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Business Week says, Interim Executives are in the C-Suite
In a recent Business Week article, "Test-Drives in the C-Suite: Companies are turning to tryouts to avoid hiring the wrong executive" Michelle Conlin describes how interim executives or leaders on demand are entering the c-suite. With a 40% failure rate of new hires, some companies are turning to an alternative temp-to-perm arrangement in which they try before they buy.
Kelly says, "It remains to be seen whether so-called try-buys will proliferate once the labor market recovers. But for now it suits the times. Executives don't want to commit to big fixed costs. Job hunters don't want to change cities or update their LinkedIn statuses before they know a job is a sure thing. In an acutely risk-averse environment, try-buys mitigate the risk on both sides."
Last summer, the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, found its consumer goods company suddenly without a CEO. Carlyle hired a search firm to find a replacement. But big headhunters almost always focus on candidates who already have jobs, which typically take months. Pauline Brown, Carlyle’s managing director decided to experiment and turned to interim executives. "I was basically blown away by the caliber of people they presented," says Brown. "They were on a par with or better than the people we were meeting in our more standard search." In the end the interim candidate beat out all the ones the traditional search firm eventually supplied and is now the permanent CEO. "I wouldn't hesitate about trying this again," Brown says.
Conlin is editor of Business Week's Working Life Department.
To read the entire article, visit Business Week http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_42/b4151054065926.htm
