Ep214 Rory E Verrett - Beyond the Linear Path: Strategic Career Transitions for Today's Executives

Rory E. Verrett 0:00

Find a way to really curate and put your signature on your relationship building, because it's great if you're excellent at your job, but it's not so great if nobody knows about it, and that's on you.

Mike O'Neill 0:15

Welcome to get unstuck and on target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with confidence and vision, but also to achieve groundbreaking results. I'm your host, Mike O'Neill. I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership, to forge teams to be as united as they are effective in each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders, just like you providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started. Every leader hits a point where the next move isn't obvious. That's where the real work begins. In this episode, I sit down with Roy Verret, a respected executive recruiter and leadership advisor who's walked alongside leaders at Pivotal career moments. He's also a fellow coach. So this isn't a typical Q and A it's a peer to peer conversation grounded in experience, strategy and straight talk, which stood out to me. Rory's ability to bring structure to transition without oversimplifying it, from redefining ambition to building a portfolio career with intention, he breaks down what it really takes to move forward when you're stuck or simply ready for more. So if you ever felt the tension of success on the outside and restlessness on the inside, this one's for you. Let's get into it. My guest today is Roy ferret. He's the founder and Managing Partner of proteases search. It's a leading executive search and leadership advisory firm. Roy is also the creator of the protege Leadership Academy. It's a platform designed to equip mid career professionals and executive leaders with expert guidance that they need to navigate the modern workplace and accelerate their career growth. Rory has over 20 years of experience across executive search, talent strategy and executive coaching, and you'll see shortly why I wanted to buy him on this podcast. He brings in valuable insights into leadership development and career advancement. Welcome. Rory Mike,

Rory E. Verrett 2:30

what an introduction. I need to put you on the payroll. That was incredible. Well,

Mike O'Neill 2:35

thank you. I The easy part is the introduction. Now the question is, am I going to ask questions that highlight you as I've already had chance to conclude you're gonna be a great guest. I can tell already my working title for this conversation is navigating career transitions, and you have seen all aspects of that in your time. And what caught my attention is the fact that you have created this Leadership Academy, and as I understand it, you are expanding its offering here in the not too distant future. Can you give us a sense of what does the protege Leadership Academy do, and what might you be moving into shortly?

Rory E. Verrett 3:20

Well, thank you for having me so. Protege search is a an executive search firm focused on industries we recruit in entertainment, sports, media and consumer companies. I often get called by executives who are in Job transitions, and somewhere out there, there must be some Tiktok video or some kind of LinkedIn article that says you should call executive recruiters during your job search, when, in fact, that is the least ROI you could do in terms of an activity in your job search. I placed three people who called me during their transition who also matched a client's needs. That's not the way to use executive recruiters, and it's not the way to optimize your job search. But I began thinking, how can I help people that are in transition? I do two kinds of coaching in addition to recruiting, I do coaching that is company sponsored. This might be a high potential executive that the company wants to optimize their leadership skills they're moving into a new role, or they're adding new elements to their function, and they'll hire me to be their coach. Most of my clients on the coaching site are what I call walk up candidates. They are looking to advance in their career, and they'll hire me, and sometimes to the point of your podcast, they are stuck. So what I've done is offer up a platform to help people get unstuck and optimize their job transitions and the holistic aspects of their career. So I have a YouTube channel called the protege Leadership Academy, and on April 7, we're offering as part of our academy a career transition. Blueprint, which literally takes everything that I know about a job search strategy for mid career and executive leaders and puts it in 10 modules. It's the stuff I talk with my coaching clients about who pay way more than we're going to charge for these modules to get them from point A to point B in their careers, and that's a job transition at the mid career or senior level. This is not something you can do and wing it. I mean, when you're 2627 and you're moving into your first few jobs, it's really not a strategic approach. You might have some strategic elements to it, but you get into 1015, years into your career, every move you make matters. So we want to help people accelerate and optimize those job transitions you

Mike O'Neill 5:48

made reference to we all get stuck at times, and we're talking about getting stuck from a career standpoint. Is there a pattern that you've noticed over your decades of doing this type of work, of the kinds of things that oftentimes do get leaders stuck. A

