This is NFL draft week, where Round One selections have the opportunity to make or break franchise success. The best teams in the NFL are those that consistently do a better job of picking given their positions in the draft order, and realize a recruit’s grade is not necessarily a representation of the player’s ability. A team’s failure to replenish its talent forces spending in free agency, which is generally expensive and increases the chances of locker room dissonance.
Similarly, as private equity investors make C-suite, Round One draft picks for their new investments, the importance of scouting (sourcing) talent, assessing technical attributes, and identifying intangible behavioral and leadership qualities becomes critical in getting to the ROI Super Bowl.
At CMF, our recruiting team focuses 100% of its time sourcing and evaluating potential Round One picks for private equity; we have sourced and screened thousands of private equity-experienced candidates, and run them through our custom-built, rigorous vetting process that evaluates candidates on competencies, qualifications, attributes, and behavioral alignment with each portfolio companies’ needs. As every professional sports manager knows, the differences between good and great players are fraught with nuances, and hidden at the juxtaposition of natural ability, training programs, leadership experiences, and overall field and situational awareness.
With private equity funds in the unenviable position of having to pay up for “clean” assets and taking on purchase price risk, or paying down for “hairier deals” and taking on execution risk, getting world-class athletes into C-level positions becomes critical to playing “money ball.” In the March 2017 jobs report (page 24), “professional and related occupations” showed an unemployment rate of 1.8%, down from 2.3% in March 2016, suggesting increasing difficulty in securing an “A” candidate, requiring funds to make trades in the job specification or go for a Hail Mary pass!
Deal professionals, operating partners, and talent partners that leverage their professional networks should consider CMF Associates’ retained search program or our newly coined “handshake” search program to identify and secure world-class candidates into the end zone. To learn more about CMF Executive Search, contact Kathy Kehoe, Britt Goldman.
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