Daria Rudnik (00:02.144)
Welcome to Built by People Leaders podcast. I'm your host, Daria Rudnik, and this show is for HR and L &D leaders, those building real impact from within and shaping AI radio organizations. If you go to dariarudnik.com, you can download the State of HR in AI Transformation 2026 report, fresh new. And today we have a very special guest. I'm so excited to have this conversation. It's John Pezoulas, co-founder and managing partner of Ready, Set, Exec. A specialized boutique executive search firm specializing in sales, marketing, HR, and operations in USA and Canada. John has over 20 years of recruitment experience from staffing to executive search, as well as operational experience managing large budgets and teams up to 300 employees. Welcome, John. It's great to have you here.

John Pezoulas (00:55.43)
Yes, thanks for having me. Thanks for the intro. Appreciate it.

Daria Rudnik (00:59.342)
Well, tell us a little bit about your experience. How did you, why did you choose this path?

John Pezoulas (01:06.002)
I think anyone who's gone into recruitment, you kind of fall into it. I was in marketing initially. I had taken marketing in school and then I was managing a team and we had to do experiential marketing, which we have a lot of reps. I was recruiting all the time because there was a lot of turnover.

And I just learned how to recruit by this. I learned how to do community recruiting, going to all the social centers and organizations, nonprofits, getting people. And recruiting was a big part of the job. Probably half the job was recruiting. And then after a few years, I got recruited. I got headhunted by a staffing agency that was looking for a manager to manage the offices in the city. And that's how I got into it. And since then, I've just been...

going and stepping up from staffing, then I got into direct placements and to exec search with a few startups. And finally, after all of that, we decided to start our own firm. Three years ago, we started Ready, Set, Exec. So yeah, it's been an evolution, I guess, and just always trying to do something different and better. And I think this is probably the pinnacle now with exec search is my favorite because of the direct relationships you built. So it's been great.

Daria Rudnik (02:09.112)
Great.

Daria Rudnik (02:25.646)
That is kind of my next question. You told us why you went into recruitment, but what made you stay? What's the best part of it?

John Pezoulas (02:32.962)
Oh, yeah. I mean, think what I always tell people is that recruitment is for profit social work. You know, it's helping people achieve their potential, helping people get the next opportunity. You know, it's dealing directly with people and trying to help them. I think that to me was the satisfaction. Like I've had a lot of people I have placed over the years come back and or talk to me and you can change their lives with the right job. You know, it's really that.

John Pezoulas (03:02.242)
kind of amazing thing you can do for someone and I like giving people opportunities and giving them a chance, you know, it's like You can give them opportunity that it's up to them to show up, you know My dad used to say to me, know, you can bring the donkey to water. You can't make it drink So a lot of times, you know, it's it's fighting the right match and then if they they want to make it happen, right? So that's that's always sit with me.

John Pezoulas (03:30.726)
Yeah, I think I like that. like the people aspect and helping and social work, you know, wasn't for me without the profit piece because I also am money motivated. So the two hand on hand works great.

Daria Rudnik (03:44.814)
And I also like the part one, like, a recruiter will tell you, I you're not a fit for this position. Look for something different. It's not the best for you. Because sometimes, I know people are desperate. They want just any job, but it will not be happy. It will not be effective in any job. So, I mean, sometimes recruiters are best people to tell you, okay, you should probably look for something else as well.

John Pezoulas (04:09.466)
Yeah, I mean, some people, think like when they're young, it's good to take some risks and try some jobs that are out of your comfort zone. Like, I mean, for me, I went to some jobs like telemarketing and cold calling and sales and things like that, where some of them were not in my comfort zone, you know. When you're young, you can do those, those risks, you know, and then later on, you'll start to figure out what you're best suited for. And I think taking some of those free assessments really gives you an idea too, like what you're good at and what you can target. now with AI, mean, you could do research on all sorts of things and what best suits you for what job path to take and so on. So I would always tell everyone is like, everyone has their own superpower, their own strengths. know, some people are very good at organizing, you know, for example, my daughter's like a Mary Condie. She goes, if she sees a mess, she'll go and organize everything perfectly. So I for her,

John Pezoulas (05:06.066)
Getting into operations or something like that would be great because she likes everything organized and systematic. You know, that's just natural. just like how she is, you know, she also loves sales. Like it's a big passion of her making money. And so I'm like, okay, sales and operations. There you go. Rev ops, whatever. Like that's your, that's your thing for sure. You know, um, I think you got to really play to your strengths and everyone has something they're very good at and just, if you enjoy it as well, that's even better. So.

