Client-Side CPO Search Success

Problem: many companies don’t have deep experience defining product leader roles (Chief Product Officer, VP Product Management, Director of Product) or struggle to appraise and hire product leaders.  They may have lost several candidates, hired poorly fitting VPs, had trouble getting consensus on candidates among executives, or left key product exec roles open too long.

Internal recruiters may have deep experience with development and marketing/sales roles, but lack understanding of product management, internalize what’s special about the role, or are as sharp asking insightful questions on product leadership skills.  Outside search firms typically handle very few product executive roles versus sales, marketing and engineering – which means senior product searches take much longer, and alignment may be more challenging.

An outside expert with decades of experience as a product leader – and interviewing/hiring product leaders – can break the logjam, identify strong candidates, clarify selection criteria, assure that appropriate applicants come through the process.  Excellent product leadership can be make-or-break for your company: important enough to warrant expert help.

This CPO search success engagement includes:

• Lightweight assessment of product leader needs (via interviews with key execs and selected product managers)
• Creating/editing job description and selection criteria
• Preliminary assessment of selected candidates sourced by internal talent acquisition (TA) team or outside search firm*
• Training/briefing for client stakeholders: what to look for, how to avoid fruitless “unicorn” search, tighten up alignment/calibration, distill what’s most important
• Pre-brief: coaching of interviewers toward final candidate selection
• Post-brief: gathering feedback to assess alignment so that key hiring manager can make ultimate hiring decisions

This is a fixed-price service from needs identification through to accepted offer (for up to 6 months).

Praise from clients: