[Strategic Career Progression and Executive Search Insights in the Finance Sector]-[How to get on CFO headhunters’ radars and win your next role]

Today we'll be diving deep into career progression in the current job market for finance professionals with two excellent guests fromAscente, an international executive search forum renowned for its expertise in hiring senior financeleaders, especially within private equity-backedbusinesses.

First, we have NickGriven, Nick is a board member and senior partner for Ascente's financial officerpractice.

With 23 years of executive searchexperience, it firms like RussellReynolds, Hydric andStruggles, and BlackwoodGroup, Nick specializes in advising private equity funds and their portfolio companies on hiring CFOs and senior financeleaders.

Joining him is LauraStrether, a consultant in Ascente's financial officerpractice.

Laura is responsible for oversight of search delivery and specializes in supporting businesses backed by privateequity.

She leads the end-to-end process for senior CFO and FPNA directorroles, including researchstrategy, searchexecution, and knowledgemanagement.

Ascente, headquartered in London with offices in NewYork, has developed a reputation for providing world-class executive search and advisory services across varioussectors.

Their financial officer practice is highly regarded among the private equity community for its deep-seated knowledge of the financial officermarketplace.

Nick andLaura, welcome to theshow.

Thankyou. Verymuch. Thankyou.

Yeah, and after some delays and some technicalissues, let's we're getting into itnow.

So this isgreat. We'll be doing this now for the last four years trying to get our headsaround.

How to use technologyproperly.

Yeah, the robots are going to fix all of thissoon.

I'msure. So we gathered somecollections, some that we've received at theshow, some I think came from theReddit, FPNAcommunity, but we wanted to getreally, Imean, there's a lot of questions that people in positions and that are looking for new positionshave, but they don't really know who toask.

So we really appreciate you guys coming on and sharing your insights and kind of giving us a look behind the curtain on what's goingon.

So, and we do have a bunch of questions we want to getto.

I know we're going to talk about careerprogression,headhunters, salary and comp and just some general leadershipstuff.

So you guys ready to divein?

Let's doit. Allright. So I guess let's start with sort of the career progression and maybe some market insight kind ofstuff.

One of the questions we got is I'm currently an FPNA director reporting into theCFO.

I'm keen to progress toCFO, but I'm regularly told that it will be difficult is I don't have the priorexperience.

So this is the whole sort of chicken and eggthing.

What advice would you give someone who is wanting to move up to a new company because maybe that they don't see the path forward at theircompany, but they're trying to get to a more senior leadershipposition, maybe particularly a CFO or even just stepping up to a role that you haven't donebefore?

Yeah, that's an interesting question because clearly on the onehand, whenever a surgebegins, more often thannot, we will begin with a brief from our clients who will stipulate quite clearly that they're very keen to find someone who's done itbefore.

And that's particularly the case in privateequity.

The private equity clients have avery, very high bar in terms of quality and in terms of what they're lookingfor.

So it is achallenge. I guess there are probably two ways of looking atthis.

The first is to do with the functional experience that youhave.

And bythat, I mean doing everything you possibly can do to get as a broad amount of exposure to the various different components of what it is that the CFO ultimatelydoing.

And that sounds like what an obvious thing tosay, but it's not the easiest thing todo.

Clearly over the course oftime, as you spend longer with the company and as you build your relationship with theCFO, I think having that kind of opportunity to gain as much exposure to various different elements isimportant.

One thing I think that FPNA directs as tenants have find a bit of a challenge is how they demonstrate that they can do the more technical facets in terms of status youreporting,controls, tax and soforth.

So anything that you can do to get morebreadth, I think isimportant.

A lot of that stuff is quite obviousthough.

I was thinking that actually another important point to bear in mindhere, this is something that Laura and I spend quite a lot of time doing when we're assessingpeople.

It's think about how you're doingthings, not necessarily what you'redoing.

One thing that we do quite a lot is assessing candidates according to theirbehaviors.

So a very important behavioral competency that we will look to assess in any CFO is the focus on delivering aresult.

So being veryresults-oriented.

And if you can demonstrate that your results-orientedindividual, even if you've done that as an FPNAdirector, you're starting to demonstrate how a leader behaves and that's the way to think about thesethings.

Am I behaving as a leaderwould?

Am I leading as the number one person in the financeoption?

And those types of behavioral competencies are what it is that we're looking for alongside some of the more technicalfacets.

