Dimitri Mastrocola | Breaking Down the Executive Search Process: Working with a Firm, Candidate Insights, and Career Advice
Dimitri Mastrocola, Partner and In-House Counsel Recruiter at Major, Lindsey and Africa, joins us to provide a “peek behind the curtain” into the executive search process. Dimitri walks us through the milestone steps of an executive search and shares insights for legal talent and executives actively pursuing a career change or strategically planning their next steps. He is known on LinkedIn as Wall Street's best connected executive legal recruiter and shares his networking dos and don’ts to capitalize on social media as a resource and tool.
The milestone steps of a search (with estimated timeframes).
Advice for the job seeker: approaching your search methodically, with discipline, and how to get on the radar of relevant search firms.
Don’t underestimate the breadth and depth of your contacts.
LinkedIn: you MUST have a profile and be capitalizing on the value it brings to your career search.
Compensation negotiation: when should you be utilizing an advisor or advocate to ensure maximizing your compensation package?
How are recruiters vetting candidates during the initial interview rounds?
The importance of deep conversations between the recruiter and candidate.
The legal market is changing, the positive effects on a candidate’s geographical search.
TOP TALENT ADVOCATES REMAINS COMITTED TO PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS. EACH GUEST IS ASKED TO SUGGEST A NONPROFIT OF CHOICE FOR OUR SUPPORT.
-
[00:00:00] Richard: Welcome to Hiring Insights. The podcast that provides insight into the executive hiring process and experience. Whether you are a job seeker, a people leader, a recruiter, an executive coach, or simply interested in talent, there is something here for you on the Hiring Insights. Today's episode is presented by Top Talent Advocates, where we advocate for executive and legal talent.
You can learn more about Top Talent Advocates, listen to other episodes and hire great talent by visiting toptalentadvocates.com and clicking on podcast. Now here's your host for Hiring Insights, Mosah Fernandez Goodman.
[00:00:44] Mosah: Welcome to another episode of Hiring Insights. Today my guest is Dimitri Mastrocola, who's described on LinkedIn as Wall Street's best connected executive legal recruiter. After attending undergraduate and law school in Canada, Dimitri entered private practice in Montreal, Quebec, eventually moving to New York to work for Shearman and Sterling LLP.
After leaving private practice, Dmitri joined Citibank as Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel and has spent the last 16 years working for Major Lindsey and Africa as an Executive Search Consultant, recruiting chief legal officers and their teams. Please join me in welcoming Dimitri to another episode of Hiring Insights.
Dimitri, welcome to the show and thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:01:37] Dmitri: Sure. Thanks for having me, Mosah.
[00:01:39] Mosah: I'm wondering if you could start off by just sharing a little bit about your background, who you are and how you came to be in your current role.
[00:01:47] Dmitri: So I am a search consultant at Major Lindsey and Africa, one of the world's largest legal search firms. I'm a former practicing lawyer, having practiced both in private practice and as an in-house lawyer in a large financial services firm in New York. But for the last 16, almost 17 years, I've been with Major Lindsey and Africa focused on placing general councils and their teams within the financial services sector.
[00:02:14] Mosah: To meet you. There are a number of search firms and there are a number that are focused specifically on the legal market. I'm wondering if you might just share a little bit more about Major Lindsey and Africa and what makes Major Lindsey and Africa great?
[00:02:28] Dmitri: Sure. Major Lindsey now is a search firm that was founded 40 years ago and was kind of a pioneer in legal recruitment in the United States.
We have since grown to be a global search firm with over 200 search consultants, most of whom are former practicing lawyers. And at this point, you know, MLA is synonymous with the legal profession. We conduct more general counsel and in-house counsel searches for clients than every other search firm combined.
We also conduct searches and recruit for our law firm clients. We're looking to add lateral talent at the associate and partner level. So it's a very robust recruiting platform, intensely focused on lawyers in the legal profession. And, and I think we're one of the best at it.
[00:03:19] Mosah: That's great. And obviously Top Talent Advocates works with a lot of attorneys and I, myself am an attorney, but I hope for the listeners out there who are not attorneys themselves, or who might have wanted to turn off this episode, as soon as they heard attorney, that they take a moment and learn that so many of the insights you're going to share with us on this episode are applicable to candidates generally.
