This Week, In Recruiting - Issue 84

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Open Kitchen: How To Become A CEO

Don't worry, I'm not about to give anybody leadership lessons today 🤣.

Nor am I am going to talk about the intangible qualities as to what goes into a leader, or how anybody can become a leader (true), regardless of position in the hierarchy. Instead, I want to focus on the hierarchy - how individuals do end up becoming top of an organisational tree - prompted in part by the political scenes we have seen this past week in the UK, China, Italy and elsewhere in the world where different systems describe a pathway to CEO which might be mapped onto the corporate realm.

Seems to me there are at least 3 models in which a person ends up being the CEO of a business.

1. Founder and Build Organisation Underneath You

Most people on LinkedIn who are called 'CEO' are probably in this category - solo founders who are left permanent employment and are hustling to build some up. Most of the time, you might never get beyond this stage but stay afloat enough to run a great business.

The dream of many though, would be grow the business with new hires, have a team around you and eventually build up the business. I call the it 'proper' CEO not to denigrate any other stage or form but to say that at that point, no one would question the accuracy of the title. The main idea I hope to communicate here is that the way to get there is grow the revenue enough to hire folks underneath you in a traditional company hierarchy. This is also an old technique to accelerate your career within a business. By hiring more people to report to you, you increase 'the weight' of your department which can be disguised as value. One of the motivating factors driving hiring are departmental managers operating under the incentive of their own career progression vs actual business need for the role. And for those who want to know by the way, Brainfood is very much in the solo founder bucket and will remain that way 👊!

2. Employee and Climb the Career Ladder

In the pre-Internet era, the only option for most wannabe CEO's had was the join a company as an employee and 'work your way up'. The career ladder approach was a multi-year - maybe multi-decadal - commitment which would require long hours and machiavellian political manoeuvring. Since there was only ever one CEO in the company, competition would be fierce and only the ruthless would ever get there.

Since the Internet era, the timelines have truncated, the opportunity for over promotion pretty consistent and therefore the timelines to get to CEO this way have significantly shortened. That said, this is still pretty much the long way up to the top job.

3. Parachute In to Replace Incumbent

The final way to get to CEO is to hired into the role. This one is a bit of cheat because I suspect that this generally wouldn't happen unless you had previously been a CEO via methods 1 and 2. It can and does happen for senior employees of prestige brands though, especially if the company they are going to do is of lower status. Perhaps the canonical example of this might be Marissa Meyer's career path - from senior exec at one of the highest prestige organisations (VP of Google Search Products) to top job at a lower prestige organisation (CEO of Yahoo!).

Love to hear from exec search types on this - how do you consider candidates for CEO roles who have never yet held that title or role before? And how common is the requirement for previous experience in role in order to be considered for it? I would imagine this is the type of business which the hirers - presumably the board of directors - would be defensive in terms of type of responsibilities and experience they want to see in candidates.

Anyway, how does all these models compare to the politics of the day?

The answer is actually 'none of the above' as in the democratic system, there is a parallel method of securing the top job, which for the UK involves going to the right private school, doing PPE at the right University and then being chummy with the right people in the Conservative Party.

PS: My leadership peaked a few decades ago when I successfully lead We At The Pies FC Sunday League football club to an unprecedented 3rd place finish in St Andrews University Student League, unquestionably my finest achievement.

Anyways, out of the kitchen, onto the lounge

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What's in the News?

Indeed goes PPA in 2023

I couldn't make Indeed FutureWorks earlier this month, but if I had I would've heard the news that Indeed are making a full gun shift to pay-per-application 2023. Future is here for job boards, pay per post is history, pay per click is about to join it. SHRM have the report, have a read here.

CV Library acquires programmatic advertiser Brilliant Jobs

CV Library - the super resilient UK focused generalist job board, gets into programmatic with the acquisition of Brilliant Jobs. Typically astute move by MD Lee Biggins, expect the integration to be quick, with the pay per post era coming to its inevitable end. Have a read here

If you are a recruitment service provider or technology business and have any news to share, comment below, this is your application to get into next week's addition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to @ mention me so that I see it

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What's On Offer?

