Organizations have been forced to rapidly pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic. These pivots include shifting to a work-from-home workforce, adapting to remote collaboration technologies, and rethinking team communications strategies.
As stated in a recent Forbes article, COVID-19 has also forced organizations to more rapidly advance digital transformation strategies. “Already, 70% of companies had digital transformation in place or were working on one, but it seems most companies were not far enough along…COVID-19 (has) forced companies to visit a digital transformation faster.” -Forbes
Hiring Talent to ramp up the speed of Digital Transformation has never been more important than ever. In turn, organizations can significantly increase senior talent source effectiveness by leveraging a recruiting partner for Executive Retained Search.
Executive Retained Search Success Story:
Earlier this year, MICA Consulting Group partnered with a mid-sized financial services firm to identify a new Executive who would be tasked with leading digital transformation for the company. The firm faced as a number of integration challenges:
The sales automation system did not connect to the CMS or other web properties
The intranet did not have a user-friendly UX/UI system
The digital ecosystem was not fully integrated with marketing and sales systems
The new Executive would be tasked with completely overhauling the web platform, CRM, CMS, and sales systems so that all digital experiences are cohesive and compatible.
MICA addressed critical needs for the client during the role definition phase:
Defining Role Seniority: MICA partnered with the client to more clearly articulate the budgetary responsibilities and internal departments that the Exec would need to manage. While the role was originally a VP Experience title, it was ultimately decided that the Exec would need to be an EVP Brand Development and Experience to influence and execute across the most senior levels of the organization. The CMO needed a “right-hand person” to be effective in the role.
Specifying Job Expertise: MICA partnered with the client to define the required capabilities and skills sets. This EVP required the technical acumen to understand the existing tech stack, identify integration gaps, evaluate new technical tools, and determine ease or difficulty of installation and integrations. In addition, this EVP would also require the business, marketing and cross-department collaboration capabilities to manage the business process, marketing requirements, UX/UI/IA implementation. This EVP would need to be able to communicate the importance and ease of use of these tools to all department leadership and end-users.
Identifying Industry Experience: The client preference was to recruit exclusively out of large financial services firms with identical job experience. Based on our MICA experience, at large organization, no single person would manage all of these job requirements. After initial research and interviewing, we discovered that our assumptions were correct. There were no viable candidates in this sector.
MICA developed a search strategy based on the clearly defined role:
Digital Strategy Firms: MICA targeted candidates from digital strategy consulting firms with prior experience leading digital transformation projects. MICA identified two types of candidates:
Highly technical, hands-on
Highly technical and strategic, not hands-on
Strategic Technical Candidates: After evaluating internal resources against these two profiles, we agreed with the client to focus on highly technical and strategic candidates. These candidates would have significant experience across industry, exposure to a variety of tech stacks and digital tools, and prior involvement in multiple implementations.
Result: The EVP Brand Development and Experience was hired from a digital consulting firm with highly technical and strategic experience. Within 8 months of hire, the new EVP “effectively crafted and is now implementing digital transformation both technically and culturally throughout the organization.
Recruiting Firms are Critical in Executive Search:
Hiring Executive talent requires retained search with a recruiting partner to be successful:
Retained search provides access to a recruiting firm’s confidential network of senior level executives and relationships across targeted organizations
Retained search ensures closer and confidential discussions across organizational leadership and team structures, and a deeper look at senior level required, and hard and soft skills needed, to be successful
Retained search increases the efficiency of your senior talent sourcing, and ultimately your new executive’s effectiveness and impact on your organization
As you look at your Executive hiring needs, contact your recruiting partner to discuss your strategy, and how Executive Retained Search can ensure staffing success.
MICA Consulting Group is a recruiting and consulting firm focused on connecting people in Marketing, Interactive, Business Development, Creative and Advertising. Our industry knowledge and professional matchmaking experience allows us to take a consultative approach to put the correct people in place to build your business.
We offer three key services: Executive Search, Contained Search, and Contingent Search. Also ask us about our External Talent Mapping and Talent Pipelining Services.