The other point I would say is that the FPNA directors at the moment now is actually really interesting time in the context of private equity start to push the barriers a little bit because the supply for one to the better words of proven private equity CFOs is actually quite low because there have been fewer private equityexits.

And so it's a pretty good opportunity for people who are looking to step up to actually be included in the short list since I kind of get their opportunity to at least have a shot at going off to the numberone.

I wonder if so maybe that's maybe market demands are now if you are looking for a CFO this supply is constrained a bit but you have say an FPNA director from maybe a Fortune 500 company who they're yes they're just a director but they're a span of control and the amount of work they're doing is it still a hard sell though if you say hey this guy was you know an FPNA director at general electric or you know pick your big company of choice and now we're coming to a smaller private equity they've got this leadership I mean is that could that actually be turned into a positive or what do you think about going from maybe large public company to a PE backed company is there are there any advantages tothat?

It's quite an interesting question actually Glenn because that kind of profile is is exactly where we have had quite a lot of success in the past and placing candidates so yeah exactly the situation the Nick is describing where we have got a very limited pool of proven what we would kind of call the sort of exit private equity CFO is available and therefore our assessment moves towards actually being less experience focused to behavioral competencies and that's where we have been able to identify candidates that are from what we would call sort of the larger corporate background that actually demonstrate agility adaptability their results driven they can operate at pace they've usually also had some exposure even within those larger businesses to a sort of a smaller maybe more startup area of the business maybe they've operated in emerging markets that's where it becomes very very important that you are able to articulate what your experience is and it's also very important to understand the type of opportunity that you're looking for what does that demand and how can you actually display that in your own experience it is I know it's a it's a discussion that that people have a lot around what should the CV look like and all of that the most important thing is that you can actually reflect the demands of the position in your experience because probably nine times out to ten you do have it but on the face of it it's not something that that comes through so obviously I suppose so it absolutely is possible I think to be completely clear and transparent it's not necessarily the first type of profile that private equity clients would be looking for but certainly in the climate at the moment there's a lot of opportunity for these types of FPNA directors to make that transition I think the other thing is you know it's actually the important whether you're a director or whether you're maybe a bit more junior than that is to actually look two or three steps ahead in your career to where you want to be and make sure that the opportunities you're going after actually fit into that progression it's not actually something that I think that many people pay so much attention to but it's important to make sure that you're going to a business that is on the right trajectory for what you're looking for whether that is growth or turnaround hopefully it's a position that is going to give you a bit more breadth a bit more scope maybe there's some kind of transformation that needs to happen there and actually also that you're working with a CFO that you really respect someone who inspires you and someone who also gives you the confidence that they will be happy to step away maybe from certain aspects to let you step in I think it all kind of comes together that quite around mental share you could be mentored by your boss but equally you could be mentored by someone outside of the business as well and quite often people are thinking about career progression it's almost as though we've been conditioned as a society to think well I must progress I've got to keep going I've got to keep developing it's ready for me I'm ready for it but that's not always the kit and it is important to be patient and part of that can also come from networking beyond the confines of your organization and then really stepping back and thinking what do I want this you know there are side of pinnatorators you make great affinity rate and they don't necessarily want to become CFOs there are some CFOs who think I desperately want to become a CEO but they never really thought about what they want to become CEO so you know using that external network that you can help me it's better but I think it's also great yeah I love that and I love what you guys are talking about thinking about this career progression because I I talk to a lot of people and I get a lot of questions from you know junior to kind of a mid-careerF.P.A.

people who you know almost to a person say I want to be a CFO one day and thinking about the opportunities that that people have and you have people that are you know really trying to grind it out at one company and just move up the ranks there or hopping around from company to company trying to secure positions of greater responsibility and I wonder as you're evaluating candidates I think this would be a good people bouncing around you know either moving up through the ranks in their current company or moving to a different company to try to find that perfect role that's going to get them further on the stepping stone on the path to the CFO but if I'm looking to make that progression and say I'm a you know maybe I'm in my firstF.P.A.

management role like how can I evaluate anF.P.A.

