Bridging Leadership Gaps: The Journey from Education to Executive Search

October 9, 2024 – People are often drawn to the executive search industry for a multitude of reasons. It could be due to their interest in talent acquisition and helping organizations find key leadership. For many, the opportunity to engage with diverse industries and build strong professional networks can be appealing. Also enticing is the potential for high earnings and career advancement.

Rowan Rose, senior director of infrastructure recruitment at Hudson Gate Partners, joined the firm in 2023 with over five years of experience in recruiting for both non-profit and corporate organizations. After graduating from Duke University, she joined Teach for America and taught underserved students in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Ms. Rose continued to serve marginalized youth in San Diego before pivoting to a career in education recruitment. Her first role was serving as a recruiter for Teach for America. Subsequently, she moved into a role where she managed school leader recruitment for a network of 22-plus charter schools across the U.S.

“I am very grateful for my experiences in the non-profit sector, as the experiences helped me gain a strong foundation in recruiting,” said Ms. Rose. “I think that within non-profits, and in particular, schools that serve students coming from low SES backgrounds, there is a big sense of urgency, as good talent is incredibly scarce. I have to give a lot of kudos to Teach for America’s recruitment team; they provided some of the best-in-class training to help teachers transition into leadership roles outside of the classroom.”

“My time recruiting in the education space taught me many of the skills I needed to be able to hit the ground running at Hudson Gate Partners,” Ms. Rose said. “I learned how to build strong, meaningful relationships, assess a person’s motivations and barriers (to finding a new job opportunity), analyze data to make informed, timely decisions, and how to effectively communicate and align folks to a common goal.”

Candidates and Clients

There was so much at stake recruiting in the education space, she said, “as our students needed excellent leaders and they needed them fast. “With recruiting in education, our kids and the goal to improve upon the education system came first,” she added.

“Though I now work within a different sector, my North Star still blends a sense of urgency with wanting to provide my clients and my candidates with the best experience possible,” said Ms. Rose. “I want my candidates to find their next home, a place to grow professionally, and I want my clients to be able to make a hire that will build upon their organization and take them into the next phase.”

Ms. Rose recently sat down with Hunt Scanlon Media to discuss her career path into executive search and some complexities in finding senior talent today.

Rowan, what led you to a career in retained executive search?

To be honest, I kind of fell into it! When I was an undergraduate at Duke, I was an economics and psychology double major. Economics because I love the logistical (and sometimes non-logistical) study of markets and psychology because I find people fascinating. I was also a competitive chess player, and I think that recruiting is just one-big people puzzle. I decided to leave teaching after six years, and did not necessarily know what my next step would be at the time. Luckily, Teach for America took a chance on me as a recruitment manager, and I fell in love with the work (the people, the challenge), and have never looked back since.

How do you leverage your previous experiences in your current role at Hudson Gate Partners?

People don’t think it, but there are a lot of transferrable skills that come out of teaching. As a teacher, I had to have strong communication skills (with both students, my colleagues, families, and other key stakeholders), be hyper organized (it’s hard to track the progress of 120-plus students without some sort of effective system), have strong time management skills (realistically being able to prioritize my day, given a set number of ‘working’ hours), and be able to analyze data in real time to determine next actions steps. I use these soft skills on a daily basis to ensure that I am placing top talent with our clients. In addition, while I was a teacher in inner-city D.C., I also sought and received a lot of feedback to help myself improve. To be successful in recruiting, you have to be open to hearing feedback – both the good and bad. Being open to feedback (from both clients and candidates) has not only helped build trust on both sides, but has also helped us place the right hire faster.

“I use these soft skills on a daily basis to ensure that I am placing top talent with our clients.”

What are some of the key challenges facing recruiters today?

I think that recruitment can sometimes be over-simplified; a lot of folks outside of our line of work think that for any given role there are hundreds of folks who can do the job. While, yes, that is true, executive search goes beyond just finding a candidate who can check off all the technical skills. When we speak to candidates about a role, we are assessing for so much more than technical skills; we are assessing for personality and cultural fit as well. Being able to successfully do so requires a strong understanding/relationship with the clients we support. It also requires something that I call a “recruiter sixth sense.”

Can you explain?

I don’t know how to describe this scientifically, but as recruiters, we ‘personality match’ as we get to know the candidates. It’s almost like you’re trying to set up two friends on a blind date –you know each person’s likes and dislikes, how they communicate, what foods they like, their personal habits (I’m exaggerating a bit here, but you get the gist), and deep down, you have a gut feeling that they’re going to get along great. As we develop strong relationships with our clients, we develop this internal gut feeling, which then makes the search a lot more difficult, as it gets personally tailored to each client, each role, and even each hiring manager. Suddenly, your pool of hundreds dwindles down to just one in four folks (a few needles in a haystack). That, coupled with timing and other external factors, makes recruiting and finding top talent difficult in today’s modern world.

What are some differences recruiting in-house vs. recruiting for an executive search firm?

Prior to Hudson Gate Partners, I was an in-house recruiter, first for the non-profit education space, and then for a retail tech company. Being in-house, I really only served one client (the company I worked for), and for the most part, the company had its own established singular mission, values, and systems in which to operate. Being at Hudson Gate Partners, we serve funds, investment banks, and family offices, all of whom have their own way of doing things. Being at a search firm, it requires more time and organization to fully get a grasp of each client’s system and culture. In addition, we must constantly work to build upon our relationships with our large clientele. This has been a big difference, and probably also the most exciting fun challenge and learning curve I’ve had since entering the executive search space.

Related: Understanding Executive Search Pricing

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media