从做高管招聘，我受益匪浅的那些事What Executive Search Taught Me

Introduction

This piece runs about 6,000 characters, in seven parts:

1. Job-hunting is a mirror
2. Executive search is a lot like investing
3. What you're looking for isn't a job — it's a job opportunity
4. Don't live inside other people's expectations
5. Don't fixate on "valuation" — what matters is winning the game in the end
6. Be a friend of time
7. Make the right choice

Set aside about 15 minutes to read it. Enjoy:

01 Job-Hunting and Job-Hopping Are a Mirror — Reflecting Your Own Character and Ego

There are many factors in success, and the main one is still your own effort — but success comes closer to those who carry love in their hearts.

Whether a person can succeed, or get things done, comes largely from their choices. Each individual choice reflects something, and many choices added together can reflect or mirror what kind of person they are: what school they go to, what major they study, what kind of partner they choose, what industry they work in, and their views and opinions on career, income, and life.

Some career counselors might ask: at this stage of your life, what do you most need?

But think it over, and the question doesn't really hold up to scrutiny — and it's rather mystical too: if the great thing you want to do is to change the world, then what you must pursue is this: don't chase how much money, don't seek quiet days, just develop with everything you have. If you're in a stable state, ready to settle for modest comfort, then lowering your risk coefficient, playing it steady, and a wife-kids-and-warm-hearth life will do more justice to your good life.

So the question loops right back: what kind of life are you actually most suited to?

Truthfully, "most suited" is a bad phrase to begin with — a trap. "Most" is an adjective and "suited" is a verb.

As time passes, as the individual grows and improves, and as ability and resources keep rising, what is "most suited" shifts dynamically day by day and can never be pinned down. And even taking ten thousand steps back — even if you accomplish some particular thing, can you be sure that thing is the one most suited to you? Is the Sydney Opera House the thing most suited to Sydney? Is the Bird's Nest the thing most suited to Beijing?

The truly good state is: I've discovered many choices that suit me, and I've decided to start by trying out one of them. Success is accidental, failure is nearly inevitable — but you can be immune to failure.

Many of the stories and chapters in life — whether brilliant and joyful, or painful, hard, and disappointing — are all experiences, and they all keep driving you forward.

By understanding and experiencing life this way, in the infinite game of exploring the world and experiencing life, you'll move toward success without fearing failure. This mindset is an extremely important dose in the "failure-immunity vaccine."

Him, her, them. Graduated from a famous university, working at a well-known big company. On life's road, they've achieved every "set target": famous school, marriage, career — everything proceeding exactly according to plan. By sheer willpower and hard work, they've obtained everything they wanted. Their lives, you could say, are a model of success.

At 30 to 35, after a decade or so of striving, their careers thriving and steady, they now appear to have found their footing and to be at the point of enjoying the fruits of victory.

But deep down, many of them harbor a secret: on many nights, they drive home, sit in the car, look at the city's scattered lights, and can't hold back their dejection — sometimes they even weep.

They have everything they believed they should have, and have realized every dream, yet they aren't happy in the slightest. They know they should be ecstatic about the life they've built, yet can't feel even a trace of joy.

Many of them feel something must have gone wrong somewhere. They wake in the morning looking every bit the successful person, but at night before sleep they toss and turn, unable to rest — stress, or turmoil — feeling as though they've lost something.

Having everything and yet feeling they have nothing — what should they do?

Their situation is not an isolated case, and it doesn't only happen in China — in America, two-thirds of working professionals are dissatisfied with their jobs, and 15% even hate them.

They are extremely successful, yet many of them aren't happy. They have everything, but aren't glad.

Because all their lives, everyone told them the same story: even if you aren't happy now, don't worry — once you succeed, you'll obtain happiness.

So when they succeed, they can seek out whomever they want; others respect and admire them. When they've just succeeded, they think it's the most wonderful feeling in the world — but soon enough, after a while, they return to their original state.

The relationship between success and happiness isn't what people imagine — it's exactly the reverse. It's not that success is the cause and happiness the effect, but that happiness is the cause and success the effect. So do you still think that going to some company, some industry, or attending some school will solve your problems and your predicament? That's impossible.

Character determines destiny. Temperament determines your fate; capacity determines your fortune.

What is temperament? The hot-tempered leave early; the gentle and mild generally live longer. What is capacity? The person of large capacity can accommodate all sorts of people. That's why Liu Bang could get things done — he took in all sorts of odd and remarkable characters, Han Xin, Zhang Liang, and so on, and these people brought him no end of fortune. So character determines destiny.