opportunity and whether it's right for me just thinking that I need to get from here you know dream job ultimately to the CFO like what what would be some types of positions or some types of companies that people should think about as they're considering their career progression I mean there's quite a few different ways actually that you can look at whether an opportunity is going to be right for you I think a really big part of it is thinking about if the end goal for you is to be a CFO in what kind of business do you want to be a CFO do you even have a preference maybe you don't which of course is fine but if it's if the answer is I want to be a CFO of a SASS company that's international that is on a huge growth trajectory it will be important to make sure that the next couple of roles you are getting exposure probably to the industry probably to businesses of a similar size and scale and and probably to to a growth journey as well the other way that you can look at it is is to say try and get as much sort of breadth of experience as possible so try and go into a company that's growing well if it's a turnaround don't be afraid to get involved in that I think looking at the situation of a business actually is really important because when we are looking at a search process yes we will look at candidate sector experience scale experience but probably the most important thing actually is the situational experience so I think that's something that that kind of comes last for a lot of people I actually think it's much more important than it than it sort of first seems so that's definitely something that I would look at I think the other thing is as Nick mentioned earlier you know building leadership capability is really important so is this an opportunity that it's going to give you that chance ideally you would be going into a position where you have an opportunity to either transform or build a team underneath you and therefore you can start to develop some of those leadership skills a little bit a little bit more as well and I would say again think about the people the kind of people that you're joining ideally you want to be joining a best in class organization where the things that you're learning from your colleagues are also sort of top tier that also does carry quite a lot of weight when you get to a CFO process it could be a role that you held three or four years ago but if it's in a reputable firm that is known for having best in class finance functions that again does carry a lot of weight so I think it's really about understanding what do you want from the next couple of positions what is this position specifically going to offer you the opportunity to do I think we do see a lot of a lot of people that go into what we would call sort of business as usual positions where you are simply turning the handle my view on that is you really want to be able to go in and make a tangible impact and a tangible change and a lot of the time if it's business as usual that isn't really the case you know I was just thinking the word that and the sprung into my mind was impact so you just set that it's like think about where you could have an impact people are going to ask you question suddenly you can have good good head umptest and good interviewers will say to you they won't say all you good at they'll say give me an example of a time when and you've got to be able to give tangible exon bubbles of what you've done how you did it and what the outcome was so evaluating a position ultimately should on the one hand hinge on where you can have an impact way truly feel you can have an impact on a business I should hate it's where I know we're a little bit biased towards F towards private equity just keep on what we do but the great thing about private everyone is it's all about delivery during the given time period and so your ability to have an impact is significant the increase the other point just given the proximity that FKN labels have with the front end of the business think about something that you're going to be quite interested in and passionate about I won't say who it was but I did interview someone I didn't know today who clearly have absolutely no interest if what the business did that he worked and I saw that's going to be kind of so destroying when you work for a business that you know really feel as though you can have a kind of a tangible interest in what it is that ultimately the business is lucky to do so I totally agree with what Laura said but I would also definitely think beyond that the things that you're interested in the things that you're kind of told to should also be quite an important factor when you're about to see what you can see yeah well well said and I you know hearing you guys talk it's so easy and I've heard it so many times in my career I've had to go back and redo my resume and it's so easy to list your job title your job description and then a good resume writer or or headhunter is going to say I understand what a CFO does what did you do what happened you know as a CFO it's like I get it you close the books every month because my biggest bugbear on a CV when the basic facts are not included in terms of what someone's done we talk to people who are in finance every day they're dealing with data and they're dealing with numbers and you know including that information to show when I joined the business generated X revenue why you eat it are and when I left it was X and Y is a very very important thing to do to kind of demonstrate the movement that the journey has been yeah yeah in this you know this this isn't a reader submitted question but it's one that I've wondered because when I 1800s when I got my first CFO gig it was a lot different than how it is now but when I was coming up you heard from people and you know obviously FPNA today most of our audience is FPNA that doesn't mean they don't have a CPA you know many do and then they transition from accounting into finance but I always heard you know you're never going to get the big CFO job because you're not a CPA because you came up through just the finance ranks and I'm wondering for our audience you know if your early career and you still could go get a CPA if you need to is how are companies in private equity looking at someone who comes to traditional rural CPA comes up through audit and goes that way versus a straight finance candidate coming through I've actually got two really interesting live examples at that with one client that I'm working with the client ultimately decided not to