And while there are elements of search that are unique to the legal profession, my assumption, and maybe you can correct me on this Dimitri, is that the process and some of the things that you'll be sharing with us today are certainly applicable to non-attorneys as well.
Is that, is that a fair statement?
[00:04:03] Dmitri: Very fair. So as a search firm, if you're recruiting for General Counsel or Chief Legal Officer, say a Chief Financial Officer, a COO, or even a CEO, the process is very, very similar. The candidate pools are different, but the search process and the considerations that come into play from terms of the hiring entity, the hiring manager, the search firm, are the same.
[00:04:27] Mosah: And so being an attorney and having developed an expertise in the field that you're recruiting for, I was wondering if you might be able to share a little bit about your experience in becoming a recruiter or a search consultant, just a few words, if you would, about what drove you to do that.
[00:04:41] Dmitri: It is a different path; recruiting isn't something that most people take on as a primary career. It's usually something that one kind of backs into as a second career, after a number of years in a primary career. So my primary career was in law. I was a practicing lawyer, both in private practice and as an in-house lawyer.
It was close to 15 years into my legal career. I started to get an itch, to do something different. And I was very proficient as a lawyer, but I wasn't passionate about it. And at the time I was actually studying and becoming certified to be a coach. And what I wanted to do is become an attorney coach and actually began to take steps to do that and eventually quit my in-house counsel job at Citi to launch my own solo attorney coaching practice.
I did that for about six months and then realized that being a solo entrepreneur and the sole breadwinner of a family with a stay-at-home spouse and kids and a mortgage may not have been the wisest move. And so I had to pivot quickly and go back to finding a real job.
But what I didn’t want to do was go back to practicing law. So that's when the light bulb went off. The thought of becoming a recruiter or a search consultant in the legal space entered my mind.
[00:06:09] Mosah: Let's talk a little bit about the business decision to hire a search firm. You post, if not every day or multiple times a day, I know you post every day on LinkedIn and some of your posts have focused on why organizations choose to engage a firm.
And sometimes they talk about when a search firm isn't the appropriate solution to finding it or filling a talent need. When should an organization reach out to a search firm to engage their services? And when do you find that's the most efficient, successful decision for an organization?
[00:06:44] Dmitri: Well, generally, you know, a search firm is brought in is either a senior strategic role. So it's a role of strategic importance to the organization, or if the role that needs to be filled is simply a difficult one in terms of a difficult skill set. Maybe it's a niche skillset, or it's a difficult search because of market conditions. It's just maybe a very tight market.
So it really has to do with the, either the strategic importance of the role or the difficulty of the search effort, which can have to do with the candidate pool, the position description, or just general market conditions.
[00:07:26] Mosah: Can you help us peek behind the curtain if you will, can you walk us through sort of the milestone steps of a search? When I work with candidates, it's often-I submitted an application and I haven't heard anything or I reached out to so-and-so and they, I don't know where they're at in their process.
So just large, big milestone steps. If you could help demystify that process from your perspective, for those who might want to peek behind the curtain, if you will.
[00:07:55] Dmitri: Certainly. There's generally two ways a search firm becomes involved in a hiring process. A company may reach out to the search firm directly because of reputation or they've worked with the firm before and they'll just call the firm and say- hey, we have this, we're looking to hire this senior person.
It could be a Chief Legal Officer. It could be a Deputy General Counsel. It could be a Chief Compliance Officer for instance. And they say, let's talk about engaging you in a search. The other approach is it's a competitive bid situation, if you'd like. The company is speaking with 2, 3, 4, 5 different search firms and they invite the firms to pitch competitively against the other.
And then after the pitches, they kind of select a search firm. So assuming a search firm has been engaged or the milestones typically are as follows. So the company will sign an engagement letter with the search firm whereby the, the company agrees to pay fees. Typically an executive search firm fee is one third of the annualized total cash compensation for the candidate. The fee is typically payable over the course of the search, usually in three installments. First installment, when the engagement letter is signed, the second installment, typically when a susceptible candidate is submitted and the final installment usually is upon offered acceptance.
