In real estate, the old adage if of course location, location, location and time and again, this maxim has proved to be the key for restaurants to thrive.
In the executive search industry, Carolyn Carpeneti, founder of Bay Area-based Carpeneti & Co., is convinced that the key to a successful executive placement is culture, culture, culture.
Carolyn Carpeneti has established a reputation for finding ‘the needle in the haystack’ – that exceptional executive who not only has the right skills, but who will also be a great fit with the company’s culture.
Carpeneti considers her true success as a recruiter lies in her ability to dive in and truly understand company’s culture. She explains that an executive might tick all the boxes when it comes to qualifications and experience, but if they don’t fit into a company’s overall culture, they won’t succeed in their role. “More often than not, you get hired for what you know, but you get fired for who you are,” Carpeneti comments.
As with the restaurant analogy, Carpeneti believes that culture trumps strategy and adds that “without a thriving company culture, it doesn’t matter how great your product is, it doesn’t matter how great your strategy is and it doesn’t matter how great your services are because at the end of the day, if you don’t have the right people in place and they don’t connect from a cultural standpoint, the product will be good instead of excellent. The service will be fair instead of outstanding.”
Believing that a company will never get to its fullest potential unless that culture piece is as good as it possibly can be, Carpeneti takes her time at the start of a search to truly understand a company’s ethos. She notes that “the only way to make that cultural connection is to really know the company and really know the key executives — know what their values are, know their personalities, know their likes and dislikes, know the vibe in the office. The only way that you can really understand that is to envelope yourself in the company.”
The investment of time spent at each of her client companies has paid off for Carpeneti’s search business. “I have successfully built my business by deeply understanding my clients’ needs and in turn, my clients know that I’m a strategic partner who is in it for the long run. I don’t just do a search and move onto the next one, I stay involved. I stay involved in the whole integration piece and will stay connected to support a new candidate so that they can go above and beyond expectations.”
More information on Carolyn and her work may be found here:
www.linkedin.com/in/carolyncarpeneti
Carolyn Carpeneti 