Business Week: Blogging: A New Approach to Exec Recruiting
Yes, we tried the traditional approaches when looking for a CEO for Adaptive Path. But we realized that social networking was a better way to go.
Like many small business owners, I didn't start a company in order to run a business—I started it to do what I love. What I love is designing user experiences that delight people, and improve their lives. My company, Adaptive Path, is now seven years old, and we've grown from seven staff members to 40. As a tightly held LLC, we operated without a CEO, and as such, my attention has had to shift away from our practice, and towards the mechanics of operating a business. While fascinating in its own way, it's not what stokes my passion. With my fellow executives, we decided to recruit a CEO.
Our initial approach was typical—we talked to everyone we knew. That turned up a little, but nothing that panned out. We began conversations with a couple of executive recruiters, and found ourselves having difficulty swallowing their fees.
As part of our personal outreach, our COO, Bryan Mason, had a fateful conversation with Ross Mayfield. Ross hosts a popular personal blog, and had been CEO of Socialtext, a company he co-founded that offers wiki services for enterprises. Ross told Bryan of his experience using his blog to look for a CEO, and how successful it was. Yes, most of the responses were worthless, but 20 were legitimate, and 5 were stellar.
We had considered such an approach, and Ross's comment pushed us over the edge. We figured we were only a couple of degrees separated from great CEO candidates in our social network, so we wrote our own blog post, and I wrote a more personal take on my site. Additionally, we ponied up the $200 or so for posting the job to LinkedIn, which I then blasted at my connections there. …
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