CFO Succession: The Right Way to Grow your Company’s next CFO

This session is graciously hosted by Proformative, and there is no charge for attending this seminar. To sign up, please click on this link.

Overview

Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) know that they will not stay in their current role with their current company forever. The CFO needs to ensure that his or her team has the right talent that can be called upon to replace them when they eventually leave the company (or the role of CFO). Strong CFOs also know that they are only as strong as the weakest leader on their team. This session will discuss the right way for the CFO to attract, retain and develop financial leadership talent for their team, while ensuring that they are setting the stage and preparing for their own eventual succession.

Learning Objectives

After attending this webinar you will be able to:

• Understand why your success depends on having the best possible leadership talent in your finance team
• Learn how to identify which areas to develop your finance leaders for future success
• Become aware of the key components necessary to attract, retain and develop your company’s next CFO and other future finance leaders

CPE Credits are available for this session. For further information, please see details in the “CPE Info” tab on the sign up page.

Download the Podcast file by clicking on this link.

This podcast is also available on iTunes.

Transcript for Episode 1 of the IXN Thought Leadership Podcast Series

Becoming a world-class CFO and Finance team: What it takes, why now, and who’s made it?

Donna Papacosta: Welcome to the Intellectual Xchange Network Thought Leadership podcast, sponsored by SAP. I’m Donna Papacosta, your host for this podcast.

The Intellectual Xchange Network or IXN is a thought leaders network, by invitation only. IXN members are a select group of professionals, who through their research, writing and relationships are subject matter experts in their fields. As members of the IXN they provide insights, share ideas and help their readers and listeners become better informed on how they and their companies can improve. They are not paid nor are they spokespersons for SAP.

In these conversations, you’ll meet some of the members of the IXN, who will share ideas we hope you’ll find innovative and thought provoking.

This episode of the IXN Thought Leadership Podcast series was recorded February 22, 2013. Today we’re talking about becoming a world-class CFO and Finance team: What it takes, why now, and who’s made it? Our guests are Samuel Dergel, Mary Driscoll and Frank Ciannella.

Samuel Dergel works with Stanton Chase International, and specializes in CFO executive search. He is known as “The CFO Expert” and is a blogger and social media leader on the topic of the chief financial officer. Samuel is currently writing a book for CFOs called Guide to CFO Success: Leadership Strategies for Corporate Financial Professionals, to be published by John Wiley & Sons in 2014.

Mary Driscoll is Senior Research Fellow at the American Productivity & Quality Center. APQC is a Houston-based nonprofit that provides expertise on business process benchmarking and best practices for improving organizational performance. Formerly a senior editor at CFOmagazine, Mary is the author of Cash Management: Corporate Strategies for Profit, published by John Wiley & Sons.

Frank Ciannella is a Director in the Global Analytics Center of Excellence at SAP. He is a Certified Public Accountant and has extensive experience in SAP core financial and costing solutions, as well as planning, consolidation and profitability and analysis solutions. Before coming to SAP he was a senior auditor at a public accounting firm.

Donna Papacosta:           What inspired this discussion was a recent APQC survey, referred to in an Industry Week article entitled, “Finance: CFOs can become game-changers if given half a chance.” This, combined with Samuel’s post entitled, “CFO’s, can you afford not to have an excellent Finance function?” really merits a conversation with Mary and Samuel, as well as Frank from SAP, so we can explore this in more detail.

Let’s frame the discussion starting with this question: Based on your conversations with CFOs and Finance teams, what pressures are they facing today that could be preventing them from becoming a world-class department? Do you want to start with you, Mary?

Mary Driscoll:                  Sure. I think that’s a really interesting question because we’ve been studying for many years, what are the dynamics in Finance? To say that Finance has to become a better business partner may strike some as archaic. Certainly, I’ve been talking about that and writing about it for a long time, but in my research, what I find is that many organizations hit a wall on their way up the maturity curve.

When I look at our benchmarks and research, what strikes me is that easily 50% of companies are quite happy to tolerate their Finance operating costs that are two times or even three times more than necessary. Why is that? I think there’s been a long period of lack of willingness to invest in the people, processes and technology that would make Finance not only more efficient, but more effective. That’s really what business needs today; it needs Finance to help them be an analytical competitor.

Donna Papacosta:           Samuel, I’m sure you have an opinion on this.

