- Hospitality Daily
- Posts
- How To Hire Hospitality Executives (And Career Advice For You)
How To Hire Hospitality Executives (And Career Advice For You)
with Alison Harrigan, Senior Client Partner in the Hospitality & Leisure Practice at Korn Ferry
Josiah Mackenzie
December 06, 2023
Together with
Good morning. Today, we’re learning about:
How to hire CEOs and other hospitality leaders (plus career advice for you from a top executive recruiter)
Trend: Hotels without lobbies
…and more!
👋 First time reading? Subscribe here
TOGETHER WITH ACTABL
A GPS for the Hotel Industry: Actionable Insights to Drive Profits Up and to the Right
Hotel owners and operators face the daunting task of balancing multiple facets of business, from labor management to guest experience and cost control. While most technology offers data collection, Actabl focuses on transforming that data into actionable insights.
Actabl's suite of business intelligence, labor management, and hotel operations management software is designed to deliver real-time, meaningful insights to both on-property managers and above-property leaders. By seamlessly integrating technologies such as Hotel Effectiveness, Profit Sword, Alice, and Transcendent, Actabl streamlines workflows, optimizes labor forecasting, and enhances the guest experience, ultimately driving profits up and to the right.
How To Hire Hospitality Leaders
with Alison Harrigan, Senior Client Partner in the Hospitality & Leisure Practice at Korn Ferry
Alison Harrigan has placed more than 200 executives at hotel management companies, REITs, private equity firms, brands, and other hotel companies in roles such as CEO, COO, CFO, and CMO, and today shares what it takes to find and hire the best executive talent in hospitality.
"We see these big CEO or leadership team hiring announcements, and we think that they just happen overnight. Sometimes that's the case. Most of the time it's a very thorough and scientific process getting to that person. I'll walk you through some of the steps."
What the executive search process includes
The executive search process begins with an alignment phase, where search firms such as Korn Ferry engage deeply with the hiring company to understand its goals, culture, and specific requirements for the role. This phase is crucial for creating an accurate job description and identifying potential candidates that will be a good fit.
From there, a “map” is built of people who may be a good fit.
For a chief marketing officer, chief operating officer, chief development officer search, that could be 150 potential people. For a public company CEO search, there might be 50 people that are in that target universe.
We then take that mapping, and go over it with the hiring team or the board. From this, we usually narrow down to the top 20 to 30 candidates. Sometime’s it’s less - there could be three that everyone can agree on.
At this point, strategic outreach begins, including to those who may not be actively seeking new opportunities but whose skills and experiences align with the role's criteria. This is followed by a series of interviews and reference checks, including both direct references provided by candidates and discreet, indirect referencing to gather a well-rounded view of the candidate's capabilities and fit.
The process also often includes advanced assessment tools to evaluate candidates' suitability further. Once a candidate is selected, the search firm assists with the offer itself.
We are helping the company negotiate and structure the offer for the candidate. We're helping them come up with the offer. We're delivering the offer to the candidate, and then we're most often acting as the go-between to negotiate the offer.
Once a candidate accepts an offer, Alison doesn’t stop the process.
The most important part of the search is after the candidate starts. It's really important that we stay in touch and that we continue to connect with these candidates, and make sure that they're successful, they're happy. We still meet with the hiring team and make sure they're happy and doing well, and fix any kind of misalignment that might be there.
Why use an executive search firm?
Alison highlights several reasons why companies opt for executive search firms when building their executive teams:
Bird's Eye Industry View: Executive recruiters gain comprehensive industry insights through conversations with many executives, offering a broad perspective on market trends and challenges.
Imagine we're doing a chief investment officer search for a hotel owner-operator, or hotel investment firm. Over the course of two to three weeks when we're really in the launch phase of a search, I'm talking to 30 or 40 chief investment officers of other lodging companies, other real estate companies.
In those conversations, I'm learning about their careers, but I'm also learning about what they're dealing with, what's on their hearts and minds, what's challenging them.
And so through the course of every search, we get this really comprehensive picture of what's happening in the industry and what's happening inside each of those organizations.
We're working on a couple of different chief marketing or chief commercial officer searches right now. We're getting to see what's happening in AI, and digital marketing, and revenue management across all of these different companies and seeing, "Wow, this group's doing something that's truly innovative. This group probably could catch up a little bit."
Long-Term Executive Relationships: Building strong connections with executives over time allows executive recruiters to share relevant job opportunities thoughtfully.
Objective Third-Party Perspective: Executive search firms bring an unbiased approach, which is particularly valuable in confidential hires or replacements.
Time and Focus: Dedicated teams can concentrate on the lengthy and complex executive recruitment process to ensure its sucess.
What’s changed with executive search recently?
Alison highlights two big changes:
Increased Duration: More comprehensive candidate evaluations and broader interview processes have extended average search times.
Remote Work Considerations: The increasing preference for remote work among candidates poses challenges for companies seeking on-site executives.
There are a lot of candidates that have started to work remotely since 2019 or 2020, and they're not interested in relocating or they don't feel the need to relocate for a job. Probably between 2015 and 2019, maybe two or three roles I ever completed searches for had a remote option. There are a few more now. But by and large, our clients want their executive team to be at their headquarters or in the office.
There's a little bit of the bid-ask spread or there's a little misalignment between candidates and clients right now in terms of the relocation or the need for relocation. And that is a major discussion point in every search that we do right now.
Advice for aspiring executives
Alison offers practical advice for those aspiring to C-suite leadership roles in hospitality.
So often, our clients get so excited about someone on paper, and they say they just really didn't shine in the interview. They didn't bring the energy. It's not because of anything about their background. They just didn't have the charisma or the fire in the belly in the interview setting. So I think that's one thing that makes really stellar CEO candidates stand out.
Show Energy: Charisma and energy in interviews are crucial.
Build Relationships with Search Consultants: Staying on their radar can open up future opportunities.
Optimize LinkedIn Presence: A clear, concise LinkedIn profile is increasingly important as resumes become less central in the digital age.
Focus on Results and Team Building: Building a positive reputation through results and strong team relationships is key to standing out.
Do good work, because you get noticed and recommended by other people.
These are just some of the things we covered in our conversation today: Listen to our full conversation here now
Who do you know that would appreciate this today? Click here to forward this email.
From our community
Hospitality Daily is a community of creators and doers. Some things for today:
What did you think of today's email? |