Junior people generally have higher egos than senior ones; practitioners in finance — especially in the handful of roles at the top of the pyramid and the "hierarchy of contempt" — will have higher egos than people in other industries. This ego shows up in two ways:

• Thinking they're impressive because they're at such-and-such company
• Thinking that being at such-and-such company now guarantees they can get into such-and-such company

You have to understand: in the workplace, apart from the CEO themselves, no one is indispensable, irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind — and sometimes even the CEO of many companies isn't irreplaceable.

What does this mean? It means when a position has a need, even in executive search, there are many candidates competing — it's not that only you will do. Junior roles need no mention. So put away your arrogance and ego, and figure out who you're actually competing against. Can you imagine someone working at the NBA being able to go work at Hillhouse? If you can't even figure out who your competitors are, how are you going to fight this "battle"?

A point I've made before: over the past year or so, I've met all sorts of people obsessed with Sequoia:

• "For Sequoia, I'll give up my package"
• "I'm willing to go be an analyst at Sequoia"
• "I only look at opportunities at top funds"
• "It's Sequoia or nothing"

You know what — the moment you say any of the above, I know you and Sequoia are not meant to be. The four types above fall roughly into two categories: first, your experience and ability simply aren't qualified enough; second, if you really were that good, you'd already have bent low and thrown yourself into Sequoia long ago.

The same goes for those who insist they only look at top funds, want to go to top USD funds, and for all the other executive positions too. The right approach is: go out into the market and have some conversations, and see whether you can land an interview and an offer from one of them.

Practice is the sole criterion of truth. This market is transparent and fair enough — with real ability and real substance, in an era like today's, you absolutely will not be buried.

Or ask yourself a question: for the position you're applying for, where's the difference between someone who does the job well and someone who does it at the very top? And where do you currently stand?

02 Executive Search Is a Lot Like Investing

In my 2019 year-end reflection, I wrote this:

Here's a small suggestion: many people read a lot of financial reports every year, or hold forth grandly, but the core thing is that all our lives we are really running a company — and that company is ourselves. You are the CEO, the CFO, the CHO, the COO; you answer to yourself.

So as your own management, you need to set this year's and next year's plans and strategy, and even more, to set your plans and strategy for the future.

At the end of each year, you can try writing yourself a financial report: how many assets you have, and how many liabilities; beyond your tangible assets, what intangible assets are in your head. What genuine resources you've accumulated over the years, what valuable things you've learned — and try to assign them a fair value.

As the years slip by, the shell that wraps around you inevitably depreciates from wear and tear. If you love exercise and keep a regular schedule, with healthy living habits, then depreciate this asset of yours a little less — and vice versa.

Wall Street may not be a place of long-term patience, but you yourself need to be a friend of time. You need to learn to balance long-term and short-term returns. Maximizing some near-term gains will certainly make your next-quarter/next-fiscal-year report look good, but if it comes at the expense of learning and accumulation, it may leave your later growth feeble.

So I don't actually think of myself as doing executive search; I look at it through the lens of investing: I think of it as others teaching me how to make choices.

This realization came after I shifted my perspective on things from transactions to people: once the lens became people, hiring reflects the flow of capital, the flow of people, the flow of information. I don't feel I'm making cold calls; I feel every meeting is someone teaching me some industry insights.

Most people (myself included) don't realize that my current profession has, in a sense, turned me into an information hub.

There are, however, some similarities and differences with investing:

1. In investing, most of the year is spent rejecting others; in executive search, most of the year is actually spent being rejected.
2. The essence of executive search isn't sourcing — it's judgment. This is the same as investing. But there's an added point here: much of the time, your judgment can't be decisive; in other words, you can't actually pull the trigger and make it happen.
3. Although both involve rejecting others, investing has a powerful brand effect: as long as the fund's branding is good enough, it definitely won't miss a big name. Even if it misses one at first, it gets another chance to pull the trigger.

03 You Were Never Looking for a Job — You're Looking for a Job Opportunity

At first glance these two seem to have no great difference, but in fact they're entirely different.

Once you redefine it, what you're weighing is no longer the job, but how to handle the cover letter and résumé, how to conduct the interview, how to close it out, and finally how to obtain the opportunity.

The most important thing about this redefinition is its effect on your mindset: you can stop agonizing over whether to accept the job (which you don't actually understand at all), and instead approach it with more curiosity, eager to see what interesting opportunities you can discover within the company. And you no longer come in with a judgmental, negative attitude, but engage in beneficial, diverse, positive exploration.

