Today's Hiring Market Won't Last. Your Reputation With Executive Talent Will.

Part One of a Two-Part Series on Executive Hiring

I've been recruiting for more than 25 years, which means I've lived through a lot of hiring markets.

I've seen periods when companies struggled to find qualified leaders and periods when executives had their choice of opportunities. I've recruited through rapid growth, hiring freezes, economic downturns, talent shortages, mass layoffs, and markets where companies couldn't hire exceptional people fast enough.

If there is one thing I've learned, it's that hiring markets are cyclical. Never get too comfortable.

That's worth remembering right now.

In many areas of technology, employers have more leverage than they've had in years. Layoffs, restructuring, economic uncertainty, and the disruption created by AI have put talented and experienced executives into transition. Organizations that once struggled to build a strong candidate slate may suddenly find more accomplished leaders willing to have a conversation.

For companies making consequential leadership hires, that's an opportunity. It gives CEOs and boards the ability to be thoughtful about the executives they bring into their organizations and selective about the combination of experience, leadership capability, and perspective they need for what comes next.

But there is a danger in confusing more available talent with an unlimited supply of exceptional leadership talent.

The two aren't the same.

Candidate Abundance Is Not Leadership Abundance

This distinction is particularly visible in the AI talent wars.

We are watching some of the world's most sophisticated technology companies compete intensely for a relatively small group of people with the expertise and experience to shape AI's future. The numbers may be extraordinary, but the underlying dynamic should be familiar to any CEO or board that has tried to recruit a truly exceptional leader.

Scarcity changes behavior.

When companies know that only a small number of people can deliver what they need, recruiting becomes much more intentional. Senior leaders become personally involved. Organizations think carefully about the mandate, the opportunity, the resources, the compensation, and the story they're asking a candidate to believe.

That is a lesson for the broader executive market.

A company might identify 100 people with a CIO title. That doesn't mean there are 100 people capable of leading your technology organization through the transformation ahead.

There may be dozens of CISOs with impressive résumés. Far fewer may possess the particular combination of security leadership, business judgment, board presence, AI fluency, regulatory understanding, and organizational influence your company requires.

The same is true across AI, data, engineering, risk, and other functions being reshaped by technological change.

The question in executive search has never really been: How many qualified people exist?

The better question is: Who is the right leader for this organization, this mandate, this leadership team, and this moment?

Once you ask the question that way, the pool becomes considerably smaller.

And many of the executives in that pool aren't looking for a job.

The Best Candidate May Have a Very Good Reason to Say No

This is one of the fundamental differences between recruiting generally and executive search.

At the senior leadership level, you're frequently pursuing people who are already successful. They may be well compensated, respected inside their organizations, deeply connected to their teams, and doing meaningful work.

Your greatest competitor may not be another company. It may be the executive deciding to stay exactly where they are.

That means executive recruiting isn't simply an evaluation process. It's also a process of attraction. While you're determining whether an executive is capable of leading your organization, that executive is determining whether your organization is worthy of the disruption required to join it.

Why this company? Why this CEO? Why this board? Why this mandate? Why now?

And perhaps most importantly: Will I actually be able to accomplish what you're bringing me here to do?

Those are substantial questions. The answers come not only from the job description and compensation package, but from everything the candidate experiences throughout the search.

Your Executive Search Process Is Telling Candidates Something About You

A well-run executive search communicates more about an organization than companies sometimes realize.

A clear mandate tells candidates that leadership understands what it needs. An aligned interview team signals organizational discipline. Appropriate access to the CEO and board reinforces that the position matters. Honest conversations about challenges build credibility because sophisticated executives don't expect organizations to be perfect; they do expect leaders to be candid.

A disorganized or excessively lengthy process communicates just as much.

If the mandate changes repeatedly, candidates notice. If different members of the leadership team describe fundamentally different priorities, candidates notice. If decisions consistently take weeks or no one appears empowered to move the process forward, they notice that too.

For an experienced executive, these aren't simply recruiting frustrations. They're information about the organization they are considering joining.

A CISO being recruited to transform a security program is evaluating whether the CEO will support difficult decisions. A CIO being asked to modernize an enterprise is evaluating whether the organization is actually prepared for change. An AI leader is trying to determine whether the company's ambitions are supported by the investment, data, talent, governance, and executive commitment required to achieve them.

The search process may be the first opportunity they have to see how your organization makes consequential decisions.

What are you showing them?

The Executive You Don't Hire Still Matters

Companies understandably focus most of their attention on the person who ultimately accepts the role. At the executive level, however, the experience of the people you don't hire can matter almost as much.

Executive communities are smaller than they appear.

CISOs talk to other CISOs. CIOs know other CIOs. Executives sit on boards together, attend the same industry events, work with the same investors and advisors, and call one another when they're considering significant career moves.

Today's finalist may become tomorrow's CEO, board member, customer, investor, strategic partner, referral source - or a candidate for another critical role.

They may also become the person your next candidate calls.

“I'm considering an opportunity with this company. What do you know about them?”

What would you want them to say?

That's why I believe the executive candidate experience is more than a recruiting concern. It's part of your organization's reputation in the leadership market.

And reputation has a much longer shelf life than any individual search.

Be Careful What a Buyer's Market Allows You to Normalize

This is where I think today's market deserves some caution.

When employers have leverage, inefficient processes can survive without creating an immediate crisis. A strong candidate may tolerate another interview. A finalist may wait another two weeks. If someone withdraws, another qualified person may enter the pipeline.

The process appears to be working because the market is absorbing the inefficiency.

But temporary market leverage can create permanent organizational habits.

Five- and six-month hiring cycles become normal. Teams add more interviews without removing anything else. More stakeholders get involved, and decisions stretch as candidates continue to wait.

Until they don't.

I've watched the pendulum swing many times over the course of my career. The organizations that struggle when it swings back are often the ones that assumed the conditions of the moment were permanent.

AI gives us a clear example of what happens when exceptional talent suddenly has extraordinary leverage. Companies adjust quickly. Recruiting becomes personal. Leadership gets involved. Candidate experience matters. The organization has to articulate not simply what it wants from an executive, but why that executive should want the organization.

The rest of the executive market may not look like the AI talent wars today.

That doesn't mean it won't tighten again.

Today's Hiring Market Won't Last

Use this market to be selective. A consequential executive appointment deserves thoughtful evaluation and meaningful diligence.

But don't use temporary leverage as an excuse for an unnecessarily burdensome process.

The executive you want most may have more options than the broader employment market suggests. And even the executive you ultimately decide not to hire should leave the process believing that your organization knew what it wanted, respected their time, communicated honestly, and made decisions thoughtfully.

Exceptional leaders remember the organizations that treated them that way.

They remember the others, too.

The market will change. It always does.

Today's hiring market won't last. Your reputation with executive talent will.

And that brings me to another question I've been thinking about: What happens when a company wants to make a decision but simply can't get there?

There is nothing wrong with being highly selective when choosing an executive leader. You should be. These are consequential decisions.

Being selective is good. Being indecisive isn't.

In Part Two, I'll look at why some of the longest executive searches don't actually have a candidate problem at all. They have an alignment problem.

Executive Search. Because the right leader changes everything.