anyone who’s listening to this program today, put a program together to reach out and have those dinners and breakfasts that you haven’t had time for. Make the time. That’s going to be a game changer for you.
ALISON BEARD: You also make the point in the article that they’re going to call people who you don’t tell them to call. Byron, what’s your advice about how to handle that? They’re digging into your whole history, warts and all. So they might call a boss that you had a bad relationship with. Do you give that person a heads-up? How do you do it?
BYRON LOFLIN: And today, AI is going to augment this also, and that is because we’re asked to do background checks for boards, for both CEO and boards. And it’s very easy to find information on people. If there are people out there that know things about you that you don’t want released into the public, you need to think very thoughtfully about that and how that’s going to affect this process. Because the surprise is the enemy, particularly in the boardroom. I rarely find a board that doesn’t have the ability to call one or two people and find most of the community we’re talking about, and people in that community that can provide some level of reference. So live authentically, live openly…
ALISON BEARD: If you’ve made a mistake, be upfront about it. If you had a bad relationship or a bad work experience.
BYRON LOFLIN: Yes. Address it. If you’re 40 years old and you want to be a CEO sometime in the next 15 years of a big public company, I would fix all of those relationships as quickly as you can, and learn that these things will come back to you at some point. If you were too harsh, it could you yell and scream when you get angry, learning and getting coaching on these things. People love to see improvement, and improvement can be one of the reasons you get the job. Avoiding the reality of your personality is one of the key reasons you won’t get the job. Because you’re going to ultimately have today probably 10 or 12 people examining you more closely than you realize.
ALISON BEARD: Speaking of AI, how has that changed the way recruiters work?
BYRON LOFLIN: You can utilize AI to find… Because most of the people we’re talking about, they’ve done things where they’ve had reports delivered about them. It could be in a directors and officers questionnaire, these kinds of areas, proxy statements throughout. And then you’ve got Glassdoor and all the various social media. All of that can be scraped in minutes and provide a fairly comprehensive report on you. That’s going to become something I think will be more popular is some sort of service that provides, “Here’s what the world thinks about you.”
ALISON BEARD: And so, when you have a relationship with a recruiter, what’s the best way to keep it going?
MARK THOMPSON: Well, I would remember that this process is very much about being able to contribute value to their goals and objectives as well. If you can build relationships with your network, in addition to the assessors and recruiters, knowing what it is that they’re specializing in, what they’re focusing on, being a cheerleader and a supporter for what they’re doing, people value those who value what they have to contribute as well. That’s a great practice for a CEO, is to understand that you’re aligning yourself with experts around you with whom you’re building the relationship so that you can learn and so that you can grow. So put it on a regular calendar, a schedule, and be programmatic about those relationships.
BYRON LOFLIN: And ultimately, you’re going into a boardroom in which a group is going to select you along with that recruiter, in a sense. And that board is looking at succession as being their act to deliver on their responsibility of stewardship. So ensuring that your leadership, like capital, is going to compound over time would be a message that if you can communicate, that recruiter’s going to be able to help you in delivering that message. Because at the end, it’s condensing down to a decision process that the board makes. And how that plays out, the recruiter could be more or less involved, but certainly there’s going to be a high degree of interactivity around the things we’ve discussed.
ALISON BEARD: What do you think that recruiters want to see in someone who’s trying to make the leap from C-suite to CEO?
MARK THOMPSON: I’d say that the big change right now is this agility that the CEO needs to be able to express that makes them more of a T-shaped leader than ever. Meaning, they’re not only deep in the expertise that they’re usually being tapped as a candidate for, maybe they’re a CFO or a division president or have some other senior operating role, but they also have the ability to think enterprise-wide and across the stakeholders in the communities. And that’s probably the biggest adjustment, and often the biggest blind spot. Because we see people performing exceptionally well. The reason you’re on the short list to be a CEO is because you’re an elite athlete and you’re seen performing at the highest level in your functional area. And that’s not the same as seeing every distinct division of the company, every product group, every type of shareholder owner, and all of the amazing changes that are going on and rapid disruption going on in the markets. Thinking now, not just vertically in terms of expertise, but really demonstrating that you can start to look across the very many different influences that are impacting the business.
ALISON BEARD: Great. Mark, Byron, thank you so much.
MARK THOMPSON: Thank you.
BYRON LOFLIN: Thank you, Alison.
ALISON BEARD: That’s Mark Thompson, chairman of the Chief Executive Alliance. And Byron Loflin, global head of board advisory at NASDAQ. Together, they wrote the HBR article, How to Stand Out to C-suite Recruiters, as well as the book, CEO Ready. Next week, Adi speaks with Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio about macroeconomic trends and the year ahead.
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Thanks to our team, senior producer Mary Dooe, audio product manager, Ian Fox; and senior production specialist, Rob Eckhardt. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Alison Beard.
