Hello. We are Hyperion Executive Search and we’d like you to get to know us better.

Part 1- Who are Hyperion and why do growing companies partner with us?

In the following blog posts, my colleagues JacobGina & Wolfgang will dive into the subject of identifying candidates and managing the recruitment process. But before we pick up the phone, lay a finger on the keyboard and start the search for cleantech rockstars, our mission is to truly understand our clients – not just the immediate hire(s) they’re thinking of making but their unique story, their strategy and the culture they are working on creating.

But why does truly understanding our clients help in the search for talent? 

As we construct teams in nascent sectors such as energy storage and eMobility, this understanding allows us to widen a very narrow talent pool for our clients. We can confidently present candidates who may not have direct industry experience, but we know have the right transferable skills and the right approach to compliment a specific client.

  • Case study: We recently placed a Chief Commercial Officer who had 20 years’ experience working to secure financing for large natural gas projects with our client Key Capture Energy, a company looking to develop utility scale battery storage projects across North America.

In a very competitive renewable energy market, being equipped with the resources to tell our client’s story in a concise and compelling fashion allows us to engage with hidden talent; those who are not actively looking but when approached effectively are open to the right opportunity. We can highlight the most appealing aspects of working for our client but also openly discuss the challenges they are facing and the journey so far, ultimately giving the candidates we work with a full picture of the opportunity at hand and our client, a fully screened and motivated individual to interview.

  • Case study: We partnered with Geronimo Energy, a wind and solar energy developer in North America, to recruit a Director of EHS & Training, a role that required deep knowledge of the renewable energy sector. Understanding the client’s story was critical in us helping them land an excellent candidate with 10 years wind energy experience who moved all the way from Texas to join their team in Minneapolis.

When looking to make a new hire, culture and company fit really matters. Finding the right technical match on paper is a good first step but understanding the makeup of our clients and the common traits they want all their employees to have allows us to go the extra mile during our qualification process, so we can identify candidates that our clients can build their teams around. Our clients are fierce advocates for hiring through a non-biased lens and understanding how they want to grow allows us to attract candidates who are qualified whatever their demographic.

  •  Case study: We partnered with Arenko Group, a battery storage start up in London, to simultaneously manage six new hires for their team . All six came from separate industries and varied backgrounds but were smart, hard-working, persistent, humble and opportunistic – all principles that our client highly valued and wanted to develop as they grew in size.

As we support growing companies who often have undefined hiring plans, having a deep understanding of their growth objectives allows us to act as our client’s eyes and ears in a rapidly changing international market and proactively introduce candidates that may not have been on their radar but perfectly align with their goals and ambitions.

  • Case study: EVBox, a leading global supplier of EV Charging infrastructure, have retained us on specific searches as they scale up their team across Europe. Working closely with the CEO and COO, we learned a great deal about their culture and immediate objectives, but also their longer-term ambitions which enabled us to proactively look for top talent who could spur their global growth. We introduced an outstanding candidate without a defined role in mind. EVBox swiftly created a position and the candidate is now expanding their business as Global Automotive Director.

So how do we understand our clients & tell their story in the market?

  • When we work on retained assignments, we meet the people we recruit for (and their teams!) and get to know their business inside out. We want to know their backgrounds, why they joined, the challenges they’ve faced, their competition, their technology, their unique selling points. You name it, we want to know it and we use this information to solve our client’s problems.
  • We take a detailed brief on the specific role our client is looking to fill – from initial responsibilities to how the position will evolve, ideal backgrounds and the culture they want to build, we want to know it and we feed this into our search.
  • We use this information to effectively act as an extension of our client. We spend time writing engaging job descriptions which are advertised through our social channels, we construct an opportunity document which we provide to qualified candidates (a 4 page snapshot of the company’s culture) and start to engage with candidates with a clear, concise & compelling message about our client’s story.

This understanding and partnership (something Ross touched upon in part one) gives us an extra dimension when we engage on senior-level searches but most importantly gives our clients a competitive advantage as they build their teams, saving them time and money in the pursuit of cleantech rockstars.

In part three, Jacob & Gina of the Hyperion team will be looking at the processes behind finding hidden talent and building relationships with the best candidates.