The role you want opens up. And the company hires a search firm. For many internal candidates that feels like a verdict before the process has even started.
What the decision really says is this: The executive team wants to see the market before it picks you. What you do in those weeks counts for more than your results of the past few years.
In 2024, Forbes asked 19 members of its Coaches Council how to win a C-suite role from the inside when a search firm is in play. I was one of them. Here are the 19 answers as I read them today, from executive leadership coaching with C-suite candidates in Zurich and across Switzerland.
An outside firm casts a wider net. You can still be the candidate who stands out. At the very least you learn how search firms work, and you leave an impression that counts the next time they run a C-suite search. You got this far. That was no accident.
Origin: Cheri Bachofer, Forwarding Leaders
Years of experience are one part of the equation. A C-suite role asks you to demonstrate several skills at once and over months: Show up, build trust, deliver more than asked, think big and be someone others want to follow. Are you doing that already? Sponsors who confirm it are the key.
Origin: Nishika de Rosairo, HumanQ Inc
When a retained search is engaged, decision-makers may assume gaps in your profile. Find out which ones and tackle them head-on. Anyone who has run CEO searches with a board knows: Self-awareness, humility and a visible passion for the role decide who stands out as a candidate.
Origin: Gina Riley, Gina Riley Consulting
This one is my own contribution to the panel, and I still stand by it. Articulate your value and your vision for the company so that both fit in two sentences. Cultivate strategic relationships, sharpen your personal leadership brand identity and seek professional executive leadership coaching. Lead initiatives with visible impact and secure internal advocates. Whether you land the role depends on your preparation and on how convincingly you present your value.
Origin: Cristian Hofmann, Empowering Executives, SUPERGROUP AG
The secret to an internal C-suite promotion is lead time. Work with your manager or with HR to identify what the role requires: Training, mentoring, conferences, projects. Visible growth in the key competencies puts you in the succession plan before any search begins.
Origin: Lindsay Miller, Reverie Organizational Development Specialists
The relationships you have built over the years are due now. Ideally you have mentors who know your capabilities and your ambition and will speak for you. And start the conversations about your development early, so decision-makers know your contribution long before a position opens.
Origin: Kim Ramsey, The Executive Edge, Inc.
Go to the HR business partner and, if you can, to the executive team. Say clearly that you want the role and what you bring to the organisation. Most aspiring executives are far too invisible. The level above them knows neither their interest nor their value.
Origin: X. Carmen Qadir, Coaching & Consulting Experience, LLC
Ask the company to include you in the process with the search firm. If you believe in your candidacy, prove it in a fair fight. If you then get the job, nobody can talk of nepotism or bias. An impartial arbiter decides, and you commit to standing by that decision.
Origin: Antonio Garrido, My Daily Leadership
If a search firm has been brought in, the top is either unaware of your candidacy or unconvinced by it. Start a campaign to change the perception of your readiness. That takes time, maybe too much for the current search. Informational interviews show you at once where the gaps are and what it takes to close them.
Origin: Karan Rhodes, Shockingly Different Leadership
Your employer and the search firm know your story less well than you do. Document your achievements and trajectory as thoroughly as you would for an external opportunity: A polished résumé, a thoughtful cover letter or pitch, a well-kept LinkedIn profile. The external candidates are doing exactly that.
Origin: Laura Smith-Proulx, An Expert Resume
To be seen as a legitimate candidate you need stakeholders with the influence to back your eligibility. That means cashing in a good share of the social capital you have saved over the years. For your own career, this is the moment to spend it.
Origin: Joshua Miller, Joshua Miller Executive Coaching
C-suite means running the core business calmly, effectively and thoroughly. Leading one function well is not enough as evidence. You have to show that you have carried different responsibilities inside the organisation. Only then does the conversation turn to your ability to lead the company rather than the next vice president role.
Origin: Ben Levitan, Cedalion Partners
Companies hire search firms to add rigour to the process. Whether an insider wins depends on two questions. Are you at the centre of the business, owning a process that makes the firm money? And is the business doing well, or are big changes needed? If big change is needed, the outsider has the better odds. Overall, insiders succeed more often, so the wind is at your back.
Origin: Jim Schleckser, The CEO Project
Demonstrate leadership, strategic vision and a fit with the company's values. Your track record and your potential to grow the business are the arguments that lock out the competition. Stay active during the process and keep talking to the stakeholders who matter.
Origin: Alba Contreras Rodriguez, FONS LLC
Start with good questions: What do the C-suite decision-makers expect, what do they need? Listen to their priorities. Then show how your skills fit their vision and contribute to the organisation's success. That is how you become the candidate they want.
Origin: Cheri Rainey, Rainey Leadership Learning
Find an advocate inside the company and make their job easy: A list of what makes you the strongest candidate, experience, accomplishments, knowledge. Give them the research too, which shows that internal executive hires succeed more often than external ones. That argument belongs in the decision meeting.
Origin: Kathy Bernhard, KFB Leadership Solutions
Show what you know about the company's culture and goals that no outsider can know. Name your achievements, demonstrate leadership, nurture the relationships with key people and articulate a clear vision for the company's future. Engage actively with the search process and ask for feedback on any gaps.
Origin: Alejandro Bravo, Revelatio360
Position yourself for the role long before any search starts. Are you in a C-suite succession plan? If so, good. Think realistically about timing and readiness. About development and relationships. And about how you compare with external candidates and what you offer the organisation, so that the selection committee votes for you unanimously.
Origin: Michele Cohen, Lead to Growth Coaching
With your knowledge from the inside you can present a workable plan on day one, and the relationships to deliver it are already in place. An outsider may bring a fresh perspective without bias. Yet I have seen many new executives simply repeat what they did elsewhere. Inside knowledge is a real asset.
Origin: Ricky Muddimer, Thinking Focus
Thirteen of the 19 ideas circle the same point: Visibility with the people who decide, long before the role opens. The search firm changes little about that. It only shows how much of it was left undone.
Whether you can still win the current search is open. The next one you win today. In executive leadership coaching with C-suite candidates in Zurich we therefore rarely start with the résumé. We start with the question of who on the executive team knows your vision.
Further reading on hofmann.coach: 15 strategies to impress employers in another country · 19 tips to conquer imposter syndrome as a new leader · Executive Coaching Zurich
Note: The 19 ideas come from the Forbes Coaches Council expert panel “How To Land Internal C-Suite Roles When The Company Uses A Search Firm”, published 8 April 2024. Contribution no. 4 is my own. My reading of the other 18 is mine, and it isn't a quote of my colleagues' wording.
Cristian Hofmann is an executive coach in Zurich and Schaffhausen (MAS Coaching & Supervision BSO, Forbes contributor). Over more than 20 years he has coached more than 1,500 leaders: CEOs, executive boards and leadership teams in Switzerland, with measurably agreed goals and, on request, pay-for-results. More about Cristian Hofmann.
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more