Rory E. Verrett 6:08

few things. One is at a macro level, responding in a traditional, linear way to a dynamic moment. What I mean by that is some people, it's rare that you simply screw up in your job and you get fired. I mean that that is rare at the mid career and senior executive level. Most times they are filters for you applying for jobs and companies don't usually get it colossally wrong. So typically, there's disruption in your industry, disruption in your company, there's something that is a bit more of a seismic shift about why you were unmoored from your job. And most people just go back to this 1990s approach by saying, I had job X, I'm gonna get job x plus one. And they don't stop and think about the dynamism of the moment. Do they need to upskill in their qualifications? Do they need an extra degree? Do they need to pivot from one industry to another one? Are their skills just generally outdated? Are they bereft of the leadership competencies required to succeed at the VP level? So not being dynamic in a dynamic moment is the first thing. The second thing is, most people consider a simple transition from point A to point B, not point A to point x. What I mean by that is sometimes the next move is you going from a job to becoming an entrepreneur or a w2 job to becoming a small business owner or starting your consulting firm. But most of us think I had job a I'm gonna go to another company and have job a plus one and continue on this linear path so not thinking creatively, creatively about the myriad of job options that are available. And then, thirdly, I'll say a lot of people simply don't think about the macro elements of their career. One of the things I take my clients through is what I call the career algorithm test, is to figure out what your career algorithm is. This is a bespoke process I've developed, and it's designed to find out what are the elements that create your best work. So the third point is to not rush into your transition, but to use this space as a bit of a gift to think about what you can do with this to make your next move a level up, not simply a bridge over of the troubled water, as it were? Yeah,

Mike O'Neill 8:41

I love the way you describe that. Many people think of this as a linear and what you're saying is, in today's environment, it's no longer linear. And if you That's right, you think you're going to be leaving opportunities on the wayside. Let's go back to that algorithm you just mentioned. And that is what I think I understood you to say is that you have a proprietary assessment, if you will, that in answering the questions, there will be things that emerge that might and probably would be eye opening for that person, that could very well influence their next step from a career standpoint. Did I hear that? Right? That's

Rory E. Verrett 9:20

right. This is somewhat of a classic career assessment that I've put some a bit of a remix on. I put, you know, I'm from New Orleans. I put some Tony shasher rays and hot sauce on it to really make it customizable for mid career and late career executives. And it's really helpful to pause in this moment to figure out what you do well and where you want to go next. And that algorithm exercise and assessment, I've delivered speeches about it. I've spoken to high potential leadership academies about it, and it's always an eye opener, because it gives people a mirror to what they do well. And a lot of companies and four. Unfortunately, they don't have budgets for learning and development. They don't invest in assessment, and you get professionals that are well into their careers and don't really know what their strengths are.

Mike O'Neill 10:12

You know, I introduce you as working both with mid career and senior executives, and I don't want to be generalizing those two groups, if you would. But one thing that kind of crosses my mind is that in your work with mid career is this might not necessarily be their last stop. It might not even be their last career. And so in working with them to help them kind of begin map out, you used the word blueprint earlier to create that blueprint. Do you find that mid career folks who come to you, who enroll in your academy, that they begin to realize that they have options they didn't realize and that you've got to plan for that now

Rory E. Verrett 10:58

that's exactly right. We hold on to and I think mid career professionals do this more than any other group. We hold on to the original version of our ambition. When I was 35 I was still holding on to some possibility I would be a great lawyer. I would have been a horrible lawyer. I would have been a horrible lawyer, but I held on to that because I had this amazing credential from Harvard. I was 10 years into my career, I didn't know really what I wanted to do. I had an idea of maybe what I was good at, but I was still holding on to a job in the legal profession. And so you have to modernize, update, and sometimes abandon that original ambition and establish a new true north in the middle part of your career.

Mike O'Neill 11:46

That's very interesting. Can we cover this other spectrum here? And that is working with senior executives who this might be their last organization they join. What have you found working with these senior leaders, what has been perhaps most challenging to you in your effort to try to help them, that if they didn't have that mindset coming in, it would make it so much easier.