Samuel Dergel:                 I think that the CFOs need to think of themselves as the CEO of their group. They need to run their Finance group like a business, realizing that they have to do customer service internally and be profitable. Another way of looking at is be cost-effective. To do that, they have to think of themselves as a business, they have to have a strategy for their Finance group, and they have to have a plan. Without these things, they cannot be successful.

Donna Papacosta:           Frank, what would you add to that?

Frank Ciannella:              I’d like to add a couple of comments around the pressures that CFOs face and my conversations with them. A lot around continuing regulation, whether it’s their home country, other countries, or just some of the regulatory authorities that are put onto the Finance organization. In addition to the changing workforce and what the incoming workforce is expecting from just an analytic and systems capability, the CFO also has to be concerned with deglobalization. It’s not just competing in your home country, it’s about competing globally and understanding who your competitors are. It also extends to the war for talent.

Much to Sam’s point, the CFO needs to be the general manager of the organization as Finance is looked at as a strategic business adviser throughout. I’d say another pressure that the CFOs face is internal. There’s a lot of system inadequacy, so too much of Finance time is being spent on data collection and gathering, and just not enough on high value-add activities. And as Finance supports the organization in the growth mode, they just can’t scale, and have often mentioned to me that that’s one of their major concerns and pressures they feel; just how do they support that growth mode of the organization?

Samuel Dergel:                 Frank, how many of them have a plan? How many of them really think it through and take the time to work to improve it from a 50,000-foot level, as opposed to trying put out fires on a regular basis?

Frank Ciannella:              That’s an excellent point. I’d say the majority of them do not have a plan or they have a plan that they just haven’t been able to execute on. That’s one of the things I like to talk to them about, is putting that plan in place and being very methodical about executing on that, because that’s the only way that Finance is going to help the organization pursue its growth opportunities.

Mary Driscoll:                  I have a comment on that too. In addition to a plan, I would argue that what really has to be in place is a strong and clear charter that ties the work of Finance to the enterprise mission. For instance, it’s easy to say, “We want to be a great Finance organization. We want to be really efficient and smart. We have metrics that show we’re doing more with less.” But what does that do for the organization? How is that helping the enterprise maximize return on capital? In the best-practice companies that I’ve had the pleasure of studying, it’s uncanny. You see that there’s a clear Finance charter and it includes language about the role of Finance in business decision support. These are not just mission statements that are hung on a wall and ignored; they are vital documents that inform the role of every single person in the organization.

Donna Papacosta:           I think you’ve all done a really great job of painting the picture of the current state, so maybe we could move toward some of the contributing factors that can help to create this really effective Finance function. I know you can all touch on talent, skills, processes, best practices, systems, tools, all that. I don’t know who wants to start there.

Mary Driscoll:                  I’d say if there’s a lack of commitment from the top, you can just about forget about it, because in order to make any traction at all, there will have to be investments in process and people. Take for example, the process of financial reporting. It’s scary to see how many organizations are still reliant on manual data entry, spreadsheets, and have just not stepped up to the plate and said, “We’ve got to automate this process and put in some workflow technology to take the risk out of this.” Why that is, it baffles me, but you’ve got a lot of very talented Finance people using age-old techniques and tools. It just doesn’t make any sense, given the risks of error. Sam?

Samuel Dergel:                 People are a key component, but it requires, from my perspective, three: People, process, technology. These three components need to be able to work together. On the people side, having the talent that you need is very important. The challenge is, and you bring it up, Mary, that many people within the organization are using ways that aren’t effective anymore, but where does that come from? The CFO is a leader of the Finance organization. The CFO needs a handful of strong lieutenants across the board. If they want to be able to deliver value to the rest of the organization, at the executive level in Finance, it can’t just be about the continuous monthly, quarterly, year cycle; that’s part of it, but in terms of delivery. But it really needs to be addressed as to how do you actually get there? If you don’t have visionary Finance people that can’t see where it can go and they’re just used to doing it because that’s what was always done, the CFO’s going to suffer and the organization is going to suffer.

Mary Driscoll:                  Sam, that’s right. If I just may jump in here; take the example of planning, budgeting, and forecasting. In this day and age when businesses are moving at the speed of lightning, it baffles me to think that companies are still relying on an annual budget as a primary performance management tool. That just doesn’t make any sense when it’s clear that to be resilient, businesses have to respond to fast-moving market changes. Finance, in order to be part of the solution, has to be able to refresh its forecast and help the company navigate or get back on track when it’s fallen off track using driver-based planning and techniques of that sort.

