Executive Search with Depth — Part VI:
It Often is the Beginning of a
Beautiful Friendship

Trust, trans­paren­cy and a system­at­ic approach are the distinc­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Valdivia Exec­u­tive Search Process, as we outlined it to you in our Inter­nal reports. This issue is about care and support for our candi­dates. We regard them as genuine part­ners, who put their trust in us on their way into the future – and towards the complex tasks of an exec­u­tive in the construc­tion and real estate indus­try today as well as in the near future.

Urgent­ly Want­ed: Versa­tile Personalities

The real estate indus­try is current­ly moving towards a ‘retire­ment gap’. A large number of expe­ri­enced entre­pre­neurs and managers are going to retire from work. At the same time, today’s and future exec­u­tives are facing chal­lenges as yet unkown to the tradi­tion­al­ly ’solid matter-orient­ed’ sector. As  Valdivia’s part­ner Antho­ny A. Baum­ruk put it in the FAZ’s arti­cle of 22 July 2022  with regard to future require­ments, “Increas­ing­ly, exec­u­tive boards and CEOs are becom­ing dynam­ic inter­dis­ci­pli­nary project managers (…)“, going on to say, ”It follows that success­ful lead­ers in the real estate sector will be devel­op­ing perma­nent­ly, learn­ing more, under­stand­ing the mega­trends of the future, e.g. digi­tal­i­sa­tion or ESG, and they are able to gauge how these aspects will impact their enter­pris­es. With their wide range of expe­ri­ence and their confi­dence, they get involved in differ­ent projects at a time. As a kind of hybrid drive, they can master the new era.“

It Takes A Quan­tum of Fun

Whether we address a specif­ic indi­vid­ual direct­ly on our search, exploit our network, or adver­tise a vacant posi­tion in certain cases – we will meet the candi­date on an open and fair basis. Our care and support will always be indi­vid­ual and person­al. Updat­ing each other regu­lar­ly on the project status is a matter of course for us. Often­times, we will have multi­ple conver­sa­tions before even touch­ing stan­dard topics, such as a resumé.

Commu­ni­cat­ing with candi­dates, we are most­ly inter­est­ed in motives and back­grounds. What is their motive force? Which goals do they pursue in life and in their careers? What are their poten­tials and limi­ta­tions? We constant­ly make sure that all this happens in a relaxed atmos­phere. The tran­si­tion is supposed to be an agree­able one, the new tasks are supposed to whet their appetite. The feed­back we receive only makes us more deter­mined: inde­pen­dent of the success of a place­ment process – in most cases, candi­dates will stay in close touch with us, seek­ing our advice, or them­selves becom­ing a client.

No Process with­out Closure

We have already talked about the tech­ni­cal side of the candi­date selec­tion process in the latest Inter­nal issue (Exec­u­tive Search with Depth Part V: The Joy of the Perfect Match — Pioneer­ing. Exec­u­tive Search. Real Estate. VALDIVIA. (valdivia-consulting.com)). Let us add anoth­er two points today that will cast a very good light on the trans­paren­cy of our approach:

• To us, trust­wor­thi­ness comes with open­ness: It is rare but it does happen, some­times the person and the posi­tion just do not match – despite an intial­ly posi­tive perspec­tive. So when we real­ize that some­one is not suit­ed for a posi­tion (and this does not neces­sar­i­ly have to do with that person), then we will commu­ni­cate exact­ly that.
• Just as honest­ly, we will inform candi­dates, should our client them­selves commu­ni­cate their refusal. Most of the times, the reason simply is that there was only one posi­tion to fill, in the first place. We will, howev­er, be just as open about any other reason. Whoev­er choos­es to trust Valdivia as a candi­date can be assured that there will be real closure.

After all, our services include support­ing success­ful appli­cants in termi­nat­ing their previ­ous employ­ment, thus making the tran­si­tion as smooth as possi­ble for all parties. And – as mentioned before: We will stay in touch. This means we will stand by our appli­cants’ side, not only during on-board­ing but also as a long-term part­ner – or, to put it in the famous words at the ending of icon­ic movie Casablan­ca: such is “the begin­ning of a beaut­ful friendship.“