CTO hired from the passive market

The brief

A company under NDA needed a technical director for its own internal system and for an engineering team that was about to grow. The client looked for solid management experience, a strong technical base and the ability to organise processes. Experience with complex internal systems was a strong plus.

Where the candidates were

Almost no one with the right profile was looking for a job in the open market. A strong CTO who is settled in a role does not answer job ads, so our recruiters wrote to everyone who could fit. We used our own contact base and searched through several other sources to reach people who were employed and not job hunting.

Every first message described the task, the team and the working conditions, so a candidate could decide quickly whether a conversation was worth it.

The funnel in numbers

80 candidates entered the search. 48 received the full description of the role and its conditions, 23 reached screening, 8 had a video interview with us and 4 were put forward to the client. Two went to interviews with the client, and one received the offer. The search took 9 weeks from opening the role to the CTO starting.

Of the 71 who did not move forward, 46 were declined after a CV or interview review, 15 did not reply, 7 withdrew or were not considering a move, and 3 went to our stop list.

Why candidates dropped out

We recorded a reason for 35 of the declines. Technology came first: 8 strong managers had worked in a different stack and did not fit the client's system. Experience came next, with 11 records noting too little experience overall or too little experience leading a team. Three candidates did not match on soft skills, and 7 withdrew or said they were not considering a move at the time.

The reviews kept returning to the same qualities: a strong technical base, a talent for organising processes, readiness to take responsibility for decisions and a clear way of explaining things to leadership.

The finalists

Four candidates reached the client. One had to withdraw because of illness before the final meeting. Another agreed to a test task, and the client went with someone else. A third passed every stage and was an excellent candidate. The offer went to one of the four.

Why this candidate

The CTO we placed brought more than ten years in IT, with recent years in director-level roles. The profile matched the brief point by point.

• Led IT strategy, budget, hiring and mentoring for the team.

• Managed people across several areas: development, administration and support.

• Had built complex business systems for customer-facing processes, which matched the client's need for experience with internal systems.

• Worked in web development and databases, in line with the client's technical profile.

• Set up IT processes and ran large technical projects.

The client decided after interviews and a test task.

What to take from it

• When strong candidates are not on the market, a search starts with direct outreach: a personal contact base, several sources and a first message that states the task and the conditions.

• Describe the stack and the level of management experience before the search begins. Those were the most common reasons for declines.

• A CTO search has a long funnel. In this case it took 80 candidates and 8 video interviews to reach one hire.

• Compare several finalists. Four reached the client, and three strong candidates did not receive the offer.