Rory E. Verrett 12:15

I am a part of what I'm about to describe, and that is not understanding the stage of career you're in and the real assets you have, and the assets are relationships, reputation and wisdom. So I'll give an example. During COVID, Executive Search came to a screeching halt, and I had this idea about a tech company, a tech product I wanted to launch. So I took some of the downtime and started working on that tech product, got a founding team together and was about to go to market. I'm also a talent advisor to a venture capital fund, so I did a bit of a soft pitch to the CEO of that fund. I said, What do you think about this? He said, I'll never forget this. He said, right. Right horse, wrong jockey. He's like, That's a brilliant idea. I would not bet on you doing that. And I said, Wait a minute, what are you talking about? You just appointed me as a talent advisor to your fund. You must think highly of me. He said, I do, but not as a tech startup founder, you're in the stage of career where you need to be trading on wisdom, relationships and knowledge and using that, and you can commercialize that. You can make that the strategic focus of how you interact with that next generation. But this is sort of a I not a young person's game. He didn't say that because there are tech founders that are across the spectrum of age, but he basically said, you're at stage of life where you sound like you want to be hanging with your wife and be present with your daughter. That's not necessarily what you signed up for when you become a tech company, startup CEO. And so I have this model that I talk with my clients about about the four decades of their career that you've got 40 years in your career, which generally overlap with a freshman, sophomore, junior and senior decade. What I find is that people in their 40s extend that sophomore decade too long. They extend the high potential period of their career way too long, and they expect a hiring manager to hire them for high potential when you're 43 years old. At 43 you need to have some expertise and domain expertise and subject matter expertise that is elite. No one's hiring you on potential. And then the senior executives tend to extend that junior decade too long. They extend that that that achievement decade may be a bit too long when you can create this portfolio career where you're on a corporate board, you're writing a book, you are a nonprofit board member, you are a consultant, you are a coach. All of those elements allow you to trade on wisdom and relationships. And I fell victim to that myself, wanting to keep getting the brass ring and keep extending my junior decade. Right? When, in reality, it's that senior decade I just have to embrace.

Mike O'Neill 15:06

You know, when you just listed possibilities, that's a great illustration of things that might surface from this algorithm that you were making reference to. You put emphasis on wisdom and relationships. Can we pursue relationships for a moment in your experience when you're working with clients, how would you describe the health of their relationships when it comes to career search strategies? I had a

Rory E. Verrett 15:33

podcast for many years. You must have listened to at least one episode, because at least on 30 of them, I brought this up that most of us are relationship deficient. The Big Lie out there in the market is that if I just do my job and act ethically, everything will work out. That is not correct until about 35 it is what you know. Until about 45 it's who you know after 45 and maybe overlapping with that second era, it's who knows you. It's your reputation. And so it's really important for you to develop the skills very early in your life on how to build relationships. I talked about it on the protege Leadership Academy, how I used to do a golf trip every year, and the golf group kind of broke up, and I did a cycling trip. And I said, Well, what would be really fun on a cycling trip? We went to France. So I took three candidates, some clients, people. They recommended. It wound up being, wound up being about seven of us, and we drove through the burgundy wine region in France for a week, and it was unbelievable. We now had that amazing experience that we cherish and we remember. And so I tell people, start a book club, start a running club. Find a way to gather people and make this a habit. Make it a habit that you consistently do, and you can do the electronic stuff like send out link LinkedIn requests. You can go to conferences, speak on panels, but find a way to really curate and put your signature on your relationship building, because it's great if you're excellent at your job, but it's not so great if nobody knows about it, and that's on you. That's on you, to build that network at every stage of your career.

Mike O'Neill 17:25

I hope this is a natural extension of what you just said, because what crossed my mind is, if the key is, who knows you, part of that hinges on, how do they know you? And what crosses my mind is this notion of personal branding, what is your position? One on personal running in what what do you advise your clients there?

