CMO Huddles - Success Story #16: Head of Marketing, Medium Software Co.

Total search time overall: 6 months
Job landed time (from 1^st interview to offer): 4 weeks
Lead source: Recruiter. The job posted on LinkedIn but decided to connect with the recruiter directly rather than submit resume in a sea of thousands of other resumes. The recruiter reached out quickly and started the process.
Interview/negotiation process:
- 2 interviews with CEO
- 2 sets of group interviews with two people
- 1 interview with CRO
- 1 interview with Board/Investor
- And presentation. The presentation was detailed. They provided a detailed outline of 6 different requests. The presentation was 60 slides, and took several days of research and work to pull it together. Presented to the executive team + BoD (12 people).
- The positive is that the presentation served as a great onboarding. I feel really prepped to hit the ground running.
Any lessons learned?

I documented my next role must-haves (no red flags) and created a worksheet.
After each interview, I scored the company/interview against my list (red, yellow, green).
I received multiple offers over the six months I looked for a new position, and it was hard to say "no" to companies that didn't score well on my must-haves.
There were several moments when I was nervous about the market and almost said "yes" to companies I knew weren't the right fit for me.
While it was a stressful and sometimes demoralizing time, I'm glad I waited for the right opportunity. In my previous role, I ignored so many red flags during the interview process. From now on, I will never again ignore red flags.