Why Executive Hiring Doesn’t Care About Your 9-Day Getaway
Why key hires won’t wait for your 9-day getaway
The other day, I had an executive on a hiring panel ask if we could plan all of her interviews around her upcoming 9-day vacation.
It hit me: people really live in their own world.
She wasn’t being difficult. She was just looking at life purely from her perspective. Seven candidates, all with different schedules. Multiple busy executives on the panel. Tight timelines. And yet, her expectation was that the entire hiring process would orbit her calendar.
This is a common trap in executive hiring:
The higher some executives rise, the more they forget what they can and can’t control.
$100M+ companies require multiple hoops, approvals, and schedules to align.
Hiring never moves at the pace you want—sometimes it’s too slow, sometimes it’s uncomfortably fast.
Here’s the reality:
If it’s your turn to interview a key candidate and you’re on vacation… you’re just on vacation.
The interview still happens.
The candidate still moves forward.
And the business keeps going.
Vacation is like the weather…you can plan for sun, but it might rain on beach day. Work is the same. There’s never a “perfect time” to step away.
So go enjoy the trip, and trust your team. If the right hire joins while you’re out, great. If you miss a round, that’s okay. Executive hiring isn’t about your calendar. It’s about the company’s future.
Your turn: Have you ever missed out on a hire OR lost a candidate because of vacation scheduling?