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How to Land Your Next Creative Dream Job
October 17, 2023 Career Growth Creative Agency Networking Video Production
Guest Speaker

Michelle Stuhl

Executive Search Consultant, President & CEO

Michelle is the owner and CEO of Michelle Stuhl & Company, Inc., a globally retained executive search firm that builds high-performing in-house teams across disciplines. In addition, she guides clients on the selection of consultants for marketing, strategy/innovation, digital, design, corporate identity and product development initiatives.

She is a frequent guest lecturer at the prestigious Art Center College of Design, and is on the Advisory Board for the Arizona State University (ASU) Master of Science in Innovation & Venture Development program, and has served on the advisory boards for the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA), the Arizona State University Museum of Art, and the Mesa Museum of Contemporary Art.

Creative leadership down to a science

Creative teams drive organizations, but for creative leaders, finding the right next opportunity to grow their own careers can be a challenge. Host Adam Morgan is joined by Michelle Stuhl, an executive search consultant for big-brand names like Pepsi, Nike, and more; together they talk about how creative leaders can position themselves for their next role — whether they’re on the job hunt or not.

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REAL CREATIVE LEADERSHIP

Season: 4 

Episode: 7

Episode Title: How to Land Your Next Creative Dream Job

Guest Title: Michelle Stuhl, Executive Search Consultant, President & CEO

Adam
Welcome to Real Creative Leadership. I am so excited today to talk to you about a topic that I’ve been working on for years to try and get this on the show. And today we finally have it. We are going to be talking with an executive recruiter for creative leaders. This is amazing. And whether you’re looking for a new job or always open to possibilities, chances are, you’re going to encounter a creative recruiter as you help grow your career. They are key facilitators for some of the world’s largest brands and agencies. And like my guest today, they know exactly what they’re looking for. 

So in this episode. I want to help you learn how to give it to them. Today, I’m joined by executive creative recruiter, Michelle Stuhll, who is president and CEO of her amazing agency, which happens to staff creative leaders at some of the biggest brands in the business. She’s helping build and scale teams at Pepsi, Nike, Virgin, Levi’s, and so many more. Today, we’re going to pull back the curtain and get an inside perspective to executive recruiting. And Michelle’s got a secret. She’s also got a creative background herself. Michelle, welcome to the show.

Michelle

Thank you. Great to be here.

Adam

All right. Let’s start out. Usually the thing I do in the start is give everyone a little bit of background of who you are. Tell us about where you’ve come from, especially your creative background. What’s influenced your journey to start down this path? So let’s give you some time to introduce yourself.

Michelle

Terrific. Actually my background is fine art. I originally studied fine art and received an undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin in Madison; I’m from Miami originally. So that was a great experience to have the opportunity to live and work in the Midwest for a period of time. And then I moved to New York City as a working artist, and I had been exhibiting glass sculpture and had a piece at the Corning Museum of Glass at the time, and one of the VPs of one of their divisions, Stu Ben, introduced me to a creative recruiting agency, actually in New York to see if they could help me find a job. I knew what design was and I—I knew what the creative professions were and knew that I was not trained or didn’t have the right portfolio to be placed by them. They were a pretty elite agency in design, but I was hoping that maybe I could end up in an administrative role of some kind. What happened was they were looking for an admin, so my timing was really interesting, and they hired me to be an admin at the agency. 

I spent a couple of years, probably, about a year and a half working there, and then made the decision to go for an MFA. And I researched schools, decided to leave New York, and went to RISD for an MFA, also in fine art. But because I think I would, I had already started to work in the design recruiting and creative recruiting area. It was helpful because it altered my perspective in terms of the kinds of not just the courses that I explore taking or auditing, but the individuals and the folks that I connected with and learned from during the course of my tenure. So it was a great experience and I remained working for this recruiting company through my, through my grad school program, working on freelance assignments and things like that. And then eventually move back to New York and continue my career. Design industry’s been very generous to me. Not only, I think, helping me, of course, as a way to support myself as a fine artist. But also, the designers that I have had the opportunity to work with, both as candidates and clients, have really educated me, have really been generous in terms of their sharing of knowledge, philosophy, design approach, technology. And so it’s just been a great—I’’ve been grateful for the opportunity and it’s been a great experience being a part of the industry, even though I didn’t train in it.