There are variations to that, but that's generally, at least that's how major Lindsey and Africa does it. Then engagement letter signed, but what happens then is the search firm and the key internal constituents of the company need to agree on a position description on a position specification. This is a document that the search firm will use to go out into the marketplace to market the opportunity.
It's a job description, and it's something that is usually prepared by the search firm based on an internal draft provided by the company. So the company will have you know, one pager or two pager with a number of bullet points, the search firm will take that work with it, beef it up a little bit. They go back and forth with the company, finalize it.
Once that's finalized. Then the search firm is positioned to go out into the marketplace, go to market as we say, and launch the search. And the outreach begins almost immediately. And over the course of say 2, 3, 4 weeks the search firm will go out into the marketplace, engage with potential candidates, determine preliminary interest, have some preliminary screening interviews, generally at week three or four, at least in the case of MLA that's when we like to provide our client or the client with an initial progress report with some resumes and profiles for the client to consider. We'd like to call this a calibration discussion. What that means is it provides the company with an early opportunity to provide feedback into the candidate pool, into the candidates that the search firm has come up with in the early going.
And it enables both sides to course correct if needed. To adjust sales and to kind of optimize the continuation of the candidate sourcing effort. What happens after that is some companies like candidates to be submitted in the slate format, which means it basically a list of, you know, eight to 10 candidates or maybe six to 10.
And this is kind of the final slate. And then the company decides which of the candidates they would like to interview. The other approach is to submit candidates on a rolling basis. So after the initial calibration candidates, let's say after week three, then the search firm may, if the client prefers submit candidates in maybe groups of two or three in supplemental slates, you know, two or three times.
So rolling basis. Weeks eight to 10 into the search, the search firm will probably have canvased the market pretty thoroughly and be confident that the candidates they they've submitted to that point are sufficient in terms of, you know, being confident that at least one of those candidates will be the one who ultimately gets the job.
And then what happens after week 10? It's all about scheduling the candidates with the interview teams of the company and kind of aligning calendars, making sure people are available, you know, vacations come into play. Holidays, travel. So for a senior role, let's say it's a chief legal officer role, it's not unheard of for the process to go six months, maybe even eight months from start to finish.
If it's a lesser role in the legal team, deputy general counsel or an assistant general counsel role that could be a three-to-five-month process start to finish. Those are the major milestones I would say.
[00:12:53] Mosah: That's incredibly helpful. And I think a lot of the folks listening to this episode, or either taking notes or will rewind to understand what's going on from the employer's perspective, but of course it's a very different experience on the candidate side. And this is something that you often write about on LinkedIn and, you know, three months or eight months, if I were to talk with some of my more senior level, say legal talent, they would be elated over the prospect of getting or thinking of their searches only taking six months.
Of course, for some of the elite positions in the higher compensated positions in the country it can take much longer than that. So I wonder if you might join me now in switching to thinking about the candidates’ experience. Can you give us some general advice for a job seeker?
[00:13:43] Dmitri: Sure. The first thing I say is you've got to be patient if you're a job seeker.
And particularly if you're a seeker for a, a C level role, whether that's General Counsel, Chief Legal Officer, or even CFO, COO, et cetera, you've got to think about a 12-to-18-month timeline to find the right fit for yourself. So that's point number one is be realistic about how long it'll take and it usually takes longer than you think. The other major points is you've got to approach the job search process methodically with discipline and you need to be consistent about it. And you really need to treat it like a, a true project and you need to apply kind of project management discipline to the entire project. You can't be haphazard about it. Any job search requires kind of a weekly commitment of time to network and do research and plan and strategize.
And so I always counsel, when I've got my candidate coach hat on, I tell potential candidates that they need to take the series seriously. And you can tell what somebody's priorities are by looking two places, their checkbook or their calendar. In this case it's the calendar that's most important. I tell candidates to block time on a recurring kind of weekly basis in their calendar to devote to the job search, whether that means doing research on LinkedIn or an indeed.com or other online databases to look for opportunities. Where that means thinking about or thinking through who to network with. Having weekly time devoted in the calendar is extremely important. And putting in that weekly time consistently is much better than doing it once a month and spending five hours in a weekend.
