Secrets of Executive Recruiting with Guest Ivan Adler | Association Labs

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JP Moery (JP): Welcome to Association Labs podcast, I’m JP Moery, president of The Moery Company. Hey, I’m very psyched up about today’s topic. We’re going to talk about executive recruiting. And what I’m really excited about is the guest that we have. Because if you haven’t been on Facebook to get his head hunter tip of the today, you really need to. And we’ll talk about how to connect with him. But I want to welcome our guest, Ivan Adler, Principal of The McCormick Group, one of the foremost recruiters in Washington DC and expert on K Street, welcome Ivan.

Ivan Adler (IA): Hi JP, great to be here, thanks for having me.

JP: So we’re going to open up this mysterious area of executive recruiting, right? And ask you some questions about it. First of all though I want to know how you got into the business. How did you get into the recruiting business?

IA: That’s good. So understanding nobody goes to college and majors in executive recruiting or headhunting-

JP: Or associations.

IA: Or association management. There’s no major in that so it’s something that you just literally fall into. In my case I’d worked on Capitol Hill; I had worked for a company called PR Newswire that distributed press releases. I had been press secretary, so I had contacts within the whole association world. I had done it for it for awhile, I was 8 years into working for PR Newswire and it was time to leave, and a friend of mine came up to me – a fraternity brother – and said, “I met a guy last night at a party that works at a headhunting firm. I think you’d be great, you should talk to him.” And I came in one day, had a conversation, and this is long before email or faxes even or that, and had some conversations, and all of a sudden it’s 20 years later and I’m an executive recruiter.

JP: Wow. So the experiences that you had now in Washington DC and seeing the change that’s happening in associations and organizations, but my guess is there’s a lot of things that stay the same. We want to dive into some of those. So let me ask you now: in the searches that you’re conducting, what makes the best candidates? What qualities do they have?

IA: Well, first off, the association world is like nothing else, right? If you were in Washington, it’s a viable way to make a living, right? Everybody’s heard of it, there’s an association for everything and everybody, and that’s good for everybody, right?

JP: That’s good for everybody, right.

IA: If you’re out of Washington, you might have no idea that this goes on. That being said, it’s a different animal. Traits that you know you want, just like anything else, in executive recruiting what we look for, I think, is passion is the number one quality, whether it’s associations or anything else. I really look for people that are passionate about what they’re doing and we start with that. From there, associations are a little bit different because it really is a service industry, and you are serving the membership. So you have to have a service mentality. You have to want to do for somebody else. And you have to be able to herd cats, especially on the C-level there that’s what you’re doing. You got a bunch of different members who sometimes want several different things, and you have to herd them together and get one out of that, and it’s not the easiest thing to do. So it’s a little bit of a different skill set.

JP: I want to do a follow up on that. So when you talked about passion being a major characteristic or driver – do they need to be passionate about management or the organization management aspect of things, or do they need to be passionate about the association or the cause or its issues, or can it be a little bit of both depending upon the organization?

IA: I think it certainly doesn’t hurt to be passionate about your issue. If you’re the CEO of the left-handed widget makers, and you’re passionate about left-handed widgets, it certainly helps. But more importantly, I think you just have to have passion for what you do in general, and that’s being an association executive, and being able to herd cats well. That’s where I’m talking about the real passion; passion for what you do.

JP: So one of the things I wanted to ask you about is, you have obviously a great track record in the association game but also with placing lobbyists or folks in the influence game. Are there any differences between the searches, say, involving an association or nonprofit and in those that are maybe corporate Washington reps for a Fortune 500 company?

IA: Yeah, I think that although it’s the same profession (influence and advocacy in general), the real difference is, corporations like to hire people that they think are corporate ready. And I mean that from a cultural perspective. They like to have people that understand the parts and pieces that make up a corporation, and when they come to me and say, “I want to hire somebody”, they really first want somebody that’s corporate.

JP: What about this aspect of it – and I think candidates are just unclear about how business works – so how does a potential candidate get on the radar screen for someone like you to notice them and possibly be involved in the search with them? How does that happen?

IA: Great question. Today, in 2015, the internet is your new resume. Like nothing else, right? You need a resume, everybody has one. But when it comes to hiring people today, everybody goes to the internet and looks someone up. So you have to make sure that when they do that, they find something. And you’re hoping they find all positive. Because the internet has memory forever and once you’re on it, it’s very difficult to get out of it. So you know, number one: remembering that the internet is your new resume. So I look for people who are known; I look for people who have achieved, for people who are successful, and I look for people who are out there and are known as leaders within their community. And you can find that through the web.

JP: That’s an interesting perspective. Because I think sometimes, particularly in the association space, you hear a grumbling from potential candidates that say, “Well I never get selected, I’m never on the list, and oh by the way, Sam and Frank always are”. But to your point it’s possibly because they’re high-profile, they’ve facilitated this presence among the community here in Washington, DC that makes them come to the top of the list. It’s not that they’re your favorite, it’s the fact that they’re doing things to make them known. Is that right?