Adam

You got a taste of it. And you’re like, I like this. I’ll keep doing this. And it’s all, it all comes full circle of all the skills that you have to not just love the creative, but help the people get the right jobs and look for it. That’s awesome. So let’s talk about now that we’ve got that intro tell us more about your role as a recruiter. Yeah. How do you find a client? What’s your typical client look like? Just what are some of the basics?

Michelle

We’re lucky enough now that the majority of our clients find us word of mouth. We’ve not done a good job actually in advertising and promoting the firm from a marketing standpoint. But I feel great, I’m lucky that at this point enough people know about us. So usually we have the opportunity of working with folks that, that find us through word of mouth. Our typical roles are, I say, that we work on, director and higher, but a typical role for us is usually a VP or an SVP or chief design officer level. That’s the level that we work at the most at this point. But we’re also really involved in helping those leaders sometimes if we place them and other times if we know them in building internal organization. So sometimes those organizations exist. And they just need a new leader, leaders left. And we’re looking to replace a leader in an organization for an in-house capability that exists, but in a fair number of situations, we’re involved in helping the business leaders, either presidents or heads of marketing or heads of other business disciplines establish and create and build. Design and creative capability. So that’s an interesting sort of subspecialty within our corporate side. We’ve worked on the agency side as well, but we do much more on the corporate and brand side at this point than we do on the agency side.

Adam

If I’m in the audience here for real creative leadership, just hearing everything you just said is super fascinating. And that’s why I’m so thrilled that you’re on the show, like for creative leaders, looking to make that next step of make a move to, a VP of whatever, or a senior chief creative officer, whatever it may be like, that’s just awesome that you’ve had such great experience in all of those roles. So thank you. Thank you. I know that’s a big deal for this audience. Those are the people you’re going after. What do you say are the biggest challenges for recruiting these roles, both on your side and then also What are the challenges that leaders face when they’re looking for new roles?

Michelle

It’s twofold. So I’ll say, like, within the different areas of specialization, there’s different challenges within them. And so I think within, for instance, within brand design versus within the digital product areas, it varies greatly. And we also do a significant amount of work in industrial design and technology and complex devices, robotics, things like that. So some of the challenges do vary really based on. The discipline and positioning of what those roles are and who those individuals are by and large what? Everyone’s looking for, in terms of the way that the organizations are going to integrate, and the way the creative teams and leaders can thrive is the advocacy, frankly, of the business side. 

If the ground is prepared by business leaders who are positioning creative and design appropriately and thoroughly and with the resources needed, then you have the opportunity for those individuals to truly be successful if it’s not structured in that way. And it’s more lip service, or it’s more we need to have this function, but we don’t really understand or embrace it in the strategic level of contribution that it can make. Then you find, then you find a lot of frustration from the creative leadership that’s joined. So I think that’s a big piece, is really understanding what is the landscape that these, that different roles have within the organization. How are they structured? How are they positioned for success? And, what are the stakeholders who influences the power and the structure of those organizations, so their ability to be effective, frankly, is capitalized on for the organization. I don’t, it’s a complicated answer to a relatively straightforward question, but it’s because it’s how complicated it is in terms of these roles being successful.

Adam

And it’s part of your job is to help grease the skids there and make sure that the, that there’s a nice landing for whoever it is that’s coming in. And do you ever go into a new role that needs to be filled and you’re like, “Oh dear, this is, we’re in bad shape here. Like, we need to fix some things before we get anyone in here or even, find anyone who wants this role.”