I'd rather have somebody spend 45 minutes or 30 minutes once a week to devote entirely do some deep work on the job search then to spend, you know, six hours on a weekend once every two months. So it's the weekly consistency that it's extremely important.
[00:16:00] Mosah: If a candidate wants to advantage themselves in the light of a search firm or wants to simply get noticed, what advice would you give to an executive level job seeker?
[00:16:13] Dmitri: There are a number of things an executive level job seeker could be doing. Let's talk about how to get noticed or get on the radar screen of relevant search firms. A job seeker can do some research in terms of which search firms might have the clients or the search assignments of the type that could be relevant to him or her.
And these could be generalist executive search firms, or they could be specialist executive search firms. I would consider major Lindsey and Africa more of a specialist firm because we have a functional focus on legal, the generalist executive search firms, for instance, have a legal practice, a financial practice, but how do you get on the radar screen of a search professional?
I think the easiest way to do it is via email. Identify the person you want to introduce yourself to Practice a brief respectful email, attach your resume and simply ask the search firm or the recruiter to be placed on that person's radar screen for potentially appropriate opportunities and maybe describing in the body of the email what a potentially appropriate opportunity could look like for you. You need to thread the needle there in that message in terms of being too focused or too general in terms of what you're looking for. But the resume, your resume will speak for itself. And what you want to do is ask the search professional to add the resume to their database and to keep you in mind, if something appropriate or to come up with one of their clients and to contact you at any time should a potential match occur.
That's the easiest way to do it. You know, some candidates they'll go further and kind of push for a phone call or, or meeting. And that's fine I get where they're coming from. I wouldn't push too hard, but it's fine to ask. All I would say there is you know; a search professional's primary role is to conduct searches on behalf of its clients.
So a search professional's ability to help any individual job seeker is entirely contingent upon that person having the right search assignment at that time. And when most job seekers approach a search firm it would be incredibly unique for that search professional to have a live assignment that's a match at that time.
Usually the email comes in, the search professional promises to keep the person on the radar screen and they may actually have a conversation three months later, six months later, or 12 months later when the right opportunity materializes. So that's the way to get in touch with a search firm and get on their radar screen and it's okay to follow up.
You want to do it kind of on a normal cadence but not too often. So I recommend quarterly, just shoot an email and say, hey, I'm still looking still on your radar screen. If anything comes up, do let me know. That would be well received and an easy way to just stay front of mind with a search firm.
[00:19:14] Mosah: No, I think that's great advice. Candidates look to approach search firms to, to signal to those firms, their level of interest in potentially being placed at a client. Of course, search firms only have a certain percentage of the market and to your astute comment, the timing has to be right. So if I was an executive level job seeker today, would your advice of presenting yourself to search firm be where you start and stop, or what are some of the other pieces of advice that you would give to clients or candidates who are looking for their next opportunity?
I can't imagine it's starts and stops with an email to search firms.
[00:19:55] Dmitri: No, no. I mean, staying in touch or getting known by search firms is just one part of the strategy and it's not even the major part. So it's probably 20 to 30% of the strategy. I mean, most of your effort as a job seeker has to be in trying to uncover positions in the word-of-mouth market.
And which means either the word-of-mouth market or positions that are actually posted online, that aren't being handled by search firms. So that's where most of your efforts need to be placed. And that requires a lot of diligence and just good old-fashioned networking. Putting your head down and doing research on a weekly basis.
So networking means, you know speaking with contacts in your warm market. So these could be former colleagues, people you went to school with. If you're a lawyer, people you went to law school with maybe somebody you went to business school with, or undergrad. People you worked with in your early career who have moved on to other places.
Think through individuals in your Rolodex, I'm dating myself by saying that, but in your kind of contact list of your warm market and think about who might be in a position of hiring authority, but more particularly might be positioned to refer you to somebody that has hiring authority. And so my experience has been that many people underestimate the depth and breadth of their contacts. And so it sounds like an obvious thing to be networking with your contact list, but most people don't do it the right way and underestimate how many connections they truly have. So it takes a fair amount of focus and thinking and strategic thinking to think through the connections that you have and, and connect dots to others in your network.