progress with the candidates because they did not have an accounting qualification and that was nothing to do with the capabilities of the individual it was nothing to do with their personality or their style it was just fundamentally they did not feel that they could bring them up board in that based on that basis whereas there's another search that I'm working on where of the three final candidates in the mix not a lot of finance qualification once a banker one used to be an engineer one was a manager and consultant a big part of it obviously kind of hinges on what the role is then what they expected of them if there's a big capital finance orientated components of their job is it really matter whether or not that they're in our CPA what I would say though is that in certain that PNA rules given that that's in the UK a big part of it is the C for qualification so getting that kind of you know qualification that does demonstrate that you've got that kind of you know proven experience that we operated within the business and have developed and gained the qualification of the back of that I think it's important what I'm not as if you can get the qualification get it and this next one is an interesting question to me because it's one that you know earlier in my career that I would really wonder about and I think for people I've talked to that are developers and maybe in some some other professions are getting contacted by recruiters all the time everybody you know developers for years I've just you know recruiters are constantly reaching out to them and I feel like in in finance it hasn't been that way as much but one of the reader questions was what is the best way to get on headhunters radars and so I'm wondering the extension of that question to me is I don't see you guys a lot and maybe I'm wrong here this is I'll be fascinated to find this out but how much are you actively going out and searching for candidates versus you have candidates come to you and you have a pool on them so Laura I don't know if you want to kick this one off for how you know what what the situation there is and what you're take on that is it's always a balance but because of the way that we work which is very research intensive so every single Monday that that we would take on we take pretty much a sort of clean slate approach you know we really wanted to understand specifically what is the business we're working with what is the context what exactly is the client looking for what is what is success going to look like in this person now yes we do have a very deep network of CFOs internationally and we would obviously always go to on network and a really important part actually that I think as well sometimes does get overlooked is the referral side of things and so we would speak to on network we would understand you know who would the the CFOs that we really respect who would they recommend but at the same time we're always taking that clean slate approach and actually we would put together a specific what we call a search strategy for every single search that we work on and what that really means is we are looking to identify deals businesses exits in a specific space that have done a specific thing and then identifying the CFOs and various finance leaders really that have been involved in that journey so for us a lot of it is incredibly research driven it's a process that that we will continue with you know until until the successful candidate has signed on the docket line so to speak and with that it does mean that you know naturally you're going to be identifying candidates that perhaps we haven't spoken with before and therefore we will be approaching it's an interesting one because I do think there is a difference between C level candidates and director level candidates and that actually C level candidates you know naturally are perhaps not getting quite as many approaches for roles and therefore they tend to be a bit more responsive but the one thing that I really noticed is the difference was actually at the C level you get a lot more CFOs coming back to you who are just willing to have an introductory conversation whereas at the director level there seems to be a much bigger focus on is this the right thing I'll speak to you if I think it's really interesting actually I would say the right approach is if if you have the time and you can carve out five minutes in your day is just have the conversation with the person that is getting in touch with you because you really just never know I am always surprised and Nick I'm sure it's the same for you you just truly never know what opportunity is going to come up and who is going to be right for it so I just think it's always worth it to have the conversation and I think the other side of this of course is you know we have done a lot of research when we approach somebody we are probably99% sure that they are going to be right for this opportunity if they're open to the discussion so I think it's also about you know trusting that these are people who actually want to help you and they're not they're not going to waste your time it is it is worth having the discussion and again I think it's really important to build longer-term relationships with the headhunters that you work with that's how we work I know in different countries it can be slightly different sometimes it's a bit more transactional for us we always want to give people the time and make sure that we really understand who they are what would really interest them you know if this specific opportunity isn't right will them be able to point them in the direction of the right thing and and actually I think that's where for us this this is a really rewarding career because that's where you really get to help people but it does obviously take a bit of time from both sides to to actually sort of build that relationship but that's why you will get most out of it I would say and I think I guess the follow-up to that would be you know you have your network and your referrals but if you don't have one anyone in the group and then you do need to go out of network and you're looking for someone what I heard earlier is yeah roles matter but what your impact and what you did in the roles important so I think maybe a way to think about it too is have you know be sure and show measurable results things you've done know when I got here it was x when I left it was y and showing that and I guess you know different companies different industries so there's not probably a blanket thing but a showing a