It’s All About the Story

Welcome to Headhunter Secrets, where I’ll share perspectives about the search business. We hope you’ll use our services to execute searches. Nonetheless, I wanted to give you some insights I’ve gained from doing search work since I was 23 years old.

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It’s About the Story
Much more than the job description

When recruiting, it’s tempting to lead with a classic job description including a tidy list of responsibilities, requirements, reporting lines, systems, tools, and compensation. But talented people—especially the ones employers most want—will glaze over at a list of tasks and logistics. The most talented people respond to an opportunity that shows a trajectory with future outcomes they can envision resulting from their efforts and from being part of a given company. They respond less to the starting compensation package and more to the potential compensation the opportunity provides.

In other words, the most talented candidates respond to a story.

The story of the company, industry, and business cycle defines the opportunity more than a job description ever could because story explains meaning, momentum, and leverage. Story makes it personal.

A job description tells candidates what they’ll do on Monday. A story tells them why Monday matters. The company story—its founding conviction, the challenges it seeks to tackle, the values that define its culture—offers candidates a coherent reason to care. It takes a role and places it in a narrative that reveals a tangible and meaningful career.

Momentum is found in industry and business cycles. The story of the company’s current position in the industry and business cycle further sharpens the appeal to top talent.

During up-cycles, candidates get to build for growth—new operating assets, new products, new geographies, new customers. In an early-stage or growth sprint, a finance manager, for example, might be raising capital, analyzing and executing new initiatives, and recruiting new capable teammates who build value together. This story appeals to risk-takers seeking a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

During down-cycles, candidates get to build for durability—unit economics, retention, pricing power, operational excellence. These are skills that teach sustainability and reward patience and perseverance. This story appeals to fixers, candidates who enjoy the turnaround process, which, once completed, can be extremely economically rewarding.

At companies in a mature plateau, most of which are larger, that same finance manager may be optimizing a business that’s already been built, seeking incremental gains in operational efficiency, margins, market, and value. This story appeals more to people seeking stability. The reward may not come quickly, but over time value creation can compound enough to be economically and professionally rewarding.

Then there’s leverage—what a person can do next with his or her effort. A job description lists inputs and outputs, whereas a story illuminates outcomes. High performers want to be able to grasp how they can parlay their success in this role into their next great challenge and achievement.

The best recruiters and hiring managers know how to tell a candid and effective company story in a way that clarifies the meaning, momentum, and leverage the opportunity presents. This attracts the most talented people, reduces mis-hires, and builds team resilience because it signals that leadership understands the work as it truly is, not as it was imagined to be from the typical job description template.

In other words, stories define a future, not just a role.

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Hope these insights are helpful. 

We at Leyendecker have been doing search work for 40 years. We’ve completed over 100 C-level searches, most for CFOs. Most have been PE portfolio companies, but we’ve also helped owner/managed and publicly-held companies. Our placements have helped their employers go through almost 50 successful liquidity events.  

Keep us in mind when you seek talent that will get you over the goal line! Hope you have a joyous holiday season!

Doug