That's the first thing anyone should be doing is thinking through their contact list and the potential connections. And what you want to do is let people know, let the right people know that you're interested in hearing about opportunities. You don't want to be sound like you're interested in necessarily and jumping out the door from your present employer, but you want to frame it in terms of wanting to pull again to the flow of information, wanting to keep your ear to the ground, to hear about leads. So if they hear about something interesting, they should call you and let you know about it because you just never know it might be a great fit for you, or it could be a great fit for somebody you know, somebody in your network.
The other thing I recommend is in the networking process it's really important to, to keep the principle of reciprocity in mind. So you don't want to be that person who's constantly out with their hat in hand, asking for referrals and recommendations. You also want to reciprocate and say, hey and be sure to offer your help and assistance to that person.
If there's anything I could ever do to help you or to refer you to somebody or to connect you with somebody, please let me know. So you want to come across as yes, you're asking for referrals and connections, but you also want to be connected to yourself.
[00:23:09] Mosah: Dmitri I think you've, you've accurately summarized, uh, a significant portion of the work that we do with our clients when we're, when we're helping market them, which is to help open doors, help make connections for people, both within our network but also helping them really mine their own network. I think your, your statement of people often underestimate the power of who they know and more importantly the people who they know and that's such an important thing to do when looking for your next role, I'm going to make a bit of a joke here and say that we met online, um, which is not too far off because I think we, our first exchange happened through LinkedIn and I was prompted to contact you when I saw some of your posts on LinkedIn.
And I'm curious if you have any recommendations or guidance or candidates, active or passive candidates, when it comes to social media both in terms of presentation of their profiles and their activity by way of getting noticed and, and presenting themselves.
[00:24:13] Dmitri: I do. I was kind of an early adopter with regards to LinkedIn.
I saw the value of LinkedIn as a networking platform early on, it's been about 10 or 12 years now that I've been active on the platform. So I think LinkedIn is critical and a necessary component of somebody's job search strategy and more broadly just personal branding strategy. So if you don't have a LinkedIn profile, it's like not having a cell phone at this point or a cell phone number, you need to have a LinkedIn profile that is.
[00:24:51] Mosah: Or Rolodex.
[00:24:52] Dmitri: Or a rolodex. Do people know what a Rolodex is? Maybe the gen X-ers do, but, um, we digress. So having an optimized LinkedIn profile is a must, which means it's basically an online bio. You should have a professional looking headshot. You should take care to have a, an interesting headline. That's probably the most important piece of real estate on your LinkedIn profile is the headline right beneath your name and photo. And it should be something a little bit more creative than just the title of your job, but everyone should have a LinkedIn profile and that's kind of table stakes at this point.
And you should try and connect with people in your network. People that you know, your colleagues, former colleagues, friends, professional contacts, professional advisors, and the like. And a lot of networking begins with LinkedIn with simply being on LinkedIn and connecting with people. But it's more than that. You can use LinkedIn actively to enhance your visibility and your public profile by posting, by creating content. And it doesn't have to be very extensive. You can begin by, you know, liking and commenting on other people's posts and being thoughtful about it. And that can expand to beginning to write your own posts and it could be simply to sharing an anecdote or an observation or your experience about things.
I don't think you need to be very, as active as I am for instance, but being on the platform with an optimized profile that's sprinkled with the right keywords. What I mean by that is think about how a search professional might be looking for a candidate. They're doing a keyword search with usually skillset-based keywords or position-based keywords.
So think through like the types of keywords that somebody might be using to find someone like you and make sure that your LinkedIn profile has those keywords sprinkled throughout, you know, the description of your various roles, because that'll will pop in a search. It'll make you easier to be found. The other thing I would say is on the topic of writing posts on LinkedIn, which is this a form of blogging if you like. If you have an opportunity to write and publish something or to be involved as a speaker, those things are incredibly valuable to a potential job seeker in enhancing that person's brand and making that person visible to recruiters and to hiring managers.
[00:27:27] Mosah: Sage advice. Thank you so much for that.
