Medical device industry

Tim Lippert—Vice President of Sales

ViOptix Inc.

Fremont, Calif. (USA)

“I worked with him (David) for years and had many different hires through DEC. Essentially what I’m looking for is well-qualified candidates so that neither my time nor the candidate’s time is spent on a dead end. It’s very simple with his (David’s) knowledge of the industry to tell him exactly what I’m looking for, the qualities I’m looking for, and cite examples from our mutual past so that he can ferret out the right candidate for me. He gave me the exact set of candidates I wanted and it was just a function of agreeing which characteristics we were looking for in a candidate that was ideal. We chose one who’s worked out quite well so far.

“Finding the right person is an art. I come from a school of hiring that’s behavioral. Behaviors in the past match up to behaviors we’re going to expect in the future. It’s imperative to find someone who’s done something similar in the past—not necessarily in the medical industry—but has similar behaviors in terms of understanding the type of company. Do they do calls to executives? Do they do calls to the operating room? Do they do calls to administration? Just their typical daily behaviors …. That’s why it’s critical to have a good relationship with your headhunter. So they can understand what you’re looking for.

“Working with David and DEC certainly makes my job easier. I’ve had the opportunity to work with a lot of different agencies and you find a lot are moving résumés. That’s put a lot of the onus on me as the interviewer to ferret out the behaviors—rather than have a professional ferret those out for me and give me the right candidates. I’m not looking to interview 12 people for a position and guess. I’m looking to interview two or three and choose the best, even though any of the three would more than likely fit the criteria. It certainly makes it easier when someone does their job in the front rather than just pushing résumés towards you.

“You look at these relationships in both ways. When you’re looking for a job or when you’re being recruited for a job or when you’re recruiting for a job. When you’re being recruited for a job, there’s a certain set of circumstances you’re looking for. If the recruiter tries to fit you into a different set of goals than you have, you can tell that they’re just moving paper. And the same sense when you talk to someone about specific criteria you’re looking for in a candidate and they come back to you with someone who doesn’t match it, it’s pretty obvious that they just want to move paper. If they use any selling skills whatsoever to try to have you accept a candidate, that’s a dead giveaway that they’re not really doing their job properly. What they need to do is find a foot that fits in your shoe. (The recruiters) who know how to do that for me and for many others—it’s a small circle—we know each other. That’s critical—saves tremendous amount of time. I can’t afford a bad hire at a small company. It’s too expensive.

“In a small company in today’s medical market, it’s absolutely critical to get good hires on your first round … a small company requires team members … that contribute from the beginning, t hit the ground running, don’t require a lot of the management tasks that big companies do … So when you’re hiring a relatively expensive seasoned veteran, it’s imperative that you hire someone that knows what they’re getting into and you know what you’re getting into with them. A lot of that is done through the interview process and a lot of that is done through—instead of talking around issues, going right directly at them. From speaking with the candidates over the years, I know that’s what David does, and that’s what I expect and require of a headhunter because that always comes out in the wash in the first few weeks.

“I’ve never hired one from David that has not worked out.

“My personal track record with DEC is excellent. It’s 100 percent. A lot of that is because David and I have a similar background and when we speak of similar candidates and similar patterns of behavior and similar requirements, we’re right on the same page exactly. That’s helped a lot. The strongest trait David has in hiring is having been a supreme medical salesman himself—knowing all the facets involved, knowing what’s required … what’s detrimental, and … what makes a champion. It’s very easy to spot them. It really does take one to know one.

“David sends candidates that are prepared, but not overly prepared. You can tell when a candidate’s been coached to tell you what you want to hear—presents themselves too much for what they think you want. That said, those recruiters may have a high hit rate, but will not have a high stick rate, because the person they send is different than the person is pretending they are. While they’re prepared, there’s a good mix of being prepared but also being candid. Ultimately, he has to be a good match, a good marriage, and it can’t be coached. That’s something you see with people who are typically moving paper.

“Integrity in this process is fundamental for long-term success. Potentially, you can fool somebody once or even twice, but those people usually get fired because they’re not very good … The message of what this candidate is has to be brought out and can’t be whitewashed… . Anyone who’s been successful over the long term really has to bring integrity if they’re going to go to the same customers… .