Michelle

Absolutely. We see that as part of the mission, which is determining what the needs are. Now, some organizations are really clear. They have established legacy organizations that are highly functioning, that are, that are working really well. They have the traction that they, that’s needed for either, on the brand side to, to envision and execute and create against the mission of where that brand’s going or from the product side where it’s headed. But in many cases, the organization’s looking to elevate change, alter. There’s some kind of transition. It could be a more bricks and mortar organization that’s looking to go, undergo a digital transformation or it’s a shift or elevation or change in the way that. Certain physical products are being created or for what market or for what price points. It can be any of those things and In, in, not in all cases is there alignment between the different business functions that are influencing that and also the human resources organizations that have to support the way that they’re positioned and handled in the company. So we see that as part of the problem to solve, if we can be involved earlier in terms of the specifications and the way that’s going to work, it’s actually better for us because then we can bring the market lens to this because many, in many cases, the company makes a decision about a job description. 

It’s like close to impossible to find there’s there’s no humans that do all that, so those, those expectations have to be adjusted or accounted for so that, we can actually deliver somebody who’s has the potential of, meeting, the objective of the role and in other cases, it’s not expansive enough, meaning it’s too limiting in terms of its scope, its title. Somebody wants to put a VP in, but they’re dealing with all corporate presidents, and they’re not going to have the gravitas unless they’re an SVP or a chief to impact and influence at the level that’s required for the role. So we see that a lot. And all, and in many cases, the, it’s business leaders and other individuals in the organizations who don’t, who have not had experience in large scale or even highly strategic, small scales in-house teams they often don’t understand what a team sport it is, what you folks do, they see that there’s one incredible leader hired and they think that person, and I don’t know, some helpers are going to get it done.

And it’s a multidimensional multibillion dollar organization. And there’s no way this individual can be in all those meetings at all that and all at all those times. And so instead of being sort of one VP or SVP, they actually need to be a team of VPs. Maybe it’s assigned to business units. Maybe it’s assigned to two initiatives. Our product sectors are our categories. So I think a lot of it depends really on the same kinds of challenges that you have within design, which is what’s the problem that we’re looking to solve with this higher. And how do we best go about solving it between the market constraints, your budget, your location, the structure of your organization and the resources that you want to put behind it.

Adam

I’m sure any of us, if we were going out to look for something, we want the perfect person. And our job description is just a little too idealistic. So that’s fair. Bringing it down to earth there. So now I’d like to switch to the golden question. So a lot of our audience listening here would love, probably, to know and all your experience of doing this. What are the key skills or competencies that you’re looking for? What do we need to work on and change or try or improve in? So that we make the cut to get to a list that you’re recruiting for.

Michelle

Look, the broad brush strokes are pretty straightforward. I’m not going to share anything with you that I think is a big surprise. So we see the creative ability. It’s frankly the price of entry, right? So everyone’s evaluated. Are they creative and talented enough? Do they have the, the portfolio? We can talk about some of my philosophies connected to showing and sharing work, especially at the senior level. But, basically there’s, for me, that’s like the price of entry. Is this work, is the work, the experience and the caliber of the work not just compelling but aligned? In terms of the, the ask what the company needs and the, and the types of project oversight and responsibilities and breath. 

At the chief level, we need a lot and most of the problems lie with the fact that so many of the organizations, especially on the physical product side, but I think across the board also on the digital product side, which is, does everyone have the breadth of all of these experiences and is brand included or not? So are we talking about product separate from brand? Are we talking about holistic creative leadership for everything that the company generates? So on the holistic side, that’s the biggest challenge because there is no training ground for somebody to get that all. There’s no school system. There’s no grad system. It’s all mentorship. In some cases, it’s really idiosyncratic on how you gain that. 

 

But at the biggest chief creative officer level in a big corporation that owns everything, that’s the biggest challenge. Who has all of this, right? And how did they get it into what level and then in areas where it’s more, the discipline is more defined, like it’s in brand or it’s in digital product and, visual systems or anything connected in that world. Then the question is, do they have the right level of leadership. So do they have the right leadership relationships with the business and stakeholders side? Can they inspire not only the design organization that they need to either build, adapt, elevate, adjust, but can they also inspire the stakeholders and the business folks that are sitting at the rest of the organization to participate, to engage at a really meaningful and strategic level, are they able to get that communication and the foundation of those relationships in place. So internally, it’s such a different remit than the agency side for many creative leaders, as right? That being the hot talent from an external agency or consulting side role where you’ve been with and then you’re hired because you want to shoot out or some kind of competition or whatever it is. However, you ended up getting there, there’s probably some competition to get there. And now you’re the kind of, I call it “the chosen,” right? And you’re selected, that’s so different than being an ongoing member of an organization. And learning how to win some battles, lose others, prioritize when you’re going to step away, how do you read the room, how do you understand where, how the wind is blowing and figure out what kind of buy-in that you need for the trust to be built and the influence to take place. 

