Friday, March 14, 2008

The Boston Consulting Group--The Hunt for the CFO

It was late afternoon when I called The Boston Consulting Group. I talked with one of the decision makers in the Worldwide Human Resources department. The company was looking to
fill their open CFO position. It had an internal candidate, but it wanted to see all the good passive talent that was out in the market before making a decision.

The HR decision maker had met with the top search firms, Korn Ferry, Russell Reynolds et al. In the time it took for them to prepare their proposals, I had already conducted research, screened and interviewed/profiled candidates.

I started with 50 passive candidates and then narrowed it down to 22 CFO's in the United States. They were at the top 22 management consulting firms in terms of gross revenues. Each were top-notch and met The Boston Consulting Group's success criteria.

After 5 interviews, The Boston Consulting Group narrowed it down to two CFOs. These were the only external candidates.

It took about 4 weeks to do the research and the interviewing for a $700,000 job.

My research was good; it gave my client the impetus to hire the internal candidate with confidence that this was the right decision.

A great research project.

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