IA: That’s exactly right. I mean, it’s the old sales adage: unseen and untold is unsold – and that happens with people too. We are more attracted and favorably attracted to people that we know about. And if you can read something about somebody and it’s positive, that versus somebody that you know nothing about – which goes back to the upmost thing that’s key today, and that’s: Brand You is the key. You have to have a brand and you have to work at being able to distinguish yourself from everybody else. Those that have a brand today make it, those that don’t, don’t get selected and in the case that you just mentioned, those folks that don’t have the brand are the ones that aren’t being called by the headhunter.

JP: So let’s flip the coin over, then. What do you find is a common mistake that a candidate might make in engaging you? Or let’s take that one and then the follow up is going to be: during the search process what mistakes have you seen? Once they get on your radar screen, how do they screw it up after that?

IA: I think first off, once you get on the radar screen the ability to stay there requires some patience. Today, hiring is a real process. And it’s not a one-person decision anymore like it may have been in the 80s or the 90s. So hiring is a decision. The higher up you are on that pedestal onto the C-suite, the longer and more people are involved in that decision and we can see from, for instance, the latest incident, involving the hiring people on the metro, you’re talking about boards and all kinds of other people where the candidate has no control over what’s happening. So you have to understand that there is a process, they are elongated and you need to have some patience and that will get you through it. The other thing is, you need to be able to provide a headhunter with as much ammunition as to “why you” as possible. And that’s all about finding examples and being able to quantify success. What I do is not magic; there’s no real science in it. It’s all about taking a best guess, and my best guesses are with people where I can quantify their successes. And that’s what I try to do for my candidates, and I ask them to do that for me.

JP: How does this search committee – and in an association search, let’s say – how do they gauge your expertise? Do they ask you for advice? Do they like you to give some opinions about the candidate? Or are you basically just facilitating interviews? Which is kind of the way I see it but maybe that’s not it?

IA: There’s two types of search committees or boards, if you will. One are those that seek out our advice and listen and take it. And those that don’t. They want to do their own thing, they’re usually made up of senior-level execs from companies. They have their own businesses, they figure they’ve able to do that, they can handle hiring somebody and all they want from me is to provide them bodies and DNA and get the hell out of the way. So you know, it really depends on the group.

JP: Let’s do this by wrapping it up for a candidate that’s looking for an association, an association C-suite job. Give me the 3 things that you feel like they should be doing right now to raise their profile.

IA: Well, one is: you have to be out there – like I said – on the net. And the easiest way to do that is to publish. Whether it’s in press releases, whether it’s in stories, whether you’re a source – you have to be out there, you have to be known to be the guy or the gal for a particular association. Number one. And it’s easy to do it today. You don’t have to tweet a thousand tweet a day or podcast all day long or Facebook all day long but you do have to be known enough and out there so that if somebody does search for you they can find you. Number one. The other piece, I think, is networking. You have to be able to network. You have to be able to have your brand known by other influencers out there who when asked can then say, “Well you ought to talk to this gal” or “You ought to talk to this guy”. I think those are the two most important things: be known to the market in general and be known to influencers

JP: So those influencers can make the recommendation to you when you’re looking around.

IA: Absolutely. I mean, it’s not the case of having 5 zillion people follow you on twitter. The real rug is to have influential people follow you on twitter. it’s not the sheer numbers, it’s who.

JP: So let me do this, because I want to wrap it up with this item: If you are not following Ivan on Twitter, Facebook, and connecting with him, I think for the good of your career, it will serve you a great deal. So let’s do that. Ivan, how do people connect with you?

IA: Sure, there’s two ways. One, I’m @lobbyisthunter. On Twitter you can follow me. I usually either respond to things that are happening involving hiring on K Street or you can friend me on Facebook. Every day I have a headhunter tip of the day. It usually comes out on 8:30 in the morning. Sometimes there’s a bonus tip at lunch, and sometimes there’s a double bonus tip at happy hour, depending on what’s gone on in my day. So you can follow me on those two places; that’s the easiest. The other way is, I’m at iadler@tmg-dc.com. I’m happy to talk to people confidentially about their careers, about Washington, about the influence industry, and I’m more than happy to add as much advice as you can stomach, so feel free to reach out

JP: I want to thank our special guest today: Ivan Adler, Principal of The McCormick Group. Make sure you connect with him with his headhunter tip of the day on Facebook, it’s absolutely fantastic. And I have three favors to ask as you leave today, and it’s this: 1) Like us on iTunes, the Association Labs Podcast; 2) Visit our website moerycompany.com and subscribe to our newsletter, it comes out every other week; and then finally, connect with me on LinkedIn, it’s JP Moery on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening.