Case Study of Top-Secret Executive Search
Case Study Scenario
In our case study. a Fortune 100 technology company engaged Intellerati to fill a mission-critical opening for which failure was not an option. The assignment was a confidential executive search for a technologist. We harnessed the secret power of org charts for competitive intelligence.
The Challenge
The engagement was the ultimate needle-in-a-haystack search. Our Fortune 100 technology client needed to hire a world-renowned senior-level technologist. Only, our client feared the confidential search was impossible. In fact, our client told us they had “no idea where in the world we might find the ideal candidate or whether that candidate even existed.”
Just to keep it interesting, the candidate needed to be hired in less than two months. Not only that, the position was based near the Arctic Circle, where winters are interminably long and incredibly cold.
The technologist was a key senior team member for a top-secret product development team. In fact, the search was so confidential there were few details we could share with candidates to engage their interest.
The top-secret executive search was a black hole into which we had to recruit world-class candidates. There was so little we could say that the only thing we could pitch was the intrigue.
Actionable Intelligence
Despite warnings that qualified candidates would be virtually impossible to find, Intellerati developed a robust list of prospects for our client to review within a week. We subsequently initiated outreach, navigating transatlantic time zones, languages, and cultures. We called, emailed, networked, and recruited our way to leading candidates.
Ultimately, we engaged the interest of luminary technologists who shall remain nameless — it was a confidential executive search after all — and we delivered a slate of interested, qualified candidates.
The Results
In the end, we prevailed. In 53 days, our client extended an offer to the candidate that we’d presented — a candidate our client previously suspected might not even exist. The technologist accepted a start date within the required timeline.
Looking back, this engagement was one of our most challenging searches and, because we nailed it, one of our most rewarding. We wish we could tell you more. But it’s top-secret.