So if you had to give a candidate at the executive level or a more senior level with an organization, a piece of advice in today's market, what would that single piece of advice be? Tough question maybe because there's a lot and you've already shared a lot of them, but what would you say your best piece of advice for someone looking for their next role would be.
[00:27:52] Dmitri: Network. Single most important thing you could be doing is networking. Networking in the word-of-mouth market, which unfortunately is the component of the overall strategy that is the most labor intensive and the most time intensive, and the one that requires the most discipline and consistency. But networking with your peers, colleagues, former colleagues, your Rolodex. Letting them know what's going on with you and doing so throughout your career. Not just waiting to do it when you need to. My advice has always been it's prudent career management, even if you're very happy, wherever you are, is to continue to network and to never let your networking efforts really fall by the wayside.
It's something that you should be doing regardless of your level of happiness and satisfaction in a role and not something that you should be waiting to do only when you need to, when you're looking for a job.
[00:28:55] Mosah: So Dimitra your advice around networking, your advice around working with search firms. What other resources, tools services might you suggest candidates consider?
[00:29:09] Dmitri: Great question Mosah. There's a range of, you know, professional advisors and informal advisers that candidates or job seekers should think about. Because let's face it in my role as an executive search consultant, my time is limited in terms of being able to provide individual one-on-one assistance to a job seeking candidate.
But there are professionals whose entire job description is to assist people in that situation. So there are people like yourself who are kind of candidate focused advisors that candidates should reach out to. And then the other category is professional coaches. Uh, there are attorney coaches for lawyers.
There are coaches in every function and profession that are executive level coaches, whose role and purpose is to assist a candidate with thinking through and strategizing career satisfaction. A job search, I think it's an investment. It's a financial investment to work with those types of professionals like yourself and, and some of those executive level coaches that I mentioned, but I believe it's the smart candidates, the smart job seekers who do that, are investing in themselves.
And that's never a bad bet to take.
[00:33:28] Mosah: So Dimitri, one of the things that the people I work with and my clients are eager to get to, is to the point in a search where they're negotiating compensation. And compensation is part art, part science, and driven by a multitude of factors. What advice would you give to a candidate as they evaluate and potentially negotiate the compensation for their next opportunity?
[00:30:52] Dmitri: Great question. In my mind, it depends on whether the opportunity is a search firm lead opportunity. And whether it's one that the candidate is on a negotiating or discussing directly with the potential employer. In the case of a search firm lead opportunity, generally the compensation discussions and negotiations are done through the intermediary of the search firm.
Even with the search firm led opportunity with the search firm kind of acting as the go-between many C-level candidates will also in parallel engage with it could be a, an executive compensation attorney to advise them on the negotiation or how to structure an employment agreement or some other type of consultant. Maybe someone like yourself to help them negotiate kind of the finer points of the comp package.
But generally speaking, I would say if it's search firm lead, it's usually candidate, search firm, employer, everyone's kind of aligned and motivated to come up with a win-win solution for the two sides and for the search firm.
In situations where it's the candidate or the job seeker negotiating directly with the company and there isn't a go-between that can advocate on behalf, formerly advocate, like a search firm on behalf of the candidate, I think some candidates try and do it directly. That may be fine for a lower-level position, but at the C suite level, I think a smart candidate will have an advisor. And again, it could be an attorney, an executive compensation attorney, could be a coach.
It could be someone like yourself Mosah who can assist the candidates. Not only negotiating, but getting a really good sense of benchmarking compensation and making sure what the candidates thinking of and expecting is in line with the market. Making sure that what the company is offering or putting on the table is realistic.
So having a professional advisor and advocate at that stage is truly important. And again, it's an investment that's well worth the money.
[00:33:04] Mosah: And so as your clients vet candidates, what types of things are they looking for in the interview process and what types of things send off the red flags?
[00:33:15] Dmitri: We have a saying in terms of the important things in the interview process, it's that at least from the candidate side, you need to pass the chemistry test before you pass the math test.
What do I mean by that? Chemistry is the establishing rapport with the company, with your interviewers. Establishing connectivity, coming across as a high EQ, as well as high IQ person, having strong interpersonal skills and being a potential cultural fit for the organization. So that's the chemistry test that often comes before the math test and the math test is alignment on hard skills.
