This wasn’t our first search with this overhead door manufacturer. We’d been in contact for a while, but they finally reached out because of our niche recruiting expertise. Specifically, our expansive experience recruiting for garage doors and overhead door products companies. We previously helped them fill a VP of Sales role they needed support on. 

For this search, they found themselves in quite the pickle. After two decades with the company, their VP of Operations set his retirement on the near horizon. They needed to find someone to take up that mantle. But there was a catch: the new operations leader’s tenure would overlap with the outgoing executive. They wanted to hire a Director of Operations with a promotion to VP of Operations down the line. 

They brought us in at the beginning of the search. While they could’ve filled the role themselves, they weren’t certain they could find the very best fit. “Good enough” wasn’t going to cut it, here. They wanted us to scour talent across the entire talent market, beyond the areas they were familiar with. We started looking for someone to drive the business into the next generation of inspiring leadership. 

As far as searches go, this one was pretty straightforward. We scoured our database and dug through LinkedIn, searching for their ideal candidate. Within two weeks we pulled together a slate of four qualified leaders interested in the role. Lo and behold, they ended up hiring someone from that initial group.  

We sent candidates with a variety of skill and experience levels, several with current “Director of Operations” titles. Every person we sent over possessed all the right knowledge and skills for the current role. But, in the end, only one candidate had experience that went to the next level.  

Spoiler alert: that’s the person they hired. And once they talked to him, they didn’t want to talk to anyone else. 

All the candidates had led single-site operations, but they wanted someone experienced with managing several sites. The candidate they hired had plenty of experience with multi-site leadership. And once they finally met him, it became clear immediately he was the right person. 

As a then-current VP of Sales, they knew he had the experience to fulfill the current director-level role. But he also had the skills to support the company’s growth in several ways that would be critical in the future. He’s a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He also led interdisciplinary teams, from manufacturing folks to engineers behind the scenes. Even more in his favor was his current tenure, over a decade with his current company. He’d consistently excelled during that time.  

Most importantly, he’s completed several successful facility turnarounds, turning flailing operations profitable. While this overhead door manufacturer was already doing well, it showed the depth of his operational excellence.

Despite knowing early they wanted to hire him, the hiring process ran a little long. He lived further from their operations than was ideal. This distance also would’ve likely prevented them from finding him without a recruiter’s support. He wasn’t actively seeking a new role, and he was outside the initial geographic area they’d planned to search in. It took about 2.5 months to finalize the hire.

Since bringing him on, their outgoing VP of Ops has officially retired. The new director has transitioned smoothly onto the team, and the overlap in their roles helped him get up-to-speed rapidly. After six months on the job, they were already putting plans in place to officially promote him to the VP of Operations role.

Extra open candidate communication was critical during this search. We had many conversations with him about what relocating would look like, due to his distance. There were discussions around how he felt about stepping back a bit compensation-wise, knowing the growth opportunities down the line. In the end, the bright future he saw ahead of him outweighed the other factors. He’s well on his way to building this next phase of a fulfilling career.

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