Rory E. Verrett 17:49

Well, it is a complex scenario now, much more so than it was 15 or 20 years ago, because there are so many ways to create your brand and so many ways to mess it up. You've got social media, you've got your personal brand in your professional life, how you show up at keynotes or panels, how you show up at work. And so you don't have to use all the assets, but you can't deliver mixed messages. You can't be, you know, a skateboard fiend on Instagram, and then you're going to be on Facebook and you're the greatest chef in the world, and on LinkedIn, you want people to think you're this marketing genius. If those things are tied together, people are going to get mixed messages. And as a recruiter, I can tell you, I download and I review all of your social media assets. I'm trying to get a perspective on you. Almost never is it problematic, but in some cases, it's really, really helpful. I had a client, a head of HR, take two finalist candidates and put their names in YouTube, not Google. YouTube. One person set up a simple tripod at every panel discussion they were on, and they looked insightful. I'm sure the other person looked insightful, but he didn't have a tripod at every panel discussion he was on, and the client said, wow, this person is really, really insightful. It gave the hiring manager more information, and it was good information. Who do you think got the job? The person that was on YouTube, and she was phenomenal in the role that she won. So use some of these assets strategically. I think most people under utilize LinkedIn. It is a gift to you as a career professional to really establish your brand by being thoughtful about what you post and who you're linked up with. It's so easy, it's cost effective. I'm old enough to remember where you had to go to conferences to affect that kind of Social Branding. But now it's much easier, so it's important to be strategic and consistent with these social media assets in terms of furthering your brand.

Mike O'Neill 19:51

Yeah, I want to tie back to the last two things you said, because what I'm realizing is I was introduced to you through a relationship. I. Relationship I have with another Mike. Mike Blake, Mike knew you primarily through your presence on LinkedIn right. And he basically said, Mike, I think Rory would be a great guest. Well, what did I do? I went to your LinkedIn profile, read about you, reached out to you, asked if you're interested. And for those who don't know, we record both audio and video, and people ask why? Well, there is you can watch this video on YouTube, and it's not a vanity thing. But what I am finding is, for those who watch an episode versus just listen, they pick up a dimension that they might not pick up on otherwise, and that kind of reinforces the point you just made, and that that leader who took the time to record their presence on a panel is that when they saw that it was a deal closure in this case, absolutely, absolutely Roy, I would love to go back for a moment, because when you made reference to a senior executive and what's next, and you begin to rattle off possibilities. And I said, Gosh, that's that's kind of exciting, just for to kind of get me centered again, the kinds of things you mentioned was, you know, write a book, serve on a board. What were some of the other things that you've mentioned that light people's eyes up.

Rory E. Verrett 21:24

Corporate board membership. It does not need to be FedEx or Starbucks. It can be a private company. It can be a startup company. You have relationships, you have wisdom, you likely have managed a function or a business at a senior level, likely more than the startup founders. You have a lot of value to add a nonprofit board with something that you're passionate about. Could be relevant writing a book or being a content creator with the vast amount of knowledge you have, it's what we call a portfolio career. There's not one single thing like your w2 professional life that might have dominated your career in your 30s or 40s. It might be five or six or three or four mid size initiatives or mid size elements that together create this portfolio of experiences that really play into all of your strengths. And I think a lot of executives at the later stage of of their career, they're looking for like the peace de resistance. They want to end their career with a flourish, with the amazing capstone experience that amalgamates everything they've ever done, when, in reality, they have a lot of control over creating that capstone experience themselves. I mean, I'm in my early to mid 50s. I'll be 55 this summer, and I'm not waiting on somebody to give me a role that is running Apple's Leadership Academy and running TED Talks and sponsoring wine events in Europe. I do my own thing. I've got my YouTube channel, I've got my executive search firm. I've got the career transition blueprint. I'm a president of a wine club in Europe. I was on a corporate board. I was on two nonprofit boards. Each of those things together play to the diversity of my aspirations and talents and skills and the mission I want to accomplish in my career. So don't wait for that amazing job to come create it on your own through that portfolio model.

Mike O'Neill 23:24

Well, people watching and or listening to this episode can see why I kind of leaned into you as a potential guest, because what you bring to the mix is far more than just executive placement work. Would you be willing to go back to this career transition blueprint that you are launching, I think you said that there are 10 modules, and I'm gonna assume that these are these modules typically taken in some degree of sequence, or can you mix and match the order in which you do so

