High stakes, little practice
Most agencies don’t hire senior leaders often enough to be great at it.
So when a critical hire comes along, you’re missing a practiced approach and the headspace to lead the work.
Great leadership hiring starts before the search
Most of the work that determines hiring success happens before you meet a single candidate.
- Understand the business problem. What does the agency actually need this person to solve?
- Define the right role and outcomes. What does success look like, in clear terms? And what characteristics set someone up to succeed?
- Create a rigorous way to evaluate. Build a clear scorecard and evaluation process to help you surface who could succeed and who is the best match.
- Run an effective process. Every conversation and exercise should help you and your candidates assess the match and sell the best candidates on your firm.
You need the expertise and capacity to do this well. You don’t necessarily need to outsource the entire search.
The usual choices all have trade-offs
Do it yourself. Lowest direct cost. But you may lack the headspace, experience, or process to get the outcome you need.
Engage an agency advisor. They may understand your business, but leadership hiring is usually only a small part of what they do.
Retain an executive search firm. They bring real recruiting capacity. But they’re usually the most expensive option, lack sufficient agency context, and rarely adapt to provide exactly the help you need.
Engagement tailored to your needs
Guided
Your team runs the process. We give you the methodology and expert guidance to do it well.
Starts at $10k
Led
You have recruiting capacity. We provide experienced leadership and own the process for you.
Starts at $20k
Full Search
We provide both the leadership and recruiting capacity, and run the search end to end.
Starts at $30k
Why Agency Partners
I’m Arlen Byrd. I’ve spent more than 15 years in the agency world as an owner, a C-level operator, a front-line contributor, and an outside advisor.
- Every side of the table. I’ve been the hire, made the hire, lived with it, and advised on it.
- Every department. I’ve worked in or closely alongside every part of an agency, and worn many hats personally across revgen, production, and ops.
- Real volume. I’ve helped with hundreds of placements across multiple agencies.
Through that experience, I’ve created a hiring system that is effective and tuned to the needs of today’s agencies.
“You will be hard-pressed to find someone who has the combination of raw, day-to-day knowledge of all facets of developing an elite agency, balanced with the most insightful and empathetic human touch.”
Myles Lagolago-Craig, CEO, XWP
“Senior advisors rarely are interested in doing the work and prefer to stay on the sidelines. But Arlen is different. … It is rare to meet someone in the agency world who has done it all.”
Saeedreza Abbaspour, CEO, Refact
Start with a conversation
Tell us about the role you’re considering or the leadership challenges you may be facing. We’ll help you figure out the right next steps for your situation.