Samuel Dergel:                 From my perspective, from a talent perspective, it really is a question of having the leaders making it work and not just accepting the way it’s always been. It takes effort and it takes time, but without the leadership getting in control of that, it will just continue in a vicious circle.

Frank Ciannella:              I think that those are excellent points. I’ll even add something from a little bit different slant; maybe capitalize on what Mary mentioned. When I look at what can really help them become world class, I think of what capabilities do they have from a solution or systems and tools. What I find too many times is that what they have just isn’t easy to use; it’s not user friendly.

I think, if you look at from a Finance investment, it’s investing in capabilities that are very easy to use, very user friendly of course, easy to maintain, even from Finance. You don’t need to go back to an IT organization or elsewhere in the organization and wait for a month to get your capabilities met, because business is changing too fast. The ability to keep up with that, to go reforecast within a matter of hours or within the same day is critically important. So having these capabilities that are easy to use, very user friendly, very process-centric is really, really critical.

What I’m starting to see also is Finance organizations starting to gain much more interest in mobility; how can I enable my workforce, my Finance directors and VPs to work from anywhere at any time, having access to these systems and tools that make them most effective? I think of mobility capabilities, as well.

Donna Papacosta:           We’re tackling a big subject here I understand, but I’m wondering if you can share some examples that you’ve seen where Finance teams are evolving to this more efficient status and overcoming some of the challenges that you’ve been describing.

Mary Driscoll:                  Donna, I’ve got a good example. I was speaking with a CFO the other day who is working with his counterparts in Marketing and Product Development, and doing what he called “layering business intelligence over financial forecasting.” What that means is working with people in Product Development to understand customer behaviors and preferences, and begin to connect the dots between customer shopping behaviors and purchasing behaviors. With that, translating that information, or layering that information, over financial performance forecasts to make revenue forecasts more precise and help the organization as a whole better allocate its marketing dollars, for example, its Product Development dollars.

Donna Papacosta:           Samuel or Frank, can you think of an example that would help us to envision this future state?

Frank Ciannella:              I would like to add: Whenever I talk to CFOs, one of the first things that comes up and how they’re able to transform their organization, because I work a lot on the financial transformation side, is they really have to have to have the foundation done and essentially running on itself, almost like a factory. What I mean by foundation, it’s the core processes that plant owns, it’s the transactional processing, the general ledger, it’s account reconciliation. Having those processes, those transaction-heavy processes, order to cash for example, having them run, be efficient, be very repeatable, very accurate; and the CFOs have been engaging their own, lately, have been wanting to take that. I’ve seen some of them take that and say, “OK, our next step is we want to then take our close process and shrink it down to as little time as possible.”

So I worked with a large chemical manufacturer in the Midwest that had acquired another company, had their core foundational processes working very well, and I was able to combine, consolidate, and close over 1,700 different legal entities in a matter of hours. They’re looking at it very methodical: Let me focus on my close and consolidation process. Then for this particular company, the next on the roadmap is how do I make my budgeting plan forecasting much more agile, and how do I react much more quickly to changing market conditions?

The examples I’m seeing is really a step. I think sometimes we get enamored with trying to do everything and swallow it all at one time, and it just becomes more of a mess than a true example of world-class Finance. Those are the examples I always like to inject in situations like this, because I think they really speak to the fact that, A, it’s not easy; this is hard stuff, but B, there is a path and customers are blazing that path forward.

Samuel Dergel:                 There’s recent example I have with a CFO that I work with who was planning to improve the Finance function across the board. My perspective is from a talent perspective, and the CFO asked me to ensure that the leadership and the team had the talent that they needed to be able to move forward. It’s more than just, are they there and are they good people? It’s, can they meet the plan? Do they have the knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to make it work? It comes from the top. When a CFO looks at their talent pool and knows what they have and what they don’t have, that can allow them to make some very effective changes and get them to a world-class state. It has to start somewhere.