Rory E. Verrett 23:56

ideally, we want people to take them in sequence, because they build upon the lessons in the previous module. So we start with your psychological journey during a job search, something people underestimate how tough it can be to do a job search mid career and late career. And then we do some self assessment work about your algorithm. We talk about how to activate your network once you have more clarity about your strengths, how to optimize your resume and LinkedIn profile, and then how to show up smartly in the market and Ace Your interview with some reverse engineering techniques from what I know works, from sitting in search committee rooms, from sitting with boards, from Sitting with hiring managers for roles at the director level and above, lot what really works. And you know, here's a cheat code. Your interview is most of the points in your job search. It is typically won or lost at the interview stage. Another area that's underrepresented is your references, a big area you. Will simply wing that or mail it in. That should be a strategic element. And then we talk about how to negotiate, again, reverse engineering, how to negotiate a solid, competitive offer with your compensation. And then how to show up in your first 30 days and hit the ground running. We offer executive coaching, for our placements, to make sure that our placements hit the ground running. So I've taken what we do in those engagements and digitized it and offered it to people that are going to be part of the Career Transition blueprint.

Mike O'Neill 25:35

This is brilliant. A number of things kind of caught my attention Rory. One is the thought is, acknowledge that transitions are hard. Yes, acknowledge that it will take longer than you might realize, acknowledged it may take more work than you realize. Amen, I what I liked about it is that it's the second or third module before you begin reaching out to your network, because you've gotten clarity on yourself, and you may have clarity on what is it you're looking for. So if you are beginning to make known that you are looking then you could be more specific. Am I understanding that correctly?

Rory E. Verrett 26:18

Yes, you highlighted and issue spotted. It exactly what most people do in a mid career or late stage of career job search is the following. They call recruiters low ROI on that they spend time focusing on their resume. Low ROI on that you should optimize your resume, but it's only a small percentage of what actually matters, and then they apply to jobs online. All of these things make you feel like you're doing something. You're staring at a screen, you're sending in applications, you're staring at your resume for hours trying to get the font right. The things that really matter are not your resume, calling recruiters and applying online to jobs that are on LinkedIn. These 10 modules walk you through what's really important and what parts of the process you should optimize within that segment. What's really important on your resume, what's really important about your LinkedIn profile, what's really important about your references, how to really activate your network and make it built to last. There's a whole lot of stuff that people are simply not doing. So I took the best practices and created this, this laboratory, and I really want to give it to more people than my coaching clients, who typically half of them will call me in a reinvention they are trying to pivot to a whole new career set of options. Half of them are in a job search, and I walk them through these processes. And so it's my way to sort of really help people that are in a job search maximize what works for them, what is going to help them land the job that's right for them.

Mike O'Neill 28:02

You know, Roy, you mentioned that the latter modules include interviewing references, and that first 30 days, we could do a whole episode on each of those right. Last one that you just mentioned that first 30 days, the coaching that goes with working with you and your team, that is a real differentiator.

Rory E. Verrett 28:25

Absolutely, most people, I think, have this mistaken notion that, okay, I got the job. Oh, really glad that's over and I'm just going to do my job. That is what you should do. If you are 28 and you have two years of experience, and the hiring manager has hired you on potential and hard work, and you're ethically sound and all that kind of thing. If you're getting into the middle part of your career, the senior part of your career, you are now in or approaching the leadership level of the organization. And relationships matter. Organizational design issues matter how information is received and delivered in the organization matters. You got to find those culture carriers, those organizational historians. You got to find out how to manage maybe a small team, certainly how to manage your peers and engage with them, how to manage up. It's much more complex than putting your head down and being a brand manager or directing some product launch, there's a whole lot of leadership capacities that are at play, and in your first 30 days, if you start understanding a lot of that, you can get off to a fast start and not be blindsided by the fact that you're doing a great job But you're not building the right relationships. You don't know how information flows throughout the organization. You don't have the nuanced information about how work actually gets done from those culture carriers. So we try to walk people through some of that nuanced information so they can hit the ground running.

Mike O'Neill 29:57

You strike me as priding yourself with kind of real. Real world solutions. I hate to generalize, but when I mentioned earlier that it's going to take longer than you realize, there used to be kind of a rule of thumb based on salary, how long it would take you to make a move. But in your experience in the real world, if a person, let's, let's start with the mid career person who is undertaking a job search for whatever reason is there. Have you found in your clients that they should anticipate that it's going to take approximately how much time?