John Pezoulas (05:35.81)
And that's what's going to give you the passion to succeed in a career. You need to love what you do.

Daria Rudnik (05:41.45)
Yeah. Well, tell me, how, what do you think, how deep should recruiters know the business and the role that they're searching candidates for? Like if you are a tech recruiter, how much do you need to know tech? If you are looking for a CFO, how much do you need to understand finance or strategy or business?

John Pezoulas (06:02.93)
I think to a certain extent, you need to know enough that the person you're interviewing you is not going to be able to create a picture that's not true. Like the old thing we used to say in construction, you're interviewing construction workers, everybody thinks they're a master carpenter. But really, most of them are just laborers. They don't know carpentry. Same thing in tech. In engineering role or whatnot. You have to know enough to be able to vet them properly. You need to know what questions to ask, how to sniff out the bogus claims, because on the AI resumes now, there's a lot of hallucinations and made up stuff. So the vetting aspect, you need to know, the inside lingo and some of the jargon. But I think the biggest thing is a good recruiter is a good recruiter. Personally have done searches for roles that I really knew almost nothing about. And using AI and a few days of research, I was able to understand the vertical or what the technical role was and recruit for it successfully. So I think the first thing you should be looking for is who you're working with is a good recruiter that knows what they're doing, has the process down. It's all about process.

Daria Rudnik (07:26.176)
Well, how do you know a good recruiter? What? Yeah.

John Pezoulas (07:28.978)
How do I know a good recruiter? So that's a good question. So I'll tell you what aspects I think I've seen in some of the best recruiters out there. People that are curious. So if you don't know something, you're gonna go research it and find out what it is. You're always a lifelong learner. So you're constantly improving and learning. So for example, if I wanna start recruiting in a new vertical, I'm gonna learn everything. I'm gonna talk to 100, 200 people in the vertical to understand what their pain points are. I'm gonna research about it, publications about it, spend months and months understanding it, immerse myself in the vertical, you know? Like that's the kind of work that I would do and that's the kind of curiosity and lifelong learning you need to have to really like take ownership of like I need to know everything better than the people in it, you know, to a certain extent. And that's how you get the credibility of a subject matter expert. It doesn't take too long if you're determined to learn a new vertical to recruit in, but you need to put the effort and the time. It's really the time in space. So not only interacting with people in the vertical, but also the research, the publications, the backend sort of knowledge piece that you have to get. Obviously, if you worked in a vertical, it's even better. And that's why with us, for example,

John Pezoulas (08:53.616)
We do sales, marketing, HR and operations. The reasons we do those four is because we've worked in those verticals ourselves. We've recruited them for years. We have done the job and also manage people in those operations and sales roles and so on. And so it's something we've hit it from every angle. And that's why we feel confident in those four types of roles, right? Other people are more confident in the tech roles and so on.

I think having a niche is important, but not discounting the fact that a good recruiter can recruit any role if they're given some time to do the research on it. It's not, you know, I'm not going to say that it's impossible, but it depends what you're looking for as well. Like in some areas for recruiting, you need to have a network of candidates already. And so that's why people look for the vertical expertise, they assume there's a network of candidates that they already have in play. For other types of roles that are niche roles, you really have to do a headhunt, because you've got to make sure it's exhaustive and everyone's been captured in there. So I I leave it up to the individual. What role are we looking for, and how hard is it to find? And that gives you an idea of who you should have to recruit on it.

Daria Rudnik (10:17.666)
Well, I like what you said. mean, curiosity and learning. To my previous question, yes, as a recruiter, it's not enough to send CV to your hiring manager or ask questions about how do you handle conflicts and what's your strengths or what's your weaknesses. It's also important to understand, OK, what is the role you're hiring for so that you know what you're talking about? Well, recruitment is not just fitting in roles. It's especially when it comes to executive search.

Daria Rudnik (10:47.84)
Impact on business. It's basically you are co-creating an executive team. And I've seen in scale-ups sometimes the situation is like, we need to go fast. We need a CTO. We need a VP of sales. We need a chief AI officer now. But probably organizations aren't ready for that yet. Maybe it is the right time. Maybe it's not the right time. Maybe it's the right person. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's the right role. Maybe it's not. How do you deal with situations like that? And have you seen that?