Eli Onboarding offering FREE implementation for ALL Early Career Recruiters

Eli Onboarding have dropped the implementation fee for all Early Career recruiters if you sign up before 2023, meaning you could save £thousands. If you’re wondering how to engage with your successful applicants before they start, or are worried they’ll accept multiple offers or drop out before day one, Eli is the solution for you. The technology empowers you to create very engaging onboarding experiences that build a real sense of community and excitement before day one, not to mention helping talent get to know your business inside and out. Just mention the Brainfood newsletter when you drop us a note at hello@elionboarding.com

If you are a recruitment service provider or recruitment technology vendor have any exclusive offer for the community, comment below with your offer in order to be included in next week's edition of This Week, In Recruiting. Make sure to mention me so that I see it.

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What's Going On?

Brainfood Baked Fresh - Ep6 - Issue 315 in Review, 24th Oct, 12.30pm

You know I'm not joking when I say this week has seen one of the best newsletters in 2022. We have a review of 30 million job postings from 2019-2022, Women in Work Report, AI coming for creativity, Recruitment Advertising for the vacant job of His Majesty's Prime Minister and more on Candidate Fraud. What's not to like? Join us for the chat - register here

The Importance of DEI in Volume Recruitment, 25th Oct, 12pm

Loving this series with our buddies Crooton - it's familiar recruiting issues, viewed through the high volume lens. And it's always interesting to hear stories from recruiters of unique organisations, which the City of London Police certainly is. Me, Daniel Sandhu and others in this conversation on DEI - don't miss this one folks - register here

The Power of Automation in Sourcing, Tue 24th Oct, 11 AM ET, 6pm Kyiv

Sourcing automation might be the super power which transforms a good recruiter from the great one. The ones who have the ability to improve efficiency with advanced usage of often freely available tools will be the ones who have the competitive advantage in the war for talent. No less a figure that Adriaan Kolff, CEO (MatchHR) is conducting this webinar and sharing his teams secrets. Part of an ongoing series of charity fundraising events by the awesome Anna Golovchenko, they are all worth your attention and your donation. Do it here!

Hiring Strategies: Planning Ahead for 2023, Thu 27 Oct, 2.30pm BST

Are you thinking about 2023 headcount folks? I guess we had better be as we're already in Q4. I'm not sure whether it has ever been more challenging to try and figure this out, so I'm with my buddies at Screenloop on a webinar on this essential topic. We're with Danny Hodgson, CEO (Foresight), Andrea Marston, Senior Director, Global Talent Acquisition (VMWare) and Anton Boner, Director (Screenloop). Register here

Brainfood Live On Air - Ep178 - From Talent Intelligence to Talent Acquisition - Citi Case Study, Fri 28th 2pm GMT

The rise of Talent Intelligence has been one of the most encouraging things to happen in Talent Acquisition over the past few years - I don't know of Head of TA of a serious business who isn't interested in this! So what better timing other than to do a deep dive case study on how Citi have operationalised Talent Intelligence to Talent Acquisition. With the man in charge himself, Jeremy Thornton, Senior Project Manager (Citi). Register here folks.

7 Secrets to Crafting Effective Recruiting Emails, Weds 2nd Nov, 11am EDT / 3pm GMT

We all know that finding the candidates is only the start our of problems - we also have to get them to respond! What are the best techniques to communicate with candidates - is there any innovation left in writing email? We're going to find out with this outstanding cast of heroes from the recruiting world - it's Alla Pavlova, Recruiter (Riot Games), Sheryl Marymount, Head of People (TRUSTERO), Mark Lundgren, Recruiter (Videre) and Jan Bernhart, Headhunter (IT-L) - register here

From Candidate to Employee - How to Deliver Positive Experience to Increase Retention for 2023, Nov 3rd, 4pm GMT

You haven't had this topic before, I assure you! What impact does Swag have on your employee onboarding? And does it matter to have the right sizing options, cultural sensitivity, timing, quality control and personalisation when you give your new hires some goodies? We're going to talk about something we've long neglected folks - how to delight your new hires and make them immediately feel part of the team. With Arielle Kilroy, CEO (dado) and Michael Martocci, CEO (SwagUp). Register here

Caught In The Act: Behind the Scenes of a Candidate Fraud Detection Interview, Mon 7th Nov, 2.30pm GMT

Episode 2 of our series with FloCareer, on a phenomenon which is starting to become a mainstream problem - candidate fraud. We're going to take a behind-the-scenes view on how FloCareer conduct remote interviews at scale, why they flag up up 10% of remote interviews as worth further investigation and even show us a trial run to give live examples of what to look for when you're conducting remote interviews. Must attend folks - register here!

