The infrastructure leader hired in 50 days, past a counter-offer
More than the right CV: a change agent, on a tight budget
The client was forming a new infrastructure team to drive its technology and cloud transformation, and the brief was the IT Infrastructure Division Manager to lead it. The role had been open for some time before we took it on.
The technical bar was the easy part to state: large-scale operations experience and cloud transformation were the entry requirements. Beyond that, the client needed a self-driven change agent, someone who would build something rather than run something. And the budget was tight.
Assessed for motivation as hard as for skills
We ran a targeted search across a network of senior infrastructure professionals from large-scale operations environments, interviewing widely to isolate the genuinely qualified few. Because the client needed a builder, not a caretaker, candidates were assessed on motivation as much as on skills and experience.
Then the close got hard. The offer was not the strongest on base salary, and a counter-offer was put in front of the candidate. Beating it took an established relationship with the client, enough confidence in the opportunity to represent it honestly, and sustained consultation with the candidate about the long-term value of building a new capability rather than the headline number.
The candidate chose the build over the bigger number
A tight budget cannot outbid a counter-offer, and it did not have to. The role was filled on fit: a candidate who wanted to build something, matched to a client honest about what the building would take. When his employer moved to keep him, money was the only argument they had, and it was not the argument that mattered.
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