I am on my 4th round of interviews with a 1.0B+ business which is owned by PE.

I have had interviews with the VP of Finance, GM of the American business segment and the CFO and am being flown to DFW for a few more face to face interviews.

I have been given a salary range which is a decent increase, but at what point is it fair for me to ask my recruiter about total compensation? I do not want to waste everyone's time if while the salary is acceptable there is no bonus, rsu's, sar's or something similar. Also if the are going to cover relocation costs and equity I will be forgoing if I take this job before December vesting date.

I would be leaving a current executive position with a company I have grown with over the past 13 years and I have a lot of goodwill built up with so I am not just going to take any offer to give that up.

That being said the role sounds challenging and it gets me back to the DFW market.

Thanks for your help.

Done, thanks for the heads up.

Are you dealing with an internal or external recruiter? In any case you should establish compensation guidelines ASAP with the recruiter. Ask them about bonuses, stock options, equity etc. Let them know what it would take for you to make the switch before you go any further in the interview process. Better to not waste your time or their time. A good recruiter would've covered all of this info ahead of time.

External and I explained my current situation and comp early in the process and told them I am not looking to leave my current company but will listen. He said today after I mentioned it in passing with him, "I'm confident (business) can put together a competitive compensation package for you that would be more than just base salary. "

Then later replied, "Please start thinking about what you would need in order to make the move. Feel free to call me to discuss."

I do not think it is salary only, but that is all I have been given. Base increase would only be 10-15% but I currently get a lot of other compensation.

It probably won't be worth it man, and the risk of not liking it will be high. Have you thought about asking your employer if you can work out of Dallas and travel every 3 weeks?

If you want to brainstorm on this over the phone, I'm happy to help. Send me a note - joe@onpartners.com

Thanks for the offer, but I am going to fly out next week and at least listen. I am not looking to leave my current role but the family wants back to Texas so they need to sell me on taking they role.

Quick update. Flew to DFW last week, made a good impression and now I am flying to California next week,
but still have not received any indication of executive compensation packages, relo assistance etc.

This should be the final step of the process as I am making with the majority of the C Suite team.

Here's hoping the can produce an extremely competitive offer.

As a corporate recruiter I always find out the salary expectations of the candidate and let them know the compensation range for the position.

I have an idea on base comp but there is a lot more to compensation at my level besides base pay. RSUs, SARs, bonus potential, 401k match, will they buy out my vested options, will they pay my expected bonus (will be paid in Jan). None of that has been disclosed yet. Also is this 100% relocation, I assume so, but again no mention of it.

TXAGGIES said:

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I have an idea on base comp but there is a lot more to compensation at my level besides base pay. RSUs, SARs, bonus potential, 401k match, will they buy out my vested options, will they pay my expected bonus (will be paid in Jan). None of that has been disclosed yet. Also is this 100% relocation, I assume so, but again no mention of it.

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Did you get the job?

Good luck!

So after 4-5 phone interviews, a flight to Texas to interview with 4 people and two flights to LA for more SLT interviews I get a call from the recruiter today stating that the PE firm nixed their plans of relocating the headquarters to Dallas, so the job in now being filled in Los Angeles.

What a waste of time.

after about three weeks of waiting they reach back out with the following to my recruiter...

Quote:

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Not sure if you reached out to TXAGGIES lately but we are still stuck at the same spot. Still trying to figure out the logistics of where to hire and timing of transition the roll. TXAGGIES is on top of the list if we decide to hire out of the DFW area.

Thanks
Jim

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So they haven't completely eliminated the possibility of having personnel in DFW?

I guess not, I just think they are waiting for the approval from the PE firm. That could be a tough pill for a PE to approve when they are looking to trim any discretionary spending possible.

When I interviewed it was presented as they are moving, after a month of interviewing my recruiter told me it was staying in CA so I wrote off the opportunity, then today I got that email.

I am in a senior executive position at a PE backed company. Our PE sponsor is very involved in all of our senior level hires and it tends to take us a pretty long time to get them on board with VP and up level hires. I am sure all of our candidates feel like we are indecisive and get annoyed by how long the process takes. You would think a small company would be quick to make these decisions, but each hire at that level is critical and we tend to be overly conservative to make sure we don't make a bad hire. We also have 2 offices and the debates we have about the merits of a certain position in one location vs the other can also bog down our process...