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I have a love/hate relationship with ideas that seem so cool, so obvious that they prompt me to ask myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?” I’m sure you’ve had that experience, too. Recently I had one of those moments when I spoke with Sanjay Sathe, the founder and CEO of SucceedSmart. I was really taken by his approach to disrupting traditional executive search — a service that I’ve experienced both as a buyer and a candidate.
As new norms continue to emerge post-pandemic, this one seemed ripe for the picking. Thanks to Sanjay for giving me an hour of his time and sharing his perspectives on how the world of executive recruitment is changing for the better: creating greater transparency, career equity and mutual satisfaction for companies and candidates.
Executive Search Is Ripe for Disruption
Can you share a bit about your professional background and why you decided to launch SucceedSmart?
Launching SucceedSmart was a culmination of my 15 years as a candidate of executive search and my 15 years as a buyer of executive search. It was clear to me that this industry was living in the past, had clear inefficiencies and was ripe for disruption. The industry was not innovating or leveraging technology in any way, while many organizations across the broader HR technology market were. I invested time in researching both executives and corporate HR leaders to confirm my thinking and when I received a resounding 'yes' to my hypothesis. I dove in to launch the company in 2020.
How do you envision SuccessSmart contributing to greater equity in the labor market?
Much like Expedia in travel, Zillow in home buying, and Wealthfront in financial management, we’re driving 'information symmetry.' By leveraging our technology platform, we give both sides equal access to opportunities and driving transparency about available executive talent. Our 'single-blind' approach supports a level playing field and greater equity in how candidates are initially seen. Accomplishments and results are the first filter, not demographics or shared experiences that reinforce similarity or confirmation biases.
“Executive search has always been a secretive, high-priced business. While this process often works, it’s expensive and leaves out many candidates. SucceedSmart, in an effort to disrupt this model, enables organizations to 'match' with candidates, greatly reducing cost and scaling the process by orders of magnitude. It’s a disruptive idea that could change executive search forever.”
- Josh Bersin
Global Industry Analyst
What are some of the top challenges in executive recruitment today?
Executives are among the most critical employees at any organization, but these roles continue to be difficult to fill. Executive recruitment can take several months— leading to a poor candidate experience and lost productivity as roles go unfilled.
At the same time, turnover in executive roles has increased in recent years and the demand for executive positions continues to grow. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects an average of 311,600 openings for top executives each year through 2032.
Why does traditional executive search no longer work in today’s market?
Social science research has shown that the behavior of leaders has the single greatest impact on organizational culture. This impact is further amplified at the executive level because of visibility and decision making. In addition, leaders have an immeasurable impact on business success. Yet, despite increased leadership turnover, business velocity and heightened competition, the legacy practice focused on finding and placing executives — executive search — has lacked innovation and technological advancements for half a century. As businesses across industries increasingly embrace digital-first technologies, the executive search industry continues to operate almost entirely offline.
Traditional executive search projects an image that is exclusionary and clubby, and in addition is time-consuming and expensive. The pricing model for retained search can require corporations to pay significant fees even when the search does not produce a placement. Even worse, the same executives are often passed around between firms, leading to a limited talent pool, and further underscoring the exclusionary nature of the approach.
Related Article: Why Leaders Are Leaving
What 2024 Will Bring for Executive Recruitment
As adoption of AI continues to accelerate, how will it impact executive recruitment?
Businesses across industries have increasingly embraced AI in 2023. While some individuals may be hesitant to adopt AI due to fears that the latest technology may take their jobs, this isn’t necessarily the case. AI can help recruitment and HR professionals work more strategically, improve diversity and inclusivity, and put the 'human' back in human resources.
In executive recruitment, AI tools can automate manual, repetitive tasks including candidate sourcing, outreach, resume review and initial screenings. AI can enable recruiters to focus on more strategic tasks and building critical relationships with clients and candidates. AI also can mitigate unconscious bias and promote diversity in executive recruitment. As a first step, AI can generate job descriptions that have fewer biases and are focused on accomplishments, not just skills. Secondly, when using a 'single-blind' approach to candidate matching, candidates are identified based on the results they have achieved, not just their skills and knowledge sets.
What executive recruitment trends do you expect to see in 2024?
Adopting AI and promoting AI are likely to continue to be top priorities for executive recruiters and across human resources in 2024, as they have been in 2023. Another key focus area will likely be having talent acquisition play a larger role in executive retention. The first step to increasing retention is hiring the right executives in the first place. Research has shown that HR leaders consider about half (53%) of outside executive hires to be failures in their roles.
Using AI-powered, accomplishment-based matching can help identify the most qualified executive candidates. Once executives are hired, providing executive coaching and other talent development resources will also be essential to driving retention and setting new executive hires up for success.
How have HR Leaders expectations changed about executive recruitment?
They want a more compelling, personalized experience for candidates. It also needs to be more affordable and inclusive so that it begins to foster a sense of belonging. Individual differences like race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age and physical ability need to be celebrated.
Related Article: When Should a Founder Relinquish the CEO Role?
A New Hiring Experience
How can hiring managers/HR professionals benefit from using SucceedSmart?
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From a hiring manager perspective, two of the greatest benefits of leveraging SucceedSmart for executive recruitment are time and cost savings. The average hiring time for traditional executive search is 24 to 26 weeks. During this time, top candidates are likely to receive other opportunities and the longer the process, the more costs add up. With SucceedSmart, time-to-hire is only 4 to 6 weeks and the total cost drops by about 70% compared to traditional search firms.
What is the experience like for executive candidates?
We are democratizing executive search by flipping the model on its head as an executive-first platform. Executives no longer need to chase executive search firms and try to break into their networks. It also minimizes the need to apply to open positions, only to realize their application has been lost in a black hole.
Executive profiles are also confidential to them. Once a company 'likes' their single-blind profile, the executive has the choice to 'like back' and only when they do that is their profile shared with the company. Additionally, we ensure that their current company can never see even their brief profile.
Throughout the recruitment process, executives receive support from a white-glove member concierge and access to an exclusive dedicated executive peer-to-peer network. Once they secure a role, each new hire receives six months of complementary executive coaching, enabling them to assimilate quickly and add value. Research shows that 'quick quitting,' meaning leaving a job within a year, is on the rise among vice presidents and other senior-level positions, and effective coaching can help set executives up for success. These benefits are completely free for executives; they simply need to apply on the SucceedSmart website and be approved.
What advice would you give to companies that are looking to hire executives?
One of my top pieces of advice when hiring executives is to evaluate candidates based on accomplishments, rather than just skills. Most recruiters prioritize skills when assessing candidates from entry-level all the way up to executive. However, taking past accomplishments into consideration helps predict future success and performance for executive candidates while minimizing biases.