So influence is a key attribute, ability to influence, and it’s so different than the ability to impress with a list of amazing work and, or, a list of awards, a portfolio full of amazing work, any of those kinds of things, your ability to help change people’s minds and make things happen becomes really important. So we screen for that, part of it is not just what you’ve had the chance to do, but under what circumstances.

Adam

I don’t know if everyone listening is just feeling the goosebumps like me, but there are so many critical things that you’ve just talked about that I want to back up. And I want to summarize a lot of these number one, that having a great portfolio is the entry. It’s not the end. So if you think you’re some hotshot at an agency or house, whatever, you’ve built all this great creative and you’re like. I totally get it. I’ll make the best creative. That’s like the very, very bottom of the list.

Like it’s important, but it’s not the big deal. 

And number two, a lesson that I had to learn the hard way. Like I remember  I was going for a position at an in-house group and I was just coming from an agency and I had worked with some clients for years and years, and I thought I’d. And this one recruiter said you haven’t had the in-house experience, so you’re not ready for the role. And of course, in my bravado, I’m like, “Yes, I am. I know all this stuff. I’m the one.” But having been a decade now in-house, it is such a different world. Like your job isn’t just build the cool campaign and call it a day. Like you said, getting people to agree on things, showing a vision, steering the ship, getting everyone to align on it and care and push all that, like it is an immense amount of work. So I want to reiterate something I’ve said for a long time, that you have to learn to speak business, you have to learn to speak khaki, learn to speak marketing, learn to speak KPIs, all of that good stuff in order to speak business to the right players to give the right opportunity for creative to thrive. And if that’s what you’re saying is the important thing, like that is just pure genius and gospel that I want everyone to hear and know that it’s not just go make cool shit and call it a day. Like you can’t do that. Like it’s not that’s like just the start. So getting that change of mind from agency world that I did for 19 years before I went in-house is so critical. Working on those leadership skills and having those leadership skills like that is, that’s just pure gold. Thank you. Thank you.

Michelle

No, it’s truly true. I’m in the process right now of working on a large head of design for huge global multinational and one of the questions; so along with what the work is scale of teams.

They’ve led all of those questions. One of the, one of the questions on our literal search checklist in terms of evaluating candidates is growth. And so in my briefing with the client, I said to them, “What do you mean by that? Do you mean, were they in an organization that they experienced growing the organization like, was it, pre, growth to a certain point to IPO or, what are you talking about? What does growth mean?” And they said, “Oh no. What we mean is what kind of transformation did they help shepherd? In previous corporate roles, what, where was it when they started? And where did they take it? How did they help facilitate the growth and change and transformation of that organization so that design was more strategic and design delivered against the business remit more successfully?” 

It’s literally on the checklist along with money and location and all the rest. So I can’t emphasize it enough. I’m so glad to hear that you recognize the difference. And as we screen, because we do move candidates from agency roles into in-house roles. It’s really hard at the highest levels. It’s hard. And it’s risky for the organizations as well as the candidates. I always have said to people, “If you’re thinking about going inside don’t wait till the 11th hour,” because there’s a lot to learn and you’ll be better positioned for the best roles with less risk if you can have, it’s just like a semi intermediate role, meaning like a, if you can get in at a director or senior director level or VP level rather than waiting it out forever and going for the most senior roles because you’re just gaining. 

