Congratulations - the ink is dry on your last raise, and it's finally time to build out the ELT you've dreamed of; starting with a VP of Product Management.
As a recruiting partner to startups and scale-ups across North America, the decision to hire a VP Product is a defining time in a Founder's journey. This is the moment when the baby you nurtured and watched grow is handed off to a professional… gulp!
Today, we share the four routes to hiring a VP Product Management:
1. DIY - The Founder will look for a hire themselves
The Pros:
- A sense of control
- Can work at your own pace
- No cost associated with the hire
The Cons:
- Lack of market knowledge
- Time constraints due to competing priorities
- A 0-1 process of doing > learning > doing
- Limited access to candidates
- Time to hire is longer, so the cost to business is high
2. Internal Talent Acquisition
The Pros:
- Expenses and costs are limited to payroll and web posting costs
- Solid likelihood of finding candidates with cultural alignment
- Immediate access to progress and feedback loops
The Cons:
- Competing priorities and possible resource constraints
- Emphasis on inbound candidates
- Inexperience identifying and attracting VP-level candidates
- Lack of market insights
- Green in executive-level compensation package offers and negotiation
- Run the risk of lack of engagement with candidates caused by general disinterest or assumptions candidates have about the business
3. Contingency Recruitment Firms
The Pros:
- The sense of doing "the right thing" since it's a VP hire
- Nominal cost and fee for the placement
- They will show you who "they have on the bench," so there is quick access to 'someone'
The Cons:
- No one owns the outcome of a hire
- Lack of commitment is mutual
- Lack of specialization as contingency Recruiters are generalists
4. Retained Recruitment Firms
The Pros:
- Engaging a partner committed to the hiring outcome
- Subject matter expert in the nuances of product management and knowledge of the current state of the market
- Experience recruiting at the VP level and intuitively know the differences between a good vs. great candidate
- Experience recruiting for a startup vs. a scale-up
- Weekly progress reviews
- Experience negotiating complex situations and offers
- Resignation coaching service to minimize roadblocks
- Quality and speed
The Cons:
- Higher placement fees
- The biggest cons our clients often mention stem from engaging the services of generalist Recruiters then finding them unable to do this highly specialized work. If you have selected a firm with the right track record of delivering search services according to your bespoke hiring requirements, there should be no cons
There are lots of paths to the hire - each with their own pros and cons, and each best aligned to certain seniority or specialties of candidates. When hiring a role as specialized and critical to the business as a VP Product hire, it’s worth the investment to ensure the hire you choose can take your baby and scale it into a world-class product.