Most stalled executive searches were priced on the last person in the seat.
Joshua Hollander ·
When a senior search runs past ninety days, the market usually gets the blame. In the searches I have run this year, the market was almost never the reason. The cause was settled before the first candidate was called, in two decisions the company made too quickly or did not make at all.
The budget was set by the last person in the seat
The most common one is the budget. Finance takes what the previous person was paid, adds a percentage, and that becomes the range. Nobody checks whether the job changed in the meantime, and it almost always did, because the reason you are hiring is usually that the role outgrew the person or the person outgrew the role.
Two months later, the candidates who fit the range are a level below what the work requires, and the ones who fit the work will not take the call. The hiring team reads that as a tight market. More money rarely fixes it on its own. What fixes it is deciding which version of the role you are actually hiring and then pricing that version. Sometimes the honest answer is that you need a strong number two rather than the leader you wrote down, and that is a perfectly good answer as long as you choose it on purpose.
Nobody decided the role had to exist
The second decision is whether the seat exists at all. This year I watched a senior operator I have known for years come close on three roles and land none of them. One went to another candidate, which is the ordinary way these searches end. The other two stopped in the late rounds. One CEO decided the company did not need the role yet, and another company wanted to close one more acquisition before adding the seat.
Both searches had a job description, a process and a finalist, and neither company had decided whether the role would survive a slow quarter. That costs more than losing a candidate to a better offer, because the people you take through four rounds and then stall are the ones who will not take your call the next time you open the seat.
Settle both before the first interview
Before you open a senior search, write down two answers. The first is which version of the role you are hiring, priced on the work it requires today. The second is what would have to happen for the company to pause the search, and whether the CEO and the board agree on it.
Our senior hiring checklist covers both, along with the other questions worth settling before you make an executive offer. You can request it on our Tools and Resources page.