So look, no, all the agencies are not alike. And there’s some kind of misinterpretation that all the corporations are like it’s either agency or corporate. The cultures are so different from one to another. So having that resilience, understanding how to navigate with different kinds of cultures is really helpful. So it’s not that you have to start your career in-house to be effective in-house, but When you’re ready to make that transit transition or when you’re beginning to think about that, don’t be don’t be too resistant to go in at a senior, not the top job level because that insight and, you can accelerate your abilities. By recognizing what you’re going to need to work on for the future, really biggest jobs.

Adam

I just hired for a director of design role and it was just fascinating that how many, I’m talking hundreds and hundreds of applications and most of them are just like, here’s the portfolio because for most of some people’s careers as they’re moving up the chain; your book says everything, right? 

But it was so hard to say, like, that is so important. But now how are you going to differentiate yourself? How are you going to show here’s how I led teams and made change and steered the ship in a new way and made a big impact on the company like that’s just different stuff. And I think a lot of creatives feel like, “Oh, you’ve just become another corporate monkey or a suit, right? Or you’re just a marketer. You’re no longer creative and you’re not true in court,” but you’re like, no, like for a leader to make all that happen. You’ve got to be able to balance all of that. It can’t just be a one, just your work.

Michelle

Early on one of the top creative leaders, one of the chief creative officers that I did a huge amount of work for early in my career, who really taught me a lot, said, there’s some miss there, there’s like a misunderstanding that all the best creative opportunities are in agencies. That you have to automatically forfeit so much creatively if you’re going to go inside and what he said was if you can find the right business leaders and if you can, if you have enough and the right level of ability to influence and guide and hold your own and understand marketing to the extent that you can really sit at the table and lead with them. You could create your remits. You can create the briefs. You’re so much. Further upstream than you would be at an agency where once all many of those conversations have taken place and they’re just delivering that brief to you, not that in all age. I understand that in many agencies, they’re involved in the creation and development of direction and briefs, but really the development of the strategies that are leading to those engagements, is what in-house leaders have the opportunity to participate in.And that, and it’s, that being further upstream is really creative and really rewarding strategically.

Adam

I want to go back to something that you said when we were talking before that was very interesting. And you said that most of the people you’re recruiting or you’re trying to find are people who aren’t looking for a job. Maybe talk to me a little bit more about that, because it seems like a little counterintuitive okay, if I’m ready to get a job, I reach out to a recruiter, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Michelle

I’ll explain it in a couple of different ways. So there’s lots of different kinds of recruiting, but in a nutshell, there are contingency recruiters. Recruiters who are working on searches who are not paid anything until a placement’s made. Right? And I started my career in contingency recruiting. There’s lots of incredibly, and incredibly talented, incredibly effective contingency recruiters that do that. You’ve got to manage a lot when you’re doing that, because you’re working on X number of assignments. You’re not filling them all, right? So there may be more than one external partner working on that. Maybe the client goes another way or cancels a search or was just window shopping or any of the above. And of course, those recruiters are looking at people that are looking, but they’re also looking at people that are not looking. But they’re, but because of the scale, usually in speed it’s far easier if you’re talking to people that— our game, because you have to work on many more things than you’re going to fill. That’s just the nature of that beast retained recruiting, which is what we do. 

My firm is a boutique retained recruiting company. And so what happens in our engagements is companies hire us and pay us a retainer up front to find, identify and find the best talent for a particular role. So our research and strategic approach is mapping out who’s the best humans to do this job. Not who’s available to me, but who’s the best. And then to do my best job at obtaining them as candidates, no matter if they’re looking or not.  Now, what’s interesting about individuals that are not looking for jobs, if they’re happy and they’re working, they are far more discerning, and in many cases, far more critical of evaluating these positions. However, if they’re tempted, they can’t resist exploring it. So part of the reason I’ve kept my company relatively small is so that I could pick and choose the searches that I work on and the reason I want to do that is so that I always have individuals interested in working with me on them, right? I can attract great talent for my assignments, but what happens with those individuals is because they’re not unhappy or ready for a change. And like, all changes are not because you’re unhappier. It’s, you’re not satisfied or something. It just could be, it just could be time or things out of your control. 