Mary Driscoll:                  Sam, I would add to that that the soft skills are increasingly being underscored by CFOs that are truly committed to continuous process improvement. We did a survey last fall that basically proved that when CFOs make a genuine commitment to raising the so-called “soft skills” – negotiation skills, critical thinking skills, presentation skills. When a commitment is made to those things as well as the nitty-gritty aspects of finance and accounting, when those commitments are true, the people in Finance increasingly are considered to be reliable business partners by folks on the operating side. They’re taken more seriously.

Samuel Dergel:                 What I do find, and it’s unfortunate, but in many cases in the Finance group, the way that you move from junior, to manager, to director, to VP is by being technical. That’s great to start off. Some people can have the ability to gain those skills if they’re trained. They may not have had the opportunity to get those skills; some aren’t. Unfortunately, too many Finance functions have senior leadership that don’t have the ability to grow in critical soft skill areas. That’s certainly a challenge for the CFO who needs their leadership to step up.

Donna Papacosta:           Right. Obviously, this is a situation where there are so many interconnected parts. I’m wondering if – we know that picking the right place to start is important in any kind of improvement initiative. Can each of you provide some advice briefly, as to what areas CFOs could focus on to improve their chances of success at this?

Mary Driscoll:                  What I do know is that the best-in-class Finance organizations that we find and document in case studies, 9 out of 10 times, you’ll hear them talk in terms of process methodology. You’ll hear them talk about Six Sigma, you’ll hear them talk about Kaizen, you’ll hear them talk about root cause analysis. It’s no coincidence that they get into the top-performance categories, whether it’s in cost efficiency or business partnering. It’s no coincidence that they also very much embrace that process excellence mindset.

Samuel Dergel:                 I agree that it’s a state of mind. If the CFO can get the Finance team to think about efficiency, effectiveness, customer service-oriented delivery, as Mary pointed out to me and I wrote on one of my blogs, efficient teams cost less. Spending money on talent ends up costing the CFO less. It’s proven, and it’s key. There has to be an effort to improve and make it work.

Frank Ciannella:              Yes, Sam, I think you’re 100% right, both you and Mary. Mary, you were talking about the process side of it. Sam, you mentioned earlier, and I completely agree; it’s people, process and technology working together. So where do you start? I think, first off, the mindset is a given; the leadership and driving from the top down is absolutely a given. A lot of things that I advise CFOs on, and I think we all do: What do you have today that you think you can do better? Thinking from a process standpoint, how can you become more efficient, more effective? What are those process improvements? Where can you leverage technology to make your organization a better business partner? Then once you’ve captured those points, going back to the first question we had; what is that roadmap? What is that plan to then start looking at newer capabilities and how you’re going to drive Finance to become that world-class organization so that you routinely are reducing your days sales outstanding? You’re reducing the amount of time spent on your reporting packages every month.

It’s this transformational journey, really, that needs to be put in place. I think there’s very easy places to start, which is just looking at what you have today already and what you can improve upon without a large investment. Then of course, make those improvements, and then put a clear roadmap in place to march forward. Usually, that does take some investment and commitment, but in becoming world-class, that’s what it’s all about.

Donna Papacosta:           Frank, that’s a great place to wrap this up, this conversation with you, Samuel, and Mary. I thank you so much for sharing your insights today. I think you’ve given people a lot to think about.

Mary Driscoll:                  This was fun. Thank you, Donna. Thanks ,everybody.

Samuel Dergel:                 Very much enjoyed it. Thank you.

Donna Papacosta:           Thanks to our guests for today: Samuel Dergel, Mary Driscoll and Frank Ciannella. Until next time, this is Donna Papacosta for the IXN Thought Leadership Podcast Series. Be sure to look for the podcast on iTunes.

And I’m looking forward to 2013! I’m looking forward to:

• Working with my clients at Stanton Chase and providing them with excellent service and value in retained executive search.

• Staying close to CFOs in my network, and continuing to add value to their businesses and careers.

• Continuing my blogging, both here and at CFO Moves. I find it humbling that I have people that are not only interested in what I have to say, but have signed up to ensure they don’t miss any of it.

• Working on my book for CFOs. Stay tuned!

It is customary as the year turns to a close to look back at the previous year.

Blogging is great, but sometimes people can miss out on some very valuable insights or content. So, to make sure you didn’t miss what other people thought was worth reading, I would like to share 12 of my most popular CFO Blogs in 2012.

