Advice From A Hypothetical Executive Recruiter
David Campbell is a Moncton-based economic development consultant and co-host of the Huddle podcast, Insights. The following piece was originally published on his blog, It’s the Economy, Stupid!, on Substack.
I have worked with more than 100 economic development and related organizations in the past 20 or more years and there is one thing I can tell you for a fact: in almost all cases the organizations take on the persona of the CEO.
Why does this matter?
If you want an organization that prioritizes marketing above all else, go out and hire someone with 20 years of marketing experience. If you want an organization that focuses on sales – hire someone who has spent their career in a high-value sales environment. If you want an organization with a community economic development (CED) focus, then hire someone with CED experience.
Or, you could hire someone with a successful track record in broad-based economic development leadership. That’s the argument I made a couple of months ago related to the new positions in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
This is not to suggest that the head of an economic development agency can’t evolve, but after a long time getting good at one thing it can be challenging to get good at something else.
By the way, this advice holds for both the organization doing the recruitment and the potential recruitee.
If you are applying to run an economic development organization, you should make sure your skills and interest align with the organization’s strategy. You may be able to bluff your way through an interview process right into the big chair but your tenure – almost always – will be short and troubled.
I don’t have hard data on this but based on anecdotal evidence, the average tenure of an economic development organization has shrunk considerably in the past decade.
Economic development is more important now than ever. We need well-resourced, highly motivated, and results-oriented economic development agencies.
That starts at the top.
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