But what happens with those individuals is the way they evaluate opportunities is much more thorough and it’s because they’re not, there’s not an urgency for them to make a change. They would be doing this in spite of the fact that they’re happy and satisfied that this supersedes what they have and if it doesn’t then they should pass and in our situation in our relationship with our candidates That’s what we’re requesting. We’re not requesting that. They know whether or not this thing is worth leaving something they love, is it worth exploring to determine if it’s worth leaving something that they love and are happy in? And so it’s a very different kind of exploration on their part and ours. And how does it compare to where you are and what’s your next steps could be if you stay put or next steps if you don’t make a move right now? And does this really afford the runway? All change is risky. So is this really worth risking that? And so I would say 98, 97% of our other candidates that we work with. We’re not looking for new positions when we contacted them. We open up roles when they move, right? They move and then there’s a, there’s an open job for somebody else and somebody else might be looking and can grab that job. But it—and we don’t have a bias. We work with many candidates that are in between roles. So we don’t. We don’t discriminate against people who are either, I’m working with an enormous number of people just, based on what’s going on economically who are in between jobs and have been laid off my, my as many hours a day as I’m able to meet with those people I do because there’s such great talent that’s in between right now, but the way we map out who we’re looking for, really is often inclusive and focusing on who’s doing a job related to this. And would they be in the best stead for this role?

Adam

I’m a little hesitant to ask this next question, but because I don’t want going off of what you just said, I don’t want just a whole bunch of people who are looking for work to, start going crazy and flooding and, going after recruiters.But if you feel like, all right, we’ve listened to all this advice, we’ve. Fixed up our LinkedIn profile. We’ve shown proof because I think a lot of times people may have the experience, but they just don’t write the story in the right way. But show that you’re a viable candidate for something. What’s the next step? Do you reach out to a recruiter? I just make yourself look so awesome that they can’t help but find you.

Michelle

Oh, I know. I think absolutely reaching out. And I think, part of the, part of the premise and my philosophy in terms of job hunting, and I’ve been doing a lot of work and helping people approach their job searches because in some cases I can’t, I’m, the beauty and the pain of being a recruiter in this space is you’re always meeting more people that are incredible that you can’t place like you just don’t, we just don’t have enough, we don’t have enough jobs to place all the amazing and talented and smart and strategic people that we need. But we’re but I can’t in my practice, I can’t resist meeting great folks. So I have a certain number of hours a week that I have always carved out and continue to carve out no matter really what my workload is in terms of meeting people that I don’t know that may or may not be right at all for any current searches, but just because we should know each other because I may be able to help them in the future.

I may. So we do that. 

I, so first and foremost, build relationships with recruiters along the way so everybody knows that, but, if you have the opportunity to make a referral or a suggestion, whenever recruiters looking for something, if they’re being annoying, or if they’re, bugging or bothering you, I get it, you just ignore it. But if somebody is really genuinely asking for, do you know anybody great for the search? Help the recruiters because we never forget. We never forget if people are gracious. We track who my database tracks who referred who to us on what search and we always have an especially soft spot for anybody that’s helping us because we’ve we and also know that you’re helping other people in the industry, right? Like you’re helping them become visible. So what I say is, help each other and keep in mind that in terms of building relationships with recruiters, it’s an easy one, right? Is to be helpful in terms of pointing them in the right direction. In terms of visibility with us is definitely asking us. If we’re interested, do we have any searches that are right? And if not, would we be open to connecting on an exploratory call or meeting? And, in my case, if I’m able to do it I’m happy to do it. If I feel like I, I never have had or don’t expect to have anything that relates to that person’s work, I’ll shoot straight with them. 

 

But by and large I’m excited to meet people that I don’t know, and we’re open to it, but like I said, it’s hard. It’s hard because we could just do that all day. And right. What we have to what we’re hired to do is to be searching for people for our clients who are funding assignments. So just know that if we don’t respond, it’s usually because we just don’t have anything. We don’t have the bandwidth and really figuring out who’s the right kind of, I don’t know, culture, connection, chemistry, like in any other business relationship in terms of doing that and also understanding the format or, how people, what people are looking at, I’m happy to look at sites.

