The most common executive hiring mistake I see isn’t a bad resume or a failed background check. It’s a company that moves too fast on a candidate who looks great on paper, skips the hard questions, and pays for it long after the offer letter is signed. I see it in specialty materials, coatings, polymers, and industrial manufacturing. Strong technical companies that know their products cold but haven’t built the muscle for senior-level hiring.
A client came to me recently with exactly this story. They were a smaller, highly specialized company. They rarely hire senior-level positions. And when a strong candidate crossed their path, they moved on instinct. It cost them.
Here’s what happened, what went wrong, and why a specialized recruiting partner could have changed the outcome.
A Great First Impression Can Be Misleading
This client operates in a technical niche. They know their products, their chemistry, their customers. What they don’t do often is hire at a senior level. So when a candidate showed up who clearly knew the technical side of the business, they were genuinely impressed.
He was professional. Disciplined. Competent. A step up from what they had. They believed he could bring new capabilities to the team.
They hired him quickly.
What they didn’t dig into deeply enough was how he would work with the people already there. Could he collaborate? Could he adapt to their culture? Could he work alongside the team without creating friction that would wear everyone down over time?
The answer, it turned out, was no.
The technical chops were real. The fit wasn’t.
What went wrong: They evaluated the candidate through a technical lens. Culture fit wasn’t part of the process. When you rarely hire senior roles, you don’t always know what questions to ask, or what red flags to look for.
Why Small and Mid-Sized Industrial Companies Are Vulnerable Here
This isn’t a story about a bad company or a bad candidate. It’s a story about a gap in experience.
Small and mid-sized companies in specialty materials, coatings, polymers, and related industries are often exceptional at what they make. They know the nuances of their business better than anyone. But senior hiring is a skill. It requires practice, pattern recognition, and a process refined over many hires across many situations.
Most companies in this space don’t have that. They hire infrequently at the senior level. They assume they know how to evaluate candidates because they know their business. But evaluating a candidate for a VP-level or C-suite role is a different discipline, and the stakes are much higher.
There are a few other factors working against them:
- Thin employer brand. If you’re a $30M specialty coatings manufacturer, the best candidates may not know you exist. The strongest people in your industry aren’t browsing job boards hoping to find you.
- Limited network. Your candidate pool is whoever you already know. That’s rarely enough for a senior hire.
- No framework for writing the right job posting. The way you describe a role determines who responds. Most companies don’t know how to write to attract the caliber of candidate they actually need.
- No structured screening process. Without a repeatable process for assessing both technical fit and cultural fit, you’re relying on gut feel. That’s exactly what got this client into trouble.
What We Do Differently
This client had already tried the other path. They’d gone it alone. Now they wanted a partner, someone who understood their industry, could reach the right candidates, and could help them avoid making the same mistake twice.
That’s the role we play. And it’s a specific kind of work that only comes from doing it, repeatedly, over a long time.
I’ve been placing VP-level and C-suite leaders in specialty materials, coatings, polymers, paints, industrial manufacturing, and the new energy economy for more than 30 years. That experience shapes everything about how we approach a search.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Access to a wider candidate pool. We maintain relationships with senior leaders in these industries who aren’t actively looking, but who would consider the right opportunity. That’s a pool most companies can’t reach on their own.
- Crafting the right message. How you position the role matters. We help clients describe the opportunity in a way that attracts the right person, not just the most available person.
- Screening for fit, not just credentials. Technical competence is the starting point. We dig into how a candidate works, how they lead, and how they will integrate with the team already in place.
- Preparing the candidate, not just presenting them. A candidate who understands your culture, your expectations, and your goals shows up differently on day one. That preparation is part of what we do.
- Guiding the client through the process. Most companies that rarely hire senior roles need a process to follow. We provide the structure, the questions, and the framework to make a good decision, not just a fast one.
The short version: We’ve been doing this for 30 years. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. We know the industries, the roles, and the people. That depth is what we bring to every search.
The Real Cost of a Bad Executive Hire
Companies sometimes hesitate before engaging a specialized recruiter. The fee feels like a significant line item.
But one bad senior hire is far more expensive than any recruiting fee. You lose time. You lose momentum. You lose the team members who get worn down or leave because of the friction. You start over. And you carry the cost of the wrong person’s decisions while they were in the seat.
A good hire, on the other hand, pays dividends long after the search is over. The right VP-level or C-suite leader can change the trajectory of a company. That’s what this work is actually about.
We are not a transactional service. The goal is not to fill a position and move on. The goal is to find the right person for the right company, a match that holds, that works, that lasts. Good adhesion requires proper prep work.
Why This Client Chose Us
After the failed hire, this client did some research and reached out to me.
What resonated with them was a combination of things. Deep technical credibility in their industry. A track record with companies of similar size and profile, smaller and specialized, not household names, but serious operators in their niche. And an approach that felt like a partnership, not a transaction.
They weren’t looking for a large generalist firm that would run a standard process and hand over a slate of resumes. They wanted someone who understood what they make, who they are as a company, and what kind of leader would actually work there.
That’s a specific kind of expertise. It’s not widely available.
We serve clients who often get overlooked by the big recruiting firms. Small to mid-sized industrial companies with strong growth trajectories that need real expertise in their corner, not a scaled-down version of a process designed for Fortune 500 companies.
A Note on Moving Too Fast
The other lesson from this story is about pace.
A great first impression can create urgency that doesn’t actually exist. The candidate seems strong. You’re worried someone else will hire them. You skip steps. You tell yourself you’ll figure out the rest later.
This is where most executive hiring mistakes are made.
A structured process doesn’t have to be slow. But it has to be thorough. The questions you don’t ask in the process are the ones you’ll wish you had asked six months in.
We slow that down in the right places. Not to add time for its own sake. But because a rushed decision in executive hiring almost always costs more, in time, in money, in organizational damage, than taking two or three more weeks to get it right.
If This Story Sounds Familiar
If you’ve already made a hire that didn’t work out, you’re not alone. It happens to good companies with good people. What matters is what you do next.
And if you’re about to make a senior hire without a real process, without access to a wide enough candidate pool, or without someone who knows how to assess fit in a technical industrial environment, reach out before you move.
We’ve spent more than 30 years learning what works. We’ve built real relationships across specialty materials, coatings, polymers, paints, industrial manufacturing, and the new energy economy. We know the roles. We know the candidates. And we know how to help smaller, growing companies compete for the best people in their space.
One bad hire is expensive. The right hire changes everything.