Its skill sets you know, an experience in terms of substantive skills required to do the job. So both aspects are important. The soft skills, the interpersonals, the communication style, the attitude, the EQ as well as the alignment on skills. The right experience, right academic credentials, right pedigree, that sort of thing.
So clients are looking for kind of a plug and play solution to their talent problem. They want somebody who can hit the ground running from day one. And what that usually means is someone for the role, who's done a similar job at a similarly situated company in a similar industry.
And who has kind of the interpersonal attributes that, that will work well in the organization.
[00:34:47] Mosah: So building on that, what advice do you have for candidates when they're sitting down or maybe even initially on a phone call when it comes to interviewing for their next executive level or senior level role?
[00:35:02] Dmitri: The number one piece of advice, it's going to sound obvious, but it really isn't because many candidates don't do this well, is prepare and do your research on the company and the people you're meeting with. And I'm not talking about doing it the night before the interview or the day of, I'm talking about spend a couple of days or the weekend before you're going in and do a deep dive.
And research as much publicly available information you can get your hands on with regard to the company, their executives, the leadership team, and look at, you know, the internet is your friend. Google is your friend. Public filings are your friend. Dig into all of it and come in armed with questions that demonstrate your curiosity, demonstrate the fact that you've done homework.
You want to come across as a thoughtful candidate who is sincerely interested, not just to get a job or to make a move, but sincerely interested in that company in a way that you can articulate with specificity, why, and as well as articulating with specificity, why you're interested in the particular role.
So all of that requires prep and homework, and it's not something you can do in a haphazard way the day off or the night before. So proper preparation is key and you'd be surprised how many candidates even at this c-level go in unprepared and it shows I get the feedback from my clients that the candidate wasn't truly prepared, you know, it rubs them the wrong way.
[00:36:32] Mosah: Perhaps obvious advice, but maybe not obvious enough for, for too many folks. It's not an uncommon for us to spend entire weekends working with individual clients or several weeks, if there's that much time between interviews doing exactly that, right? The internet is your friend public filings are your friend.
I think the only thing that I would add to your answer on that question, Dimitri might be reflecting on the industry as a whole, because if someone's moving between like companies making sure that they're current and not just focused on that one company helps provide a better and more global perspective.
[00:37:10] Dmitri: I agree
[00:37:11] Mosah: As a search consultant, imagine you sometimes get put into situations that obviously you're trained how to handle. Sometimes you have to balance competing interests between those of your client and those of a candidate. Helping to broker, what is ultimately a win-win or triple win, I guess.
Can you share with us a little bit about how you might do that and maybe even a story about how you've handled that in the past?
[00:37:40] Dmitri: Sure. I mean, I think executive search consultants really earn their fees at offer time and getting deals across the finish line. So yes, we need to present great slates of candidates, shepherd them through the process and manage candidate expectations and client expectations, but where we really earn our fee is getting a candidate over the finish line. And that usually involves having to assess a number of different factors, including compensation, but not exclusive to compensation. So how do we do that?
You have to be in close contact with both your client, the hiring company and the candidate. And as the search moves forward and is getting closer to the offer stage, you need to be really in close contact with the candidate. What happens with candidates sometimes is you think you're having deep conversations with them through the process, but you're really not because it's only when the situation becomes a real and an offer is actually on the table or is imminent that some of the true and deeper concerns that a candidate has come to the fore.
And so you may be hearing things from your candidate for the first time, after a six-month process. And you're hearing them for the first time at offer time. So you need to try and avoid that situation of being surprised by having deeper conversations with the candidate about compensation, about deferred comp that they’d be leaving on the table.
About if it's a relocation situation, about the family situation. You asked about a red flag, one of the red flags is if you're dealing with a senior executive making a big move that requires relocation and you're speaking with the candidate throughout the process. If that candidate doesn't bring up their spouse and doesn't discuss whether the spouse has bought in to the situation, that's a flag because you know, in a move like that, that involves a spouse and children who are in high school, spousal buy-in is incredibly important.
