How to Hire a CIO

You can tell when my executive search practice is rocking because my blog posts fall off.  Sue me.  Deals pay better than blogging, and I've got kids to feed.  Anyway, last month I closed a VP of I.T. search for REI.  Great company.  Wonderful candidate -- from Whole Foods, no less.

I know what you are thinking: "Harry, why is a marketing recruiter handling an Officer-level IT search?"  The answer is simple:  REI does an amazing job of bringing to life their brand promise across a thousand far-flung customer touch-points, and they realized that a technology-oriented marketer was better suited for their business than a marketing-oriented technologist.  Both are nearly impossible to find, and even harder to differentiate once you do.

So how does a marketing recruiter like me separate the wheat from the chaff during an executive search for the future CIO of one of Fortune magazine's "Best Places to Work in America?"  Here's a clue in the form of an article of mine from JDE Tips magazine.  I used to write JDE Tips' popular "CIO Strategy Corner" column, and the following snippet appears on their site ...

Why Some CIOs are Ten Times More Effective Than Others - In this popular article for JDE Tips magazine, Harry Joiner examines the three-dimensional career, where an employee's industry-specific experience, company-specific experience, and technical expertise are juxtaposed against his potential.  According to Harry, every employee's potential is defined by a set of intangible characteristics that all hiring managers must identify and leverage if they expect to delegate effectively.  The article contains links to two great worksheets.  Adobe required.

I hope you like the article.  When I re-read it this morning, I was struck by the fact that my approach to finding and interviewing C-level candidates has not changed much over the years.  Is that bad?

PS -- If you like this JDE Tips article, you might also enjoy my piece for Optimize magazine, How to Hire a Problem Solver.  Rock on.

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Comments

[Michael Schaffner]

Harry,

Great article. Actually, I don’t think it is all that strange that a marketing recruiter would take on a search for an officer level IT leader.

For me, the keys to being successful as a CIO has been in understanding that the keys to success are dependent upon the 3 key items of “People, Process and Technology” as clichéd as that might be. It isn’t just about technology! And it never really was although we may have pretended so in the past. With the strength of today’s technology products it is actually the least likely of the 3 to cause difficulty in the successful use of IT. For example, if you look at ERP failure honestly I think you find most of the problems were people issues (no buy-in, no training, poor communication, etc.) or process issues (automating a bad process, no organization review and development etc.) rather than just a technology failure.

Wrapped around this as you point out are the “intangibles”. These include Listening – the ability to hear your customer, learn their business and understand their needs; Communication – the ability to articulate IT’s message in your customer’s terms; and the Ability to Influence – being able to get people over whom you have no direct control to take action. When I look at it this is not really all that different than your “leverage and appreciation” concept.

As a CIO currently in transition I’ve had the opportunity to talk with a number of business leaders. The one thing I hear over and over is that they are looking for a CIO “that talks like us”. What they mean is they want someone who can go beyond the technology, learn their needs, talk with them in their terms and also manage technology.

When you look at it like this most of a CIO’s job is marketing – so why shouldn’t a marketing recruiter be placing CIOs?

By the way I really liked your JDEtips article. I’ve separately submitted 3 trackbacks on CIO competencies, IT employee competencies and career development for IT employees.