Talent Attraction, Development and Retention as New Worlds Emerge, Tue 8th Nov, 12pm

Fair to say that I'm more excited for this webinar than any other - an opportunity to connect with my mate and all round +++ contributor Garry Turner (HEXO Change) and meet Sahana Chattopadhyay (Proteeti) and discuss the global zeitgeist, how we are going to handle a world which is undergoing hostile and chaotic de-globalisation and why communication networks in parallel with official channels might be the necessary way forward. Register here

The Champions of Talent: Empowering Recruiters and Elevating Recruiter Experience, Nov 10th, 10.30 EDT / 4.30pm GMT

Ep3 of the Champions of Talent - lets centre the recruiter experience and how to ensure recruiters have the environment they need in order to succeed. This week, I'm with Valeria Suschin, Candidate Experience Lead and Mitzy Bueno, Candidate Experience Senior Manager from Pfizer, as we talk about how the CX team organised to make sure the team made sure that candidate experience and recruiter experience went hand in hand. Register here

If you have an event, webinar or podcast going on next week and want it featured on next week's newsletter, comment below with the link and event details. Don't forget to @ mention me so that I see it

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Who's Moving?

Kristian Bright joins Rooser as Talent Lead, having previously spent time with amazing startups such as Duffel, People Collective, Deliveroo, World Remit and Stack Overflow. Starting to see a few of my mates move into 'tangible economy' businesses, albeit still software. This is positive trend, part of the zeitgeist for the next phase I suspect...

Sophie Bullock joins Checkout.com as Talent Operations Manager, after spending time in recruitment ops at iTech Media. Looks like an interesting career path in the still nascent field of RecOps - maybe a topic of a Brainfood Live if you're up for it Sophie.

Armi Ingratta joins SEON Fraud Fighters as Head of Talent Acquisition, having previously lead the TA functions at Unabel, Zencargo and Plumerai. I think I first connected with Armi even before then, maybe in the Nexmo days? Great to see the man still operating at top level, and very smart to be move towards one of the guaranteed growth sectors - cybersecurity.

Niki Dhakan joins S&P Global as Regional Marketing Manager - Events & Conferences. Great working with Niki when she was Event Marketing Manager at iCIMS and always bittersweet to see someone leave the recruiting industry! Still this looks like a fantastic opportunity - good luck Niki and keep in touch!

Deborah Caulet moves up to the top join as Director of People & Culture at Blinkist, Sarah Friedlander Garcia promoted to Senior Director, Brand & Content Marketing at SugarCRM,  Majella Grawatsch goes to Marketing Director DACH at Radancy and Iva Toncheva who moves to Manager Global Practice at Johnson & Johnson - congratulations all!

If you have made a senior exec appointment to your business, and feel the wider community needs to know about it, comment below with the details and see it featured in next weeks issue. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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What Are You Doing?

Deborah Caulet has a new course out - Decentralised Autonomous Hiring. I can say for real that Blinkist have a unique recruitment approach, completely at odds with the prevailing market trends. What is it that they know, that the rest of the market doesn't? Mainly that you can push your recruitment work back to the line, so long as you provide the right support to the line. Now you can learn how to do it - you have to pay (€800.00) and you have to apply to save your spot. Worth looking at folks - do it here

Martyn Redstone is relaunching pplbots, the first of its kind agency dedicated to helping recruiters, talent acquisition teams and recruitment technology vendors get the most out of chatbots and conversational AI in the recruitment process. Few have greater experience in this space than Martyn - get in touch if you want to find the best way to implement conversational AT / chatbot to your recruitment game.

If you are doing something new, comment below with what it is and share a link to where you want people to go. Don't forget to @ mention me in it so that I see it

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End Notes

End of October already, before you know it another crazy year is going to come to an end. I am sure you all share with me a sense of surprise that we have gone through this year as quickly as we have. Need to start writing a review of it - any thoughts on what themes need to be included?

Comment below, let me know...

Hung Lee is the curator of Recruiting Brainfood, and now This Week In Recruiting. Subscribe to both if you are into recruiting or HR or just interested in world of work.