But for instance, I love when candidates build a PDF because they control what I see and when, and they control the story of their work. And in some cases, I might say to someone, look, the kinds of searches I work on include these kinds of corporations or roles. Could you put together some work that shows me that? So if it’s agency, if it’s all ad campaigns, but I know that my client’s going to need a significant amount of below the line activity, mostly in advertising portfolios, it’s never included. I have to pull it out of, I have to, pull it out of folks because it’s a three, it’s a 360 job and I need all of it. So I think find out, is there anything else that you can provide that helps give the recruiter better insight into the breadth of who you are and what you can deliver. So I think that’s helpful. And then I, and I have a whole list of philosophies connected to job search, which are tied to community building, not looking for a specific job, meaning how do you open up conversations with individuals because you’re researching a new position versus. Just asking people, “Hey, I’m looking for a job. Are you hiring or is there, do you know of anybody that’s hiring?” Because I think those conversations are far more important. I think they lead to more leads. Actually I think they create a context of coaching and mentorship in some situations that are really valuable for the candidates and that can develop a foundation of a relationship that can work both ways in the future. 

So I actually believe that people who are just applying for open positions and just asking people if they have an open job or going about it in a way that limits them and doesn’t support what’s possible in terms of that community and those connections and I spend a lot of time with candidates who I can who I’m working with or I’m trying to help find a position just because I believe in them and they’re in a transition or they’ve been laid off or it’s just time for a change to identify those opportunities.

Adam

And I also probably want to be cautious that it’s don’t reach out to Michelle or someone like that if she’s looking for, executive levels and you’re just like starting your career or you haven’t even led a large team like there’s, you probably need to do your homework is to the right recruiter for the right roles and not just, start out too soon, I guess I would say, but there’s something I wanted to—you mentioned coaching and in coaching, you talked earlier last time about once you do start working with someone, there is a lot of coaching of how helping them say all the right things to the right clients, just so that there’s like that right connection that can be made. So maybe when you get to it, I’d love to hear a little bit more about that coaching.

Michelle

I’m happy to address it. So it’s more than helping them say the right thing. But look, within the— think about the number of years of experience in a senior in a, in a creative director, VP of Design, and any of these levels of roles, there’s years, there’s 10 years, there’s 15 years, there’s 20, there’s 25 years. When you think about all the experiences, how do you prepare for a particular meeting? Within a particular company, and I call it preparation and the, and what I schedule with all of my candidates before every interview, meaning the first interview they’re going to have with the client. Then there’s a feedback call where I find out from them. How did the meeting go? 

And then all subsequent interviews. I have those conversations each and every time. And the reason I do that is my, I think the premise is that, it’s you need to find out with an interview, just like you need to find out when you’re pitching what’s relevant to your audience, right? It’s really the same thing. It’s expanded conversation in that way and help figuring out what of all your experiences in, let’s say that your current position, your previous position or the position before that, which of all the experiences, accomplishments, challenges. Are the right ones to bring forward what I believe is that you need to do an analysis where you’re looking at a menu of that whole list, you’re looking at the opportunity. You’re looking at which person that you’re meeting within the company. Is it the hiring manager? Is it a stakeholder? Is it a human resources person? Who is that? And how do you best prepare for that particular conversation? How do you choose what points you want to land about your experience with them and really map it out? So that’s a big piece of the preparation and coaching that we provide.

Adam

Also great information for people to hear that it’s not just, “Oh, I need to go find a recruiter.” It’s do a lot of the self-work. Figure out what your benefits and skills are. How do you sell yourself? What’s your story? That’s just so important. And every single person listening right now can do that. Like all of us can go figure that out before we even start engaging or looking for something else. I think that’s just a lot of good, of good self work. 

And I know we’re getting far along in time and we usually try to keep this thing to a half an hour, but there’s still two more things that I would love to hear from you that I thought when we were speaking before that were so brilliant. And one is around this idea of trends that we’re seeing of in-house versus out of house and what people are asking for. And then the second I want to talk about is the cross discipline skill sets of what, like, how important that is, if you want to touch on those two just for a hot second.