Rory E. Verrett 30:41

I don't think there is a way to give you know, to put a stake in the ground with that, because it varies on the industry. It varies on the economy. It varies on your geography. Are you doing a national search? Are you doing a search in your state? Is it a local search? Excuse me, are you only looking at remote first roles. There's so many complexities now with the job profile itself, are you going to another w2 job, or do you want to be an entrepreneur that could start tomorrow, that could start in a week? I would say, if you're in a mid career job search and you become a candidate, it's typically a 90 day cycle. We again to reverse engineer this. When we talk to a client from the moment they hire us, we tell them this process will take 90 days. There is the sourcing of candidates period. That's the first 30 days. There's the evaluation of the candidates. That's when candidates are actually interviewing, going through first, second, third, rounds of interviews, and then there's the closing period where you have those finalist candidates. Maybe they're preparing for a case study, which is becoming increasingly common, and they are going through the last rounds of interviews with that panel of executives, and we're doing references. The company is doing a background check, and they are negotiating their compensation with me or with the hiring manager, and then the process ends and they show up. So those three periods, the sourcing period, the evaluation period, and then the sort of closing on the finalist, that third period, that's about 90 days. Then you got to give the person the time to wrap up where they are and show up. Used to be two weeks. It's typically now three weeks. Some people, if you're a senior executive, that might be two or three months. If you're a key person on leadership team, you cannot cut and run on Friday and in a fortnight show up at a new company. It's just not gonna happen. So 90 days. But the more senior you are, the more time you're gonna need to make that transition. So if you're SVP and above, it's probably 120 days from the time I talk to you. If you're a director, a senior manager, it might be, you know, 60 to 90

Mike O'Neill 32:49

days. That's very helpful. Thank you. You know, Roy, as we close our time together, can you think of a piece of advice that you would offer to professionals watching or listening right now who are kind of standing at the edge of a major career decision. What would advice be?

Rory E. Verrett 33:10

I would say the following, do the best with what information you have right now. We can sometimes aim for the perfect scenario, not looking at the economy, not looking at geography, not looking at whether you can do an hour commute into a company that is your dream employer. So you got to put all that together and think about what's best for you right now and make the best decision that advances your career from where you are, you cannot control for what's going to happen in 20 years, 15 years, 10 years. What are the best available options? I look back on my career, and I'll think, what the heck was I thinking making that decision at that time, that was the best option available to me. In retrospect, it'll all make sense. But as long as you are headed toward your true north, and you can say that this opportunity pushes you forward some way, and it's the best available option that's the best thing to do. Don't make it so hard on yourself that you're trying to find your dream job. Every time you make a job transition, the idea is to get closer to your true north destination, but not take 1000 miles in a single job transition.

Mike O'Neill 34:26

Great guidance. You know, in closing, I want to invite our listeners, if today's conversation sparks something in you, don't let it end there. Take one step now this week, whether that's thinking about your personal brand or revisiting your long term career goals or checking out the protege Leadership Academy, my company, bench builders, we believe in successful transitions. Say, start with strong leadership, bold strategic thinking. So if you're ready to sharpen those skills to address your workplace challenges head on, head over. To our website, bench builders.com to see how perhaps we could support you in doing so. Rory, before we wrap up, what is the best place for listeners to connect with you and learn more about the academy, at

Rory E. Verrett 35:13

protege leadership academy.com where we are launching our first career blueprint, which is about making a career transition. So the career transition blueprint is available. It'll lead you to the site where you can have access to those 10 courses, protege leadership academy.com, and then on the YouTube channel, every Tuesday and Thursday, we post new content about career advice, what really works in the new world of work on YouTube, the protege Leadership Academy, look for the professional photo of me with much less gray hair, Rory,

Mike O'Neill 35:48

this has been a treat. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 35:50

Thank you for having me, Mike. This has been awesome. And

Mike O'Neill 35:53

for all the subscribers, thank you for joining us, and I hope that this conversation with Rory has given you clarity tools and the inspiration you need to get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of get unstuck and on target. I hope you gain insights to help you lead with confidence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at bench builders, we're committed to your success, your leadership excellence and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes. This show really grows when listeners like you share it with others. Who do you know? Who needs to hear what we talked about today? Until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path.

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