When you're looking for a job, your focus is more on the job, so you also circle more around the job itself, trying to persuade the employer to choose you, conveying to them your so-called "love and longing" for this job. Most of the time you fake being full of passion to make them believe you. In other words, you're either lying, or giving up the job. But no one likes lying.

Change the angle: if your goal is to obtain as many job opportunities as possible, rather than a job, everything changes — you no longer really need to deceive anyone.

You can genuinely express your thoughts and curiosity about the job, because you really do want to explore and evaluate this opportunity. This isn't a matter of semantics; it's a matter of sincerity.

When you shift your mindset — looking for job opportunities rather than a job — you become more sincere, more energetic, more resolute, and happier. Interestingly, doing so actually helps you land the job opportunity.

Companies hire people — the people they recognize and endorse.

04 On Titles and Big Names: Don't Live Inside Other People's Expectations

After I released an earlier podcast episode, someone said I was manufacturing pressure and involution. What I want to say is this: if you care about those company brands and school names, and you're obsessed with them, then you'll experience it as involution. If you can look at them at eye level and shift your perspective to how they think about problems and how they make choices, then your whole way of seeing things changes.

What do most people today do? They dwell endlessly on the pursuit of brand and title. That's why they can never break out of it.

Dwelling solely on the pursuit of brand and title leads, on one hand, to involution; and on the other hand, goals are a thing with both good and bad sides — their biggest problem being that the moment you achieve one, it vanishes.

So once an individual attains these, at the very moment they're completed, they also disappear: I want to go to ByteDance, I want to go to MBB, I want to go to Yale or Wharton, I want to go to Sequoia or Hillhouse, etc.

Once an individual has achieved these, the problems and the living have only just begun. So these things aren't that important; what matters is still coming back to the individual.

Demystify these things, and you can step outside to think. Tsinghua-Peking-Fudan-Jiaotong grads still go to ByteDance all the same; Harvard-Yale-Wharton grads still go to MBB all the same.

If you pursue the school brand, you'll feel they're more impressive than you. If what you pursue is getting things done, then everyone's doing much the same work, and no envy or anxiety will form.

Title, big name, alumni networks — in society and the workplace these are all things assessed after the fact. Once you've produced something, people acknowledge them; before you've produced anything, better not to have them on your lips every day. Those big shots who are merely Tsinghua/Peking MBAs, not Tsinghua/Peking undergrads — look at whether the people they once looked down on still mostly end up "kowtowing" to them.

A person producing something is what matters most, and it has nothing to do with age.

05 On Pay: Don't Fixate on Valuation — What Matters Is That You Win When the Game Ends

First, a preface: those who can stay in finance, banking, or consulting for the long haul are the rare few of the rare few. The qualifier there is "stay" — and the proportion who stay is roughly 10%–20%. Midway, people leave the original industry, whether by choice or not, and head into corporate.

From a money standpoint, you earn no less in corporate than in professional services — in fact, look at the various rich lists in any country, and the wealthiest are business owners, not investors. Because everyone relies on equity appreciation.

Second, two points to make.

For us, executive-search services are billed on a prepaid basis, at a price in the six figures. So our time is precious — please don't try to freeload.

Next, let's talk about the pay everyone cares most about.

First, the company (the employer) can look only at pay, but the candidate cannot look only at pay. In modern society, the pay and rank of most professions are transparent enough: tech, consulting, multinationals, banking. VC/PE is among the rare few of the rare few roles that aren't so transparent — but that share is extremely small.

I've said before: what you compete on in life isn't your current income, but your lifetime total income, i.e., your lifetime package. Earning one, five million in a single year may be ability — but it's more likely luck or opportunity.

The employer doesn't care about your career; the candidate has to weigh it for themselves. The company knows most candidates focus only on pay and not much on the other dimensions. So they can use high pay to attract and poach people. But if you're very expensive, you have to consider whether your next employer can catch you. Unless you stay put and never leave.

Second, shift from an employee (student) mindset to an employer mindset. The employee mindset is: who am I, I graduated from such-and-such school, I work at such-and-such company, I'm "expensive," I'm worth a lot, I want a lot, you should give me a lot.

The employee should know: in the workplace and in business, what always matters is cost-effectiveness. So at the same level, the one with the higher annual pay has no advantage and is in the weaker position.

How so?

Take consulting as an example. Say two people both hold the title of Manager; one Manager makes 800,000 a year, the other 1,000,000. All else roughly equal, which do you think the employer picks — the 800,000 or the 1,000,000? Without question the 800,000, not the 1,000,000, because if an 800,000 hire can solve the problem, there's no need for the 1,000,000 — you're overpaid (overqualified).