progression of moving up showing things you did in each role I'm guessing would be important and certifications definitely it's actually interesting just as you was talking about the CPA qualification there have been quite a number of CFOs I've spoken to that have that qualification but don't include it anywhere on their CV or even on their LinkedIn it's always worth including that there's obviously progression that is really easy for recruiters to see in terms of a KU've gone from manager to head off to director to CFO that is obviously very clear it is worth including on your public profiles things like LinkedIn because they do get used a lot and actually our clients will look at them a lot as well you know clients will go and directly have a look at your LinkedIn profile before they meet you as well as looking at your CV it's important that that tells a coherent story as well doesn't have to be really detailed but it just needs to show you know I took the business from x to y team from this to this maybe you did a systems implementation you know including things like that on your profile are important because as I said before a lot of the searches that we will run we are looking at them from a situational perspective the thing I just add on to that as well is the point about getting onto a radar can be for a specific role but it can also be in general and as law recess that kind of long-term focus on developing a relationship with head-unters normal broodley is super important I've literally have known I can think of a number of people who I've known from right at the start of my career who are in touch with that people who are pretty junior back then are all in their roles and who are now most will see you so one way of doing that is always if you do feel that you're starting to think okay I'm hoping to have a look at things I'm starting to consider what my next move might look like point number one is use your own network because one of the people who you've worked for in the past obviously not your current job but maybe someone who used to be your boss we might know and so that helps we are lost of imbalance we try to handle every single inbound in a personable and professional manner there are some search firms I might mention in your name too perhaps aren't necessarily quite as good at that but certainly we recognize that that kind of I guess personal touch is super super important so using your network to get people to say you know they could write you know did or some of those are recommended like get in touch with you are you off having or you know the person even makes the introduction of read that's a really good way of getting straight into a heads up to diary and then the other thing is to kind of think about which firm you're contacting because some firms focus on a particular type of search some firms focus on different types of areas some of PLC or you know 4500 focus some of private equity focused so think about who your audience is and the only fun point I'd make is to try and make any typos in the email that you're sending across I have quite a funny one this morning which began with I am not looking for another role but it was a typo it meant to write I am now looking you see your audition trying to go with the typos yeah and if you're getting if you're putting a typo in an email to someone that you're looking to help you find a job it probably doesn't speak well for the the financials you're going to report exactly I know it's when we get the date problem as well yeah okay so this next question is probably a better example of something that would be a conversation on Reddit and not a podcast host questions let me try to reword this a little bit there's concern right now that the job market is kind of slow the question is asking how we get through a slow market but I think really the question is more are you guys seeing and I know you know exits have been slowed on the private equity side for years so that's maybe that impacts the supply and demand side because you've got some people in positions that are getting kind of long in the tooth is there writing out that sort of PE horizon but then you have new companies coming along too so I don't know what are you what are you saying for senior finance positions right now may I guess probably specifically to private equity since that's where your focus is interestingly if you look kind of historically at senior finance hiring in private equity back businesses a big driver for demand was deal flowing so a business would transact it would be sold to private equity or it would be a take private sort of carve out and that in turn would lead to the need for hiring and as you say Glenn over the course of those companies there have been fewer deals in private equity a lot of global issues that's not just restricted to the UK so you could you couldn't deduce from that that that would therefore mean that the level of search work would drop but we haven't seen that it's it's actually been the complete reverse it's still it's as though demand is now being driven by other factors you know whether it's an incumbent to went into a private equity back situation expecting the exit to happen around about now and that they've been told there's going to be another three years and then the next key is on the water so they're then more inclined to move it could be just a dynamic with a private equity over ultimately deciding to make some changes that's creating demand as well what we will see it's been a funny year in that it was a bit quieter in terms of search work that was being driven by deals for the first couple of months and then it really picked up again and then as we go to the summer it can dip a little bit it's really difficult to predict one thing I would say we'd be talking a little about this within our business is the point around confidence because confidence is a massive driver obviously behind decision making whether you're confident to make a move whether you're confident to say yes to a job offer that might entail a relocation or living away from hunting for three days or whether you're confident to press the button or deal and I get a real sense at the moment that there is a lack of confidence in the market in general and I don't know whether that's you know but general elections here in the UK now got an election in France that's just been called at last minute but relations and states coming up is there a kind of problem macro kind of elements whether they're kind of politically driven or economically