How Brandon landed a VP of Product role in four months while expecting a layoff, with five kids at home

Brandon came to us expecting to be laid off. His wife had already lost her job, and they have five kids at home. So this was not a casual look around. He needed a good role, and he needed it before too long.

We landed him a VP of Product offer at Pantheon in four months, and along the way he interviewed at 21 other companies.

Why he started looking

“The company that I was at was struggling, literally missing payments, laying off bonuses. Changes had already started happening and I just needed to get to a different place.”

He had tried running the search himself first, and it was not going anywhere. That is usually the point where someone starts looking for help, and it is where he found us.

How he thought about the decision

Brandon is clear that the fee was never really the question for him. What he weighed was time. How many months could this take off his search?

“My only question was whether it would necessarily work for me. And where I came to was the opportunity cost of not doing it. If it shaves a few months off of my process, that would be insanely valuable.”

There was also a part of the search he knew he could not handle on his own.

“The things that I felt like were a risk, I would have no idea how to mitigate.”

Think about where he was sitting. One income, five kids, and a layoff he could see coming. Every month the search ran on was a month that really counted. Shaving a few off was worth far more to him than what we charged, and he knew that before anyone had any idea what the title or the pay would turn out to be.

The search in numbers

• Interviews at 21 companies alongside the offer he took
• VP of Product at Pantheon, in 4 months
• Level: VP. Function: Product