Recently, we asked Sarah Auten, an Executive Search Partner on the Bolster team, to share her thoughts about executive search. Sarah has a strong track record recruiting impactful finance and legal executives into VC-backed and PE-funded growth companies. As a former litigator, she brings an inquisitive, client-advocacy-centered approach to every search.
Bolster: Why is traditional search broken?
Sarah: Traditional search is too manual, too insular, and often suffers from misaligned incentives. Most traditional search firms pride themselves on the networks they've cultivated, and while this is a critical component to consider when you retain a search firm, those networks are often an echo chamber of unoriginal thinking. Where do you go when your network runs dry? How do you get creative about finding overlooked and underrepresented talent? In traditional search, this is a very manual process that is labor and capital-intensive. At Bolster, we are arming ourselves with incredible technology to reduce costs, streamline the process, and greatly diversify and extend our reach.
B: How do you think about finding the perfect candidates for a position?
S: Every search is unique, but the devil is always in the details! Finding the elusive “perfect candidate” starts with listening to your client, really understanding their business, their needs, and their unique culture, and triaging from there. The perfect candidate is more than the sum of their parts.
B: Complete this sentence - “Reach out to me if…”
S: …you want to chat about hiring finance and legal execs to serve as core business drivers. Don’t settle for any “departments of no!”
Bolster combines the power of experienced recruiters (like Sarah) with our unique, AI-driven platform to surface the best candidates and deliver a superior executive search experience. We’d love to support your search—reach out to get started today.
