The Motivated-Seller Market

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.

Headhunter’s Secrets:
The Motivated-Seller Market

The candidates most likely to be interested in a new opportunity are in what I call “the motivated-seller market.” Motivated sellers are candidates currently open to new opportunities. Motivated sellers are generally found in one of the following places:

• People who are unemployed are obviously motivated sellers. They want a job. They want cash flow.

• People working for companies struggling with financial challenges tend to feel insecure. Will they get laid off? Will the company survive? Better to find a financially stable company where people feel more confident in the company’s sustainability.

• People working for companies that were recently acquired are often at risk of losing their jobs. Most of the time, the acquiring company already has a CFO, a head of HR, and so on. They don’t need two CFOs. They don’t need two heads of HR.

• People working for companies that recently changed out leadership are at risk if the new leader wants to bring in his or her own team. This happens quite often, putting legacy employees at risk of losing their jobs.

There is one other circumstance that can create motivated sellers…

• When you can offer a deserved and attractive promotion. In some cases, people are ready and qualified for more responsibility but are blocked from a promotion because their boss might be a similar age or not him/herself ready for a promotion.

So, when trying to find candidates, look in these places…

• The unemployed
• Companies struggling with financial challenges
• Companies that were recently acquired
• Companies that recently changed out leadership
• Candidates whom you can promote, and who deserve it

Hope these insights are helpful. In my next essay, I’ll describe the five career paths.

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 for 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 great year!

Doug