driven that might be causing people to just maybe start to question themselves a little bit in terms of important decisions and I talk quite a lot about this what we do is so human it's one of those human forms of professional services out there a lawyer delivers on legal advice a bank has a little banking advice we're delivering on you know advice is that massively or massive impacts on people's lives and I do think that that is creating a little bit of a little in the market at the moment I think a big part of that is geetie comments yeah that makes that makes sense fpna today is brought to you by data rails the world's number one fpna solution data rails is the artificial intelligence powered financial planning and analysis platform built for excel users that's right you can stay in excel but instead of facing hell for every budget month and close or forecast you can enjoy a paradise of data consolidation advanced visualization reporting and AI capabilities plus game changing insights giving you instant answers and your story created in seconds find out why more than a thousand finance teams use data rails to uncover their company's real story don't replace excel embrace excel learn more at data rails dot com looking at the next question here i'm actually having an answer for this one too having come up you know through several private equity backed companies and and selling to private equity but the next question is so short but i just i thought it would be interesting to hear which how you guys responded to it it is is private equity all it's made out to be and i'm guessing this is related to patagonia vests or i don't know i don't actually i'd love to hear what would both you say on that and i'll i'll even i'll weigh in as well so uh Laura you want to kick us off with your thoughts i mean i i think there's there's two sides to that isn't there there's the you know whether you are an operator within the portfolios or whether you're sitting on the fun side and obviously from our perspective you know our clients to turn the fun side and are you know are the candidates we work with this on the portfolio side i would say what we tend to see is wants someone's into private equity and they've done one journey they will either stay there the rest of their career or they will never go there again but i think i actually think the majority of people the people that are drawn to private equity are the people who are going to enjoy it and will stay there they enjoy running really hard at something for a defined period of time knowing exactly what the end goal is um you know and and going after that and i think there's also a real sense of collaboration actually that comes with a private equity journey because everybody is working towards the same thing at the same time i i don't think you always get that in a logical footprint environment so i think on on that side of things yes i think um you know obviously it it can be difficult it can be long hours particularly when you're you know you're going through a transaction um but i i would say that the people that we work with would absolutely say it is all it's made out to be there can you think i add to that i think the reason why that's quite interesting question as well is that there is an immediate association that people make in their mind whether it's a conscious or subconscious association when you mention private equity they think money they think equity and they think i'm going to make an absolute boatload of cash when the business sells and we're all going to you know do incredibly well and you know multimillion pal pay out they're going to be coming my way i think it's really important to remember that the upside potential is enormous in a lot of these situations but they're never all guaranteed and you know there are varying statistics i'm not going to quote any because i'm sure i'll get them wrong but there are various statistics on ex-out of why you know private equity deals pay out and it's definitely not unnailed on success i think it's really important to remember that because if you go into pey thinking it's just all about making a lot of money then you're going to be sorely disappointed by80% of the time it's incredibly demanding the stakeholders are super bright they expect the best they are looking for outcomes quickly and people who really kind of focus on delivery but if you get satisfied from doing that and if you like the idea of starting at a particular point in time and having a target to focus on in terms of an angle it can be unbelievably rewarding and i think that and i don't just mean financially by the way i think that you know the satisfaction that comes with it is huge when you put so much blood sweat tears into a deal and the deal closes that is an amazing feeling i can imagine i've seen a lot of people who've done it but you've got to be up for it you've got to be up for the journey and and you know what you'll probably get more scars than you will you know happy days and you probably want to get a lot of pets on the night well done buddy you've done a really good job it's not that kind of place yeah yeah so i think of a private equity in a couple of ways one comedian Stephen Wright had a a joke it was you know it's typical one-liners but it was i'm gonna butcher it here but i know when i'm gonna die because my birth certificate has an expiration date and the kind of if you you know if you're going into a private equity company you know you've got whatever the window will say you know now maybe it deals going longer it could maybe it's seven years out but ideally you're like four to six years whatever in that in that sweet spot and you know if i come in and crush it you know that we have an opportunity for an exit here and as someone who's spent the bulk of my career in finance the first like analysts and people who pushed me in finance were the private equity people that i worked with and asked you know made me like grow as a finance professional and as an analyst and understand and look at things in a different way so i think you know the change in the the timeline that you're going through and that everybody is working towards the same goal versus google as a startup is a lot different than google is a going concern and so that early stage excitement and everybody growing versus you're just now driving the battleship i mean what you know pick any public company and plug it in there there is it's it's a fascinating it's fast paced and it's it's not for everyone and to your point you know i've had