Recruiting Should Start with Business Problems, Not Job Descriptions

Recruiting is often portrayed as a straightforward exercise: a company has an opening, a job ad is posted, candidates submit resumes, interviews are conducted, and someone is hired.

According to Robin Milstead, managing partner for U.S operations at global executive search firm Zensho Agency, the reality is far more complex, especially for executive search.

“After years in boardrooms helping companies hire leaders, building new markets, navigating succession, I can tell you that it is never simple,” said Milstead, speaking at SHRM26 in Orlando.

In many cases, the most critical leadership searches begin before a role is even fully defined.

“Some of the most important searches I worked on started with a leadership team arguing about a future they couldn’t quite see yet,” she said. “There wasn’t really a role. Not really a job description. Sometimes not even agreement on the problem.”

That is why, she argued, recruiting and executive search is less about filling jobs than helping organizations understand what they truly need.

“The best executive search isn’t about finding people; it’s about helping organizations understand themselves well enough to recognize the people that they need,” Milstead said. “Some of the most important hires happen long before a role is ever posted. A job description is one of the last things created, not the first.”

Specialty Credential: Talent Acquisition

Stop Starting with the Job Description

Traditional recruiting often begins with a requisition and a list of qualifications. But are job descriptions typically accurate? No, Milstead said.

“Recruiters get a call from the hiring manager, and they become order takers,” she said. “Create a job posting and wait. Applications come in, some good, some bad, interviews and a hire. The standard process.”

Executive search takes a different approach. “When we get a call, we do not ask for a job description,” Milstead said. “We ask for the business problem. We talk about market mapping, industry competitors, talent intelligence.”

Often, urgency masks a deeper issue. “When a company calls me and says, ‘We need to hire somebody urgently,’ what they really need is clarity,” she said.

Before launching a search, Milstead recommended helping leaders understand the financial impact of vacancy.

“We begin by talking about the cost of an empty chair,” she said. “Every day that the role is not filled, the company is bleeding. That empty chair creates a ripple effect throughout the business.”

Her firm uses a simple opportunity-cost framework: revenue per employee multiplied by days vacant and adjusted with a leadership multiplier. The exercise, she said, helps internal talent teams determine which positions require immediate attention and which can wait.

Once priorities are established, the focus shifts to outcomes. “Many times hiring managers have a job description and an ideal resume in mind and they start rattling off items from a laundry list,” Milstead said. “We put that to the side and work with them to discover what we actually need.”

Instead of discussing resumes, she advises leaders to answer fundamental questions: What problems exist? Why now? What happens if we do nothing? What does success look like after one year? Who thrives in the organization’s unique environment?

“Forget the resume at the moment,” she said. “Resumes record history. Leaders build futures.”

Milstead encourages organizations to adopt what she calls an executive-search mindset, which includes the four whys: Why us? Why this? Why now? Why you? “You have to know your story, the story of the role, the story of the company,” she said.

That story matters because senior leaders rarely respond to job ads. “Executives are not coming to you through a job posting,” Milstead said. “Eighty percent of senior-level opportunities never hit a job board.”

In some cases, she noted, a formal job description does not even exist until an offer is extended.

What executive candidates want instead is insight into an organization’s trajectory, culture, and growth opportunities.

“Here’s what they want to know: what is internal mobility like at your org?” Milstead said. “They want confidentiality and access.”

Compensation matters, but so does career advancement, scope of impact, and work-life balance, she said.

Resource: Talent Acquisition

Talent Intelligence Is a Competitive Asset

Milstead described executive recruiters as expert storytellers. “We take the business problem and create a ‘career movie’ starring the candidate,” she said.

But the conversations themselves often generate valuable intelligence. “Our candidates teach us the market,” Milstead said. “Every conversation is an intelligence-gathering diagnostic.”

Those discussions provide real-time information about competitors, restructuring activity, and leadership changes.

Which is why, Milstead said, HR leaders belong in strategic conversations long before a requisition is approved. “What a miss that an HR leader is not in that room,” she said. “HR leaders and TA practitioners know an organization better than any third-party search firm.”

Recruiting Like an Executive Search Firm

Milstead urged internal talent teams to adopt several executive-search practices.

First, implement what she calls the “48-hour freeze,” a mandatory pause before posting a role. Use that time to assess business friction, review internal talent, evaluate market intelligence and determine whether external support is needed.

Second, replace job descriptions with one-page strategic narrative briefs that answer the “four whys” and clearly define business impact.

Third, invest time in market mapping. “Block two hours every week for proactive industry mapping,” Milstead said. “Pick three competitors or adjacent market leaders and deliberately map their leadership structures, vulnerabilities and market buzz.”

Finally, rethink outreach. “When reaching out to high-priority passive talent, abandon standard recruiting practices,” she said. “Never send a job link on the first contact. Position your conversation as ‘exploratory’ and ‘confidential.’ Not an interview, just a conversation.”

Ultimately, Milstead argued, recruiting leaders must move beyond requisition management and become business advisors.

“Move conversations from traditional methods and headcount approval to understanding the business friction point,” she said. “Lead with understanding the business friction first.”