And if you don't hear about the spouse's opinion throughout the process, believe me, you will hear about it post offer, and it becomes an issue. You want to be having deeper conversations with candidates as you get closer to the finished.
[00:40:20] Mosah: Dmitri, obviously you're focused primarily on in-house legal market and the firm that you work for Major Lindsey and Africa focuses on in-house. law firm. and compliance talent.
So you have great perspective given your tenure and that breadth of the market. Where's the legal market headed. What are some trends and some insights you might share with those listening?
[00:40:43] Dmitri: It's interesting. The legal market is changing. Law firms are changing that's for certain. I think in a post pandemic world, we've all realized how effective and productive attorneys can be working remotely. Whether that's fully remote or some type of, you know, hybrid model of remote work.
So I think that working remotely versus in office is a debate that both law firms and corporations and their legal departments will be having and continuing to have over the course of the next few months and years. And I'm not sure where things will land, what the equilibrium point is.
But I do know that what we've learned over the last couple of years is legal work, legal advice, it can be very effectively and productively delivered remotely. And so having remote teams, legal teams, in-house counsel teams, and whether it's that again, it's fully remote or, you know, it's three days a week in office with some flexibility on a Monday/Friday. We're going to continue to see that and that situation will continue to evolve.
Then I have no idea where it'll all land and like many observers, I'm curious to see how it will evolve and shift, but the shift is underway. It's almost like you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point, in terms of kind of the five day a week in office workweek. I think that's in the rear-view mirror for the most part, except perhaps for the most senior legal roles in the legal department.
[00:42:28] Mosah: Interesting. Does that impact a candidate search in their geographic reach when it comes to targeting organizations and looking for opportunities?
[00:42:40] Dmitri: It does. It absolutely does and we're seeing it now. There are many more positions available that are fully remote. Or partially remote. And so companies that are looking to make those hires are opening up a national candidate pool for themselves.
Company may be based in Chicago, but they're open to having the right candidate be sitting in San Diego or Atlanta or Houston or Des Moines, Iowa. And so it's about finding the right candidate with the right skill set. And the geographic location of the candidate becomes a little bit more secondary. So it opens up the candidate pool for the hiring company, for my clients.
But from the candidate perspective, it's also beneficial because you're able to compete and vie for opportunities and companies, regardless of where you're located. So you could be sitting in New York City, but you're applying for a role in Seattle and it's a full-time role. And maybe you traveled to Seattle once a quarter, but the rest of the time you're working and you're in your home in New York City.
So I think it's a win-win for both sides.
[00:43:56] Mosah: As we end every episode on hiring insights, we make sure that we as a token of appreciation, make a contribution to a nonprofit in honor of our guests. And I'm wondering if there's a particular nonprofit that you might like us to support today.
[00:44:13] Dmitri: You know, there are a number, but one of them that jumps to mind is an organization called Vitamin Angels, vitaminangels.org.
It's an organization that provides nutritional support by way of vitamin and mineral supplementation to children in underserved communities across the world.
[00:44:34] Mosah: We will make that contribution very worthy cause. Thank you so much Dimitri for being on today. And if someone wanted to write you a thoughtful email to let you know of their candidacy for a particular position or interest in making a move or wanted to engage the services of MLA, what's the best way to get in touch with you or with your firm.
[00:44:44] Dmitri: Probably the best and easiest way is to look me up on LinkedIn. So just search for me, Dimitri Mastrocola. And my email address is right there on the profile. So shoot me an email. That's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me. It's my work email. That's right on the LinkedIn profile and we can set up some time to talk.
[00:45:15] Mosah: Dimitri, we can't thank you enough for being on the episode today. Your insights and advice, both online and in today's episode are tremendously helpful to those looking for jobs and those actually hiring as well. So thank you so much for being on today.
[00:45:33] Dmitri: You're very welcome. Thank you for having me, Mosah, it’s been a pleasure.
[00:45:37] Richard: Thank you for joining us on Hiring Insights. Remember, you can learn more about Top Talent Advocates and listen to other episodes by visiting toptalentadvocates.org and click on the podcast. You can also email us at tta@toptalentadvocates.org
Description text goes here