a couple of decent exits and a couple of just duds where you've realized it's time to get off this boat now and all that but it's uh or indeed it's time to go and buy the boat well i wonder about that all the time too where i years ago i was talking to someone and i'd you know had some some smaller deals but one of the companies i was interviewing with said um well we're really looking for someone who's grown a company from 300 million to a billion and i said if i'd grown a company to a billion dollars in revenue and had an exit i wouldn't be interviewing for this job right now i'd be on my boat you know all right let's press through because we have a bunch more questions one of the questions you've already answered about uh what you're unless there's anything to add to uh what are headhunters looking for when they review cv's and when interview candidates i mean i mean maybe there's something more we can add add to that i know we're talking about impact is there um Nick is there anything that you would add that we didn't cover earlier i think just remember that we're cv is still an important thing right that's that kind of is there an enormous amount of information about what people have done on linkedin of course there is but the cv kind of shows it's certainly shows a bit more than that i mean just there is a bit of a question as to you know will the c will it will it exist in the future because you know ultimately as linkedin has just kind of continued to just become such a critical part of what we do yeah you could make an argument that you know maybe people just start to say that here's my linkedin you know hyperlink and if you go that'll be set and the same applies to a linkedin profile just remember we're seeing a lot of these a lot a lot a lot and so it comes back to the point around focusing on you know the data points that are going to catch our eye in terms of the movement of a particular business whether it's a business unit or particular piece of data or number whatever it might be include that and keep it and keep it pretty succinct I think is probably a fair way and and you know laid out it away this user friendly because there's a lot of information that we're kind of looking to register what I can assure you is that the adage of having a pile of cv's in an inbox and taking the top half and chucking them in the beer and saying well I don't want to hide anyone who's unlucky doesn't supply any I like that a prick how I want to try that a brooja I love that I also would actually add to that the when we're meeting with candidates we're not using the cv as a base for the conversation we are using the opportunity as a base for the conversation and therefore I think when you're you know when you're speaking with the creatures don't assume that they have a basic knowledge of your background I think sometimes there's things that people when it's your own experience there are things that seem obvious to you I would just say don't assume that things are obvious really make sure that you are explaining the context to the people that you're speaking with because more often than not that's actually where we can get the best understanding of what you've done and the other thing I would say is make sure that you understand from the recruiter what the requirements of the roller and what they're really looking for Nick I'm sure you would agree with this but there are plenty of times we have conversations with with CFOs with directors of FPNA who will almost cut us off and say you know let me tell you all about my experience and I'm going to run you through from from the beginning until now whereas actually letters frame the conversation letters explain to you what it is that they're looking for because there will be elements of your experience that you can bring out that we obviously can't so it's important to sort of go through the motions of the process I know sometimes it can feel a bit long winged but they're steps are sort of there for a reason and in it all counts I don't know if you agree with Danek yeah I think the way that the interview is framed is probably going back to the point around us looking to draw around examples of what people have done that help us understand what they're like and how they operated a particular situation but you know the that process of being able to make sure that you're getting across who you are and what you've done in a pretty short and concise fashion is it not and you've really got to work quite hard to come in there and then down and that's why go back to what I said about getting one head to answer's right does if you do have someone who can connect you with a head to answer and say by the way I really think that you should meet social search because they're ready right quality that goes a huge way in terms of getting cut through so we have a bunch more questions but I'm actually now really interested you we were talking about linkedin and conveying you know trying to send the right message and there's so you know people run the spectrum on linkedin they some people just basically this is my resume I'm never going to post on here I've put my positions I keep it updated I keep my contact info and all that and just a very basic just here I am here's a picture of me this is who I am in the public and then there are people who they're on linkedin so much that you wonder how do you have time to do your job and I'm thinking about you know the people who just put it out there as a resume and I did have I had a career coach tell me years ago and this is before I was even on linkedin that you need to get out there and you need to sell yourself as a thought leader and I say it's funny there's people that call this self-proclaimed thought leaders who put thought leader in their description on linkedin it's it's kind of like giving yourself a nickname you can't give yourself a nickname you can't call yourself a thought leader you either are you are and then you see the people the linkedin the horrible linkedin posts that you know people meme all the time the cringey post where I was hiking Machu Picchu the other day and I was thinking about each step and what it meant in leadership and you know just these terrible things you say on linkedin and people trying to do the thought leadership and trying to stand out there this is the first time I've actually asked someone in the position where you guys are if you're looking at someone's linkedin profile does it ever even register what they're actually posting how many followers they have like