Bunnies vs. Institutionalized: The Two Ends of the Hiring Spectrum

In my many years of experience helping outdoor companies find exceptional candidates for their executive positions, there’s always been a sort of ideal prospect I’ve worked hard to find. This kind of candidate is someone who has had a career with natural and consistent promotions. Maybe they’ve earned new positions over the course of several years with a few different companies, or they’ve stayed in leadership roles for five or so years before moving on to find their next big opportunity. Needless to say, this track record inspires confidence—any employer looking for a good executive would want to find someone like this.

In a tight labor market, however, finding someone with that background might take a long time. We’re deep in the gator jaw now, where any talented candidate pretty much has their pick of where they want to go. That means I’ve had to change my thinking on what the ideal candidate looks like—maybe now that means someone with a much longer tenure with one company, or someone who has moved around a lot. One thing that will never change, however, is my thinking on the importance of going deeper than a resume. Let’s take a look at some examples of candidates who only a few short years ago we may not have considered, but just could be the next great hire for your company—as long as you understand the motivations that have driven the course of their career to this point.

The Hiring Spectrum

When I talk about that ideal candidate, I think it helps to imagine them right in the middle of a hiring spectrum with some extremes at either end. The candidate at the first end often looks great on paper because they have worked at the same company for a long period of time and have moved up in the ranks during their tenure. We call these types “institutionalized” as they are a product of the environment in which they have spent their career. In fact, we in the hiring industry refer to some of the biggest companies out there, like GE, as “the institution”—organizations that keep their people for a long time and train them well. But, as we wrote about in a recent article, even GE is realizing it may be time to think differently about executive hires. The big risk with this type of candidate lies in the true nature of their success; they may be truly great at their job, or they just might be super good at working within the politics of a specific company. The challenge here is to determine if they are a rockstar exec or just really good at glad handing their way to the top. Another risk is that they have gotten used to working within a certain set of parameters and may have trouble adapting to a new environment.

On the other side of the spectrum you have those who hop around from job to job every couple of years, never staying too long in one place. We call these folks “bunnies.” Unlike the institutionalized candidates, these people don’t look great on paper. Usually it doesn’t take more than a quick glance at a resume to see that they have a history of jumping around a lot. Hiring someone with this track record means running the risk that they do the same to you, and also running the risk that the reason they’ve left so many jobs is that they have trouble fitting into a new company and its culture.

The Secret to Success: Understanding Motivations

All this being said, you shouldn’t discount someone without knowing their motivations. If somebody has had a long career at a certain place it can be an obvious sign that they have been a valuable employee for many years, which is a trait you should always be looking for. You need to understand why they want to move now, and also why they never chose to leave their current employer for so long. And while typically you want to hire people you know will stick around for a good long while, there are a couple of reasons that a bunny could make for a decent hire. The fact that they have changed jobs so often, and keep getting hired, shows that they are good at adapting to new environments and can change to fit each new position. A bunny’s resume could just reflect someone who is super ambitious and prepared to move on to a new opportunity quickly in order to reach their career goals. Again, understanding why they are moving every couple of years could explain why they job hop in a perfectly understandable way.

Ideally, the candidate you want falls right in the middle of the spectrum. If a candidate has worked for the same company, like Coca Cola, for a while and they keep getting new positions, this shows that they have value for that company and that they can adapt to a changing work environment. Either way, and this goes for every candidate that you talk to, you need to understand their motivations for moving to a new company as well as why their resume reads the way it does. You do this in order to make sure that they are a good fit for your executive team. If they are leaving because they don’t see a way to climb the ladder or just don’t think their current position is allowing them to max out their potential, these are legit reasons to find a new place to work. If they are jumping ship because they because they don’t like their boss, are bored, or just want to make a bigger paycheck, your alarm bells should be blaring.

The clear bottom line here is that you can’t be sure about where they truly fit on that spectrum until you talk to them. Resumes tend to be pretty black and white, and it’s easy to dismiss someone when you have a stack of resumes a mile high based on a resume alone, but don’t do it. What you might find is that while you might think a candidate is on one end of the spectrum based on paper, a long conversation can help you fill in the shades of gray. When you talk to them and ask the right questions you will realize that there are no absolutes and that everyone has motivations, good or bad, that need to be parsed out before you continue with your executive hiring process.

—Tony O’Neill, President

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About the Author: Tony O’Neill is the Founder and President of Highline Outdoor Group — the purpose-driven executive search firm for forward- thinking outdoor industry and sporting goods companies and brands.

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