Michelle

In terms of cross discipline this comes up, as you can imagine, and I’m sure all of the audience and the folks that are involved in the industry are experiencing, there’s so much on everybody’s plate and organizations are trying to figure out who can handle, frankly, in some ways, the beast of all of these different, expressions of a brand areas of product and product development or development of initiatives. So the individuals that are able to effectively create that breadth in their experience set are doing far better in terms of their growth and being flexible into different roles. It’s not just titling or leveling, but it’s really more that the organizations are undergoing change. And the, and they don’t know who to hand all this to, and they don’t know who can manage it all. The scope of these roles is becoming more complicated and broader. I think that’s a huge piece of the remit. 

I think it’s, it matters more and more than it ever has. And it just keeps layering on. When I started, more than 20 years ago, there was a certain amount of things that we’re given. I think the list is probably four or five times that based on how complicated or what your job is internally and what’s required. So I think that’s a really big piece in terms of trends.

I think we’re in a challenging time and I don’t love to be the bearer of bad news, but I do. But I do think it’s important to be accurate in terms of what’s going on when. Okay. Apple and Nike, right? Established in so many ways. Not that we didn’t have it previously with Paul Rand at IBM or other corporations in history’s time. But when Apple and Nike really established the magnitude of how effective in-house organizations could be, I use them and I know their consumer base, but they really demonstrate all of us like no one acknowledged that there’s great in-house capability that was created in both of these companies. So when all of that happened so many years ago, so probably fifteen to 25 years ago, something like that, as we really look at it. And then we’ve seen the success and market cap growth of these companies. What I thought would happen would be is that all of the, all of business would recognize that design operating in an elite strategic supported level in corporations would be a given. I thought we’ve not, we’ve, we, we’ve made that case now, exactly when I started to recruit, that wasn’t the case yet. It existed, but they proved, Apple becoming the largest market cap company on the planet. Okay, I rest my case, design is valuable, right? 

However, it’s not really the case. What we’re seeing is in terms of trends on in-house, capabilities and agencies and design functions being supported is that this is still more reliant on the sponsorship and advocacy of business leaders who make this decision that it’s going to. I’m going to do it in-house or we’re going to hire agencies and that’s pretty straightforward. But it can be in many cases much bigger than that. And what we’re seeing is that it’s not written in stone in the way that I would have expected. Maybe I was overly optimistic, although I think many of us were, but I’m surprised that it’s as arduous as it is proving the case. 

Therefore, I think, the responsibility of so much of this falls on the shoulders of the creative leadership community, because your ability to not only position but defend, continually prove value, prove strategic acumen, prove how you support the mission, vision, profitability, success of the organization is crucial because it feels like a business leader comes in and has a complete change of heart and cuts the cord or a business leader comes in and decides to build it. And it’s too all over the place. 

So that I feel like the only, the thing we can do, let’s say, and I’m going to identify in the community of creatives in that way is to truly recognize our role in that strategic positioning of the function, not just in running the function and expressing the brand through the work that great creative work that you do, but to really recognize that part of the remit now is to establish and confirm that. Especially when we’re, when I’m seeing that in some organizations, it’s growing and expanding. And in other organizations it’s really on shaky ground. So I look to your, I look to your audience and the rest of the creative leadership and say, this is really important. Seeing these trends happen and we really need clear leadership, to help continue to position the success of creative.

Adam

Michelle, I love hearing you echo those words, because we have talked many times on the show about the maturity model of a creative leader. And that really, at that highest level, it is driving more to the, to get creative leadership on the board of director level to make it as important as operations and finance and other things. And it’s a hard slog, but that’s the goal. We got to keep going. Everyone’s got to realize that the creative doesn’t end at the actual art or words or video. It’s really driving that business change at the highest level. So good to hear that, Michelle. 

Thank you so much for joining us today. This has been an amazing discussion and I’m sure everyone listening has gained some major insights. Yeah. Those are the next level. And for everyone listening today, if you want to know more about Michelle or about her great work or follow her, the best way to do that is just to follow her on LinkedIn. Thanks again for joining us today. We’ll see you next time.