This article circles around the most common situation where "wanting to hire a person who has done 'it' before but it's hard to find that person" arises: hiring for startup leadership.
Acme Startup needs to hire its first "HEAD of X" to steer X decisions because Acme Co's current leadership has failed in making those decisions and it has harmed growth.
Why are they hiring?
1. Acme Co's current leadership has failed to develop its existing talent to the point where an ambitious existing employee can leverage their detailed knowledge of the business to make a solid bid to do "It".
2. Acme Co's current leadership has developed its talent pool well, but can't promote to the sr mgmt team because it would be weird to have one person in their 20s in sr mgmt with everyone else > 40.
3. Acme Co's current leadership has deep cultural and functional flaws and the new hire isn't really what is advertised. e.g. investors are trying out a new CEO. Or there is no real product mgmt happening because the founder/ceo/coo/etc are "product people" and don't want to give up that control but have no time to do it, so they hire a "head of data" so that product decisions can be more data-based...
Now let me just draw a picture with some circles and lines to make all of this seem more abstract than it is.
Acme Startup needs to hire its first "HEAD of X" to steer X decisions because Acme Co's current leadership has failed in making those decisions and it has harmed growth.
Why are they hiring?
1. Acme Co's current leadership has failed to develop its existing talent to the point where an ambitious existing employee can leverage their detailed knowledge of the business to make a solid bid to do "It".
2. Acme Co's current leadership has developed its talent pool well, but can't promote to the sr mgmt team because it would be weird to have one person in their 20s in sr mgmt with everyone else > 40.
3. Acme Co's current leadership has deep cultural and functional flaws and the new hire isn't really what is advertised. e.g. investors are trying out a new CEO. Or there is no real product mgmt happening because the founder/ceo/coo/etc are "product people" and don't want to give up that control but have no time to do it, so they hire a "head of data" so that product decisions can be more data-based...
Now let me just draw a picture with some circles and lines to make all of this seem more abstract than it is.