what are you looking at in these in these profiles I would say we're generally not looking for what they're like level of engagement is across linkedin as a platform I would say that hard it ever comes into it however there have been a handful of times where I have had clients comment on the fact oh such and such a person doesn't seem to have that many connections yeah and then you explain what they probably just don't use linkedin so much I think yeah when you're talking about CFO it's it is perhaps different if you are talking about somebody in marketing or sales I think in finance you know it comes back to the question of impact and it's clearly about the impact you have within your organization it's not something that would even enter the conversation for us is is is what I would say I think it's important to have everything up to date I've definitely had questions from clients before as you know why has this person not updated their profile to reflect where they are and yeah again I think it can just be a personal truth and actually for some people they they really don't want to be so actively engaged on on linkedin which is of course absolutely fine but I think if you do have it you should take advantage of it as a tool the best way to do that is make sure that there is a little bit more than the bare minimum in terms of information on there that give people a stir and that's really all you need to worry about in my view I agree with that if you're looking at it through our lens I think though that we're just one part of the equation if you're an FPLA director and you've shared something I'm not you know whether it's match of it to you know step by step or whatever but there will be some people who will actually engage with that so it could be that you're about to go meet the CFO and the CFO has a clue on your linkedin and then notice is that you've done already interesting full leadership piece about you know assistively used or purchasing or or focus or whatever it might be so we're not necessarily going to look for it but it doesn't mean that we will be put off by the fact that it's there and I think it's as important to kind of keep your opinion that having balanced opinions I think is really important and sometimes people do get a little bit carried away with you know somewhere they're kind of you know can get too personal it can get too subjective that's when you start to kind of earn to slightly kind of more dangerous territory but I think generally speaking we're going to be looking for one thing and that's what we're going to focus on but it doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing I mean there different different things that people do to try and grab the attention it's weird though if you think about that because it's probably even like five years ago I mean suddenly in the UK don't want put a photo on their CV whereas everyone put a photo on linkedin and there was a statistic I remember hearing it probably about ten years ago that was something on the lines of chance of a head to clicking into your profile on linkedin is significantly higher if you've got a photo on there so it's going to continue to evolve it will continue to change the other thing that very rarely gets used is the recommendation field which is really interesting because you know that can be as seriously powerful there for a potential candidate but I'm not sure that people really put a huge amount of weight behind what it is that people put in there so it's a funny one you mentioned the photo and I just realized I think my linkedin profile photo is about 10 years old now I'm proud if I were going in for an interview they would be like where's your son you know yeah that's the way this cool set is that he could be very careful um actually one other kind of off script question but I think it is people wonder this and since we have you guys here when you are vetting a candidate I guess nobody's on Facebook anymore except for like my at Sylvia who's on their arguing politics or conspiracy theories or whatever she's doing on Facebook but do you look at you know before you bring a candidate to a firm are you looking at Twitter or X whatever it's called now and other social media are you googling or are you doing background checks to see people's kind of digital profile so we would definitely do a Google a Google sweep I suppose we could say you know obviously just to check that that there's nothing you know really obvious obvious to question and it does happen it does happen unfortunately that you are able to to uncover some not wonderful things about people and what we actually tend to do more from that perspective is try and get sort of what what we would call I guess informal views on candidates really Nick that might be something we want to scratch from this I don't know so the last stage is an assertive process any you know in-depth referencing any form of kind of criteria that need to be checked will be checked can be checked and there are sometimes still a party with organizations that we bring in as well do it it's really important with qualifications because it would be very easy for anyone to just write you know ACA or CPA on this so qualification checks and very important there are few fairly kind of hairy stories out there of where things have been discovered after the after the event it's um of some being brought into a company and then it's obviously transpired that you know they made so many up on in CV that's not a place that we want to be I mean no we think we don't kind of go into too much on on that side of things in terms of kind of people's personal um personal usage and so forth but definitely reputation checks absolutely brilliant and it is this coil mistake in some of these highs so everything has to be pretty carefully we're coming up towards the end here but I know a we got a lot of questions about salary and compensation and I know it's going to be different across companies and it's you know if I went through all these questions what it comes down to is maybe a salary band and I don't know if this is salary and equity which is certainly something to think about but I I feel like when you go in as a candidate seeking a job you are at a disadvantage because the employer knows what their budget is and what kind of range they're going to be they know what equity they have what the salary can be and the benefits and all that and you as a candidate don't know any so it's it can be very frustrating as a candidate whether it's a CFO role or a you knowF.P.A.