What are boards of directors asking for? CFOs who can be CEOs?
Heid: They absolutely want CFOs who have upward potential. They want somebody who has not only the technical capabilities but also leadership ability and who can move up to be COO, president, divisional president, or even CEO. They don't want to bring someone who doesn't have upward potential into this critical slot.

Langhoff: Clients are asking for someone who can step up, but the reality is, I'm not aware of any Fortune 500 CEO who was recruited in from the outside as CFO and went directly to the CEO chair. The average tenure at a company for a CFO who becomes CEO is 19 years. So if any recruiter calls you and says they're looking for a CFO who can be CEO, you ought to push back pretty hard. If you don't go out and get operational experience, you are probably not going to get the shot.

Are companies doing a good job when it comes to succession planning?
Heid: The ones we encounter usually don't have much succession planning in place. When a vacancy unexpectedly occurs, shame on them. There should be not one but two or three potential backups, and plans to get them to that level. A lot of companies have other priorities and it falls by the wayside. A case in point is General Motors. How large is their finance organization? They're doing a search right now for a successor to the CFO.

McLean: Well, of course, that's a company in crisis. But companies outside the Fortune 500 tend not to have enough people with all the experiences and training needed for the CFO role, so they're forced to go out into the market.

Even if you have a good internal candidate, selling it to the board becomes an issue. We just did a project where we interviewed a group of 40 longstanding CFOs, in their roles for six years or longer. In every instance, these people claimed to have their successors in-house. But is the board going to be satisfied that an internal candidate will be as good as an external one with CFO experience? That is a challenge, because the board has a major obligation to get the selection right.

Heid: That is even more prevalent in today's economic times. But I will say that an outsider has to be substantially better in order to overcome the fact that the inside person knows the company, its management team, and its systems. Internal promotions to CFO have increased significantly over the past year. I encourage people to make sure they have punched all the tickets for the CFO slot — some corporate roles, operational finance roles, global experience, some treasury experience. If you've been in a silo, it's much harder for the board to endorse you as a candidate.

McLean: It's really important to take ownership of your career development. Make certain to pursue opportunities within your company for roles that will broaden you. Larry Zimmerman, the CFO at Xerox after a long career at IBM, where he became controller, says he always took roles that nobody else wanted. When [former IBM CFO] Jerry York asked him to take the role of European CFO in Paris, he didn't really want to do it, but he did it anyway, and it positioned him to come back and be the controller of IBM.

Recruiters have mentioned that they're getting many résumés these days and are stepping into the role of coach. Can you describe that?
Heid: We are getting inundated with résumés. I probably receive 200 a week, so realistically I can't get back to every person and meet them live. But if I were to coach anyone, I'd say get to know recruiters when you're employed, because rarely do we place someone we haven't met.

McLean: As you approach recruiters, be specific about what you're interested in. Over the past year, many people I know personally, like neighbors, have reached out to me to say they didn't know where to turn and that opportunities seemed so limited. Some of these people are multimillion-dollar executives who have had successful careers, and yet their résumés don't get much attention because they're not specific enough.

Langhoff: One mistake people make when sending a résumé to a recruiter is to copy the entire firm. That does not endear you to a recruiter. Send it to the right person. Because I have a consumer background [as a former CFO of Pepsi Bottling], a lot of sales and marketing folks send me e-mails. But I'm never going to cover those people, so it's a wasted effort. Also, be helpful when recruiters call and ask if you know anyone they should talk to in their search for someone with a certain background to join XYZ Company. If you help us, we're going to remember that.

McLean: If you don't know a recruiter, find an intermediary who will provide an introduction for you. It works every time. If I get a call from someone I know and respect who referred somebody to me, I will always return the call.

A good exercise is to tell a recruiter the five things you're good at, the five things you like to do, and five places where you'd like to live. That helps a recruiter think about you in the appropriate fashion.

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