“I’ve come to the conclusion to use David exclusively because I don’t like to pit recruiters against each other—number 1 because it doesn’t lead to the optimal candidate. I end up getting one good one and two bad ones from a couple. From David I might just get one—a good one. I won’t get bad candidates. I’ve come to find it’s just much easier to go to a proven track record.

“There’s clearly a personal investment—because as my company goes to 30, 40 and 50 reps, I’m going to have 30, 40, 50 job orders. I’m going to require a certain personality, a certain look or feel of a salesforce that works well with me and that’s something that he’s (David’s) going to know how to duplicate. He’s going to grow with us. It’s imperative …

“Honing in on potential talent is just recognizing the behaviors and the characteristics that will lead to success. Having been that successful salesperson himself, he knows who will make this and who won’t. He knows which answers will lead you to success and which won’t …

“I would recommend using DEC Consultants because David’s expertise in the field himself really lends him a unique insight into what is required for success as a salesman in both commodity-type products, new innovative products, really across the board. That insight is invaluable. It’s not transferable to someone who’s not achieved those levels. It’s a perfect entrée into being able to place candidates at the level that’s appropriate for them at that point in their career.

“I consider David a partner. We have a long-standing relationship from our mutual past. We understand what each other’s goals are going forward. I think having a vested interest in any company’s success by definition makes him a partner. If your company wants to grow and wants to attract top talents and can meet the requirements that top talents require, then that’s the place you should shop. If it’s not, then someone else can move paper for you.

“In terms of what you get at various levels of recruiting, many recruiters will look at each placement as a transaction, as a sale. They’re trying to make as many individual sales as they can. That is not always the best method to grow a company in its optimal form. The individual transaction is less important than the overall placement or series of placements that you’ll get. From the recruiter’s standpoint, you want to place a salesman who becomes a manager who uses you to hire other salesmen. Your ultimate goal is to hire someone who makes it all the way up the chain and hires all their salesforce through you. You do that by building a solid team and not making mistakes, not moving paper, but moving people—putting candidates in the right positions. Sometimes that means telling a candidate, ‘you’re not right for this job even though you’d like it.’ And sometimes it means telling the employer that ‘I don’t have the right candidate even though I’d like to. I need to do some more work. I can’t meet your deadline; give me some more time to find the right person.’ It’s really a matter of finding the right person who fits the job than it is the number of people who are looking for work.

“Looking good on paper is quite simple. It’s a matter of being a good writer or having a good writer at your disposal. What is the litmus test for a good salesperson is if the behaviors they exhibit in the past are required in the future. Being able to talk to someone about their past behaviors and matching them up with what the future requirements are going to be is really the test. Without knowing what the future requirements are, no one can doctor their resume to look at that. That’s the process the recruiter goes through to make sure this is the person I’m looking for. For instance, ‘Do you travel? Tell me about when you’ve traveled. Tell me about the best deals you’ve made; tell me about the worst boss you had; tell me about the best boss you had.’ All of those responses are going to indicate what this person did. If you do that work up front and match that with what I’m looking for, it’s relatively simple. If you don’t, if you say, ‘Are you looking for work? Are you free next Tuesday?’ it might be more difficult to match that quite well.

“Clearly, taking care of the details is something I’m looking for. As a traveling person myself, with the burden of a lot of work, I can’t pay as close attention to the detail of multiple candidates that I would if I had nothing else to do. It brings tremendous value. For instance, setting up the time of the call, setting up the post-call …

“Fitting the candidate into my schedule for phone interviews or person-to-person interviews, taking care of the process thereafter, handling any of the travel, handling every detail except for the actual interaction between the candidate and myself, is something that is critical for me. It’s something we look for to make our job a lot easier. David and his associates deal with all the logistics of the interview process for both myself and the representative. It makes it seamless for us to have an interview at one point in the day and not have to change anything around to deal with that. And to fit it into the schedules of the other people who are interviewing that candidate, and to really take care of everything so there’s only an hour or so that’s required on my part and the candidate’s part to really get to know them and to make sure we’re a good fit.”

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