When your pay exceeds the market average, it's generally one of two situations:

1. Your hours are terrible: banking, consulting, investing are like this. Three to five years' worth of pay equals five to eight years' in other industries. So when you leave the original industry, you find you don't have many options, because employers can't catch your income.
2. Raising output per head, "binding" you to the company. Leave the company and your pay goes down; stay and it gets harder and harder to move — long pain or short pain, in the end you have to pick one.

In the workplace, there's a way to ruin you, and it's called giving you an insane salary. This happens most often when startups poach people, but at other times too: when an industry catches fire, both the demand and the packages in that industry rise with the tide. Think of O2O in 2015, or community group-buying in 2020–21.

A certain company was expanding at breakneck speed, insanely raising salaries to poach people. Someone originally making 18k was poached for 40k — thrilled. Four months later they were laid off, and idle at home for over half a year, because they'd accept nothing below, indeed only look at anything above, 40k — but there was a price with no market. After nine months idle they took a job at 20k, forever glum, and couldn't muster any drive at work. They complained to colleagues: I used to make so much, and now only this. After a few grinding months, they quit again, hunting for a 40k job.

Readers, beware pitfalls like this.

06 On Titles and Years of Experience

Partners, SVPs, CTOs, CFOs also look at opportunities — and somehow their appetite for looking is no lower than the junior kids', they're just more cautious.

So this is a source of much of what I gain and my insights: what senior executives care about when choosing a career or job-hopping, what factors they weigh, how they make choices, and what pitfalls they've stepped in before.

The more senior you are, the harder it is to move — and the more senior you are, the less you need to. When you're an associate, an HR person, a junior product manager, that's the best timing to change jobs. When you become a VP, an MD; become an HRD, a COO; become a team leader — both you and the employer's expectations rise, and the employer's demands on you rise too. These include, but aren't limited to: package, cost, ability, age, trust, and your own self-esteem and ego.

Many years of experience only prove you've done certain things; they don't prove you can do more challenging ones. At the same time, many years of experience also mean the company's hiring cost goes up.

From the company's cost angle, hiring someone with ten years of experience costs far more than hiring someone with five. And for the business unit, a young person with five years of experience is easier to cultivate, more open to new things, and better able to adapt to greater work pressure.

07 On Making the Right Choice

In this VUCA era, nothing is beyond change. From 2020 to now, have we seen so few black swans and "live-long-enough-to-see-it" moments?

Minsky said: stability is instability — a long period of economic stability can lead to rising debt and rising leverage ratios, which in turn breed from within the risk of a financial crisis erupting and of falling into a long deleveraging cycle.

Likewise, steadily going to a big tech firm doesn't necessarily mean good or strong. For young people, it's in a sense a good choice, but for many in middle age, it isn't necessarily the best one.

From the package angle, to obtain the so-called high pay of a big tech firm, you have to give up far, far too much — and on top of that, many people have to balance a family, so grinding away at a big tech firm also means giving up more time growing up alongside their kids.

From the time-cycle angle, a big tech firm is no perfect land either: you can't see the freedom you seek, and your competitiveness declines as you age. Being an executive seems like one path, but that path is too narrow and gets narrower the further you go — supply short of demand, competition fierce.

You can glimpse it just from people's WeChat Moments — you don't even need to look at executives. Many young people are completely different people while employed versus after leaving: while employed they're mostly silent, their Moments basically company PR; after leaving the big tech firm or the company, their Moments instantly come alive, more like a living, breathing person.

Every working professional should understand as early as possible that a career must, as early as possible, transcend the goal of "promotions and raises." The more you make "promotions and raises" your greatest pursuit, the further you drift from personal freedom. If you always sell cheap the one resource life gives you — time — in exchange for living expenses, then our fate and our parents' generation's, our forebears' generation's, converge on the same road.

Is a young person's greatest capital their body? No — a young person's greatest capital is time. Today we may know nothing, but we can learn anything; when you're young is the peak of your right to choose.

The choices on our career road will get narrower and narrower; you'll grow pickier about work, and work will grow pickier about you. Compared with the responsibilities you'll have to shoulder after middle age and the constraints of family, the price you pay when young really is only money. Rather than stretching out the front line, better to fiercely intensify the barrage.

Closing

Life is by no means only salary and work performance; we also long to be loved, to do something for society, to make some contribution to the world.

We hope to do all we can to give our lives enough purpose and meaning, to live happily and not waste this one life.

You need to understand: life is not only a "noun" — it is even more a verb.

You should "design your own" life, rather than be told by others what kind of life you should live, or the reasons one kind of life is better than another.

This episode was also made into a podcast — you're welcome to listen to the audio.