12) Negotiating your CFO Employment Contract

11) 5 Steps to Building your Finance Dream Team (and 3 tips on how to get it done)

10) The Value of “Thank You”

9) 5 Reasons why Talent Development is a Challenge for CFOs

8) Road Map to Successful CFO Relationships

7) 5 Most Popular Names for CFOs (2012 Edition)

6) The First 90 Days of a New CFO

5) 1 key difference between your LinkedIn Profile and Resume

4) Dear CEO & Board: You can’t afford to hire the wrong CFO.

3) Investor Relations for the New CFO – 6 Steps for IR Success

2) 4 Reasons you should use an Executive Search Firm when hiring your CFO

And the most popular of Samuel’s CFO Blogs for 2012 is:

1) How a Recruiter sees a Candidate (You may not like the analogy)

If you like these blogs and want to ensure you don’t miss any of them, please click on the SIGN ME UP! button on the right.

Happy Holidays and all the best for an amazing 2013!

Samuel

It may seem that being able to deliver on both of these goals is counterintuitive.

However, recent research by APQC (summarized in the The True Measure of Finance Function Excellence: Deliver Value Efficiently) shows that top performing finance teams cost less than mediocre or poorly functioning Finance Teams.

So how does a CFO build an Excellent Finance Function that costs less?

APQC’s report identifies two areas that lead towards this excellence:

1)      Efficiency: The Report states that “given that approximately 60 percent of the cost of finance can be traced to labor cost, the argument can be made that what’s holding some organizations back is the over-allocation of talent to low-value adding tasks.”

2)      Effectiveness: According the APQC, effectiveness comes from “providing strong analytical support to decision-makers.” APQC has identified that Talent Development is a key investment that organizations need to make to provide effective business support. (Read: 5 Reasons why Talent Development is a Challenge for CFOs).

This Summary Report by APQC is an excellent short read for CFOs that want to improve their Finance Team.

According Mary Driscoll, Senior Research Fellow at APQC, “the topic of finance transformation is not new, but it is back on the front burner. Why? It has to do with the economics of competition these days. Strong and profitable growth is harder to come by in many sectors. There’s little room for error when deciding what actions to take or investments to make to grow market share, retain valuable customers, etc. That’s why more CFOs today are asking: ‘how can finance help the enterprise compete more effectively and achieve the desired financial results?’ At the same time, they are asking: ‘how can we efficiently perform the core work that is necessary, such as getting bills paid and doing basic accounting work?’ The answers often involve major process streamlining and automation.” 

CFOs: What are you doing to improve the performance of your Finance Function?

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I would like to thank Mary Driscoll from APQC for bringing this report to my attention. I would also like to thank SAP and Chris Herbert for running the CFO Intellectual Exchange Network (IXN) that allows me to network with Leading Thinkers and Bloggers on the topic of the Chief Financial Officer.

Is ‘being CFO’ an art or a science?

I believe that ‘being CFO’ is more social science than pure science. Yes, math is a key part of the delivery of the finance group, but success at the financial leadership level is more about building successful relationships. Numbers that balance are a given. Getting things accomplished in a multi-stakeholder environment is what makes a successful CFO stand out from his or her peers.

I am about to embark on a project that will challenge me in ways I have never been challenged before.

I will be writing a book.

The book, unnamed as of yet, will focus on what it takes to become a successful CFO. The goal is that my upcoming book will benefit the CFO of today and tomorrow. CFOs who read my book will not only be able to become better CFOs for their current employer, it will help them with their career as well.

So, as I embark on this new and exciting project, I would like your input. I am writing this for you.

What would you like me to include in your new book?

Please email me and let me know what you would like to be included in your new CFO book.

The question the piece left me with was “Does Finance work too much?”

Last week in my blog, 5 Reasons why Talent Development is a Challenge for CFOs, I discussed the challenges CFOs face in building, retaining and developing their Team for long term success.

One point that I alluded to in my last blog, but did not mention, is that Finance is often too busy working on deadlines and projects to take the time to think and chill. Boudreau makes the point that “planned and mindful slacking off may help optimize talent performance’.

In essence, I see that in too many cases, Finance is usually too busy for thinking or planning or development. Deadlines always are around the corner (or have just passed), and there is not enough resources to make time for down time. Finance is always too busy.

When the Finance Team is burning the candle at both ends, it will burn out quickly.

A Finance Team that is not taking the time to build will fall apart. People will be less productive if they have to work 80 hour weeks on a regular basis, or will leave.

When a CFO properly plans their staffing requirements, prioritizes talent development and gives their team time to think, the Finance Team will be stronger, and so will the company.

CFOs: What do you do to keep your Finance Team fresh, focused and adding value?

CFOs have lots of demands on their time. Unfortunately, when CFOs do not manage their priorities properly, they can end up with surprises.

As someone who has received calls from CFOs in a panic when a key person on their team has left, I can tell you that this happens too often.

If you haven’t seen my CFO Relationship Map, you should. A premise I have made time and time again is that a CFO needs to be able to manage all their relationships. (You may also be interested in reading my other blogs on the topic of Talent Management.)

Ensuring the success of the Finance Team is as important as meeting the demands of the CEO and the Board. Without a Strong Finance Team, the CFO will not be able to meet these demands.

©2012 APQC

I recently spoke with Mary Driscoll from APQC about their recently released results from their survey A New CFO Priority: Talent Development with a Focus on Soft Skills. This report , created in conjunction with EPM Channel, details how proactive CFOs are evolving their talent development programs so that Finance can excel at the strategy table.

(To view the report, you need to sign up with APCQ. You do not need to be an APCQ member to read their report.)

The summary findings of the survey are as follows:

• There is a staggering gap between the potential value that the typical finance organization can deliver to its stakeholders and the value now being delivered.
• The gap exists because finance is bogged down in transactional work and doesn’t have the time needed to produce meaningful analysis.
• It is hard to add bandwidth because finance, in general, is not given the tools needed to increase productivity and free people from grunt work.
• The toughest vacant positions to fill are for financial planning and analysis.
• Finance people who are considered effective business partners tend to work for CFOs who have a strong commitment to professional training, including crucial soft skills such as persuasive presenting.

When I spoke with Mary Driscoll, she provided me with this interesting perspective. “Unfortunately, too many CFOs fail to make a commitment to the development of their finance talent. Many say it’s hard to devote time and budget to creating a sustainable program. Some, quite frankly, don’t see the point. But those CFOs are shooting themselves in the foot,” says Driscoll. “They’ll be sorry when the day of reckoning comes and top people walk out the door for lack of professional growth opportunities. All I can say to the CFO who lets this happen is ‘Shame on You!’”

Are you a CFO that has implemented a talent development plan of your finance team?

Do you need help with your finance talent attraction, development and retention?

Please feel free to share your comments, input and questions…

Thank you to Bryan and William Tincup for inviting me!

The announcement has been made, and you have the opportunity to meet the key people on your Finance Team. Each leader on the Finance Team is apprehensive. They don’t know you. You don’t know them. How do you approach your new reports?

Before starting any new executive position with a company, I highly recommend that you read  “The First 90 Days – Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels” by Michael Watkins. I wrote about it here.

Meet your leaders, together and individually. Learn, listen and ask questions. Your Finance Leaders have a lot of information and knowledge. An open and respectful attitude will provide you with an understanding of the leaders themselves, the department and inter-departmental dynamics, as well as critical information you will need to get your job done and be successful.

But do make decisions. CFOs need to have a plan to succeed. The first 90 days are critical to putting the plan together.

Who should stay? Who should go? Figuring this out is a key part of your plan. You need clarity as to what your team should look like to accomplish your goals.

But beware. If you don’t decide who stays and who goes, it may be decided for you. You could end up losing the very people you want and need to keep. You need to act quickly and decisively to ensure you have the team you need to succeed.

Decide who stays.

Decide who goes.

Communicate your plan.

Decide on the type of person/people you need to bring on board.

Start the hiring process quickly and using the best resources to ensure hiring success.

Don’t delay.

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Click on the ‘SIGN ME UP!‘ button on the right side of the blog page, and welcome aboard!

Most people would think that summer is the worst time to hire because people are on vacation and business slows down over the summer months.

From my experience, summer is the best time to hire. Executives are spending less time in meetings. They have time do the important things they haven’t had time for the rest of the year; like planning for their human capital needs, meeting with and hiring the key people they need for their team.

If you’re an employer – don’t push off your hiring for the fall. Take advantage of the lull to hire the best people for your team.

If you’re looking for your next challenge – don’t assume no one is in the office and hiring now. Summer is a great time to network and re-engage with the people that know you, like you and trust you.

Have you ever taken advantage of summer to hire or be hired?