John Pezoulas (11:18.738)
Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of times they think they need something they don't need or, you know, it's like, we really could use a CMO here. And then you ask them, what's your budget? Oh, a hundred thousand. And they're like, get out of here. know, a hundred thousand is not going to cut it. So I think a big part with startups that we usually find is let's have a consultation. Let's really talk about where you're at. What's your ARR? What's your revenue right now? You know,

Are you gonna be able to cover these big salaries? Like what does that look like? do we need to hire, maybe we should hire for right now versus what you need later on. So with a startup, there's different sort of phases. Like you say A, B, C, D sort of series or go by revenue too. When you're starting off, you can't afford a 300K salary, you know? So in marketing, what we typically see is, as an example,

We need a marketer. Okay, so we'll find you a director level candidate. Maybe around 125, 150k. They can do everything, but they're not super strategic. They may not have had teams before that they've managed. They're not a high end marketer, but they can get the job done for what you need initially to get some revenue. That person later on, once you hit 10 million or whatever, you think, okay, they're not strategic enough now we need to bring in a real CMO or VP in marketing. So depending on the stage you're at, you've got to buy or bring in the talent you need at the time. And that may need to be changed later on. And there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't mean you can't keep those people in other roles or keep them inside the company. Sometimes you do have to let people go as part of your growth because they're holding you back from the next level.

And that's just a natural life cycle of a startup. We see it all the time. You can also supplement though by bringing in fractional CMO to support the marketer. That way you have the best of both worlds. There's a lot of different strategies involved. And so I think that's where the consultation with the startup is. What do you really need? Is it just the title you're looking for? Because it sounds good.

John Pezoulas (13:40.944)
Maybe we should not use that title because there's an expectation of a certain salary. You know, go call it a CMO when there's only five people in the company, call it a director of marketing. It sounds better. It's more, you know, for what the scope is and so on, you know? So it's always kind of like, I know what you're like, you talk to the founder and you're like, I understand what you're trying to do. Here's what's your goal for this role. What is the, you know, what, what is the job description? Let's go through that.

Okay, that role is really a director or that's a VP or, you know, having those conversations is important before the search even starts, you know, and then also compensation. mean, what can you afford to pay realistically? Now, one of the options they have with startups is offering equity and bonus as an option to lower the salaries, to lower your burn rates, especially in the startup where, you know, you can't afford to 300 K base.

John Pezoulas (14:37.906)
But then also being realistic, okay, what the bonus is going to be? What is our projected revenue? What can we really afford here? And then, you know, a lot of times people have that, you know, wine, champagne taste, a beer budget, you know, it's like, we got to be realistic with who we can afford and bring in. Another piece with that too with startups is no one knows you.

You think your company is the best, you have the best software, you have the best everything. No one knows you, no one cares. Sorry. And now we have to get someone that's working for a competitor that's established, that's making money to come and work for you. They're not gonna leave their job and come work for you for the same money. They want a big upside. So they're looking for equity, they're looking for a big bonus package, long-term high growth kind of potential for income with you. That's why you'd want to come to a startup. And the way we position that is, you know, a few things we've got to do to position that to the candidates because the founder always believes their baby is beautiful. And sometimes you've got to tell them the baby's ugly, you know, it's kind of a hard conversation because there is competition and especially in tech, for example, it's

John Pezoulas (15:59.475)
To attract good candidates, have to usually pony up quite a bit of money or equity to make people want to make a move for you.

Daria Rudnik (16:08.815)
So it's basically it's either like you pay more or you give a title, but you don't want to give a title because you might need a more senior person sometime later on in your way.

John Pezoulas (16:22.002)
I mean, for some companies, I like to give the head-up role and that makes the person feel, okay, I got a better title. It looks good on the resume. If they were a director before, that will help them sort of move up for their next role after that. But I think end of the day, money talks, equity talks, those are the things that people are really looking for.

Unfortunately, like if you're a no name startup that has no web presence or no, you know, GitHub and all these reviews you're looking for on the socials and so on, you know, not G2 reviews, because those are usually paid, but I'm talking like real reviews. You know, if you're not well known, then you have to attract and what, ways can you attract by good, you know, work life balance, remote work, maybe good pay packages, good equity package.

Good culture, sure. Sometimes people just love working in startups and that's a great thing. They just love to go and build. So that's also a draw for some people. I like to build something new. At the company I'm with right now, it's very much like I'm just churning the dials for leads. That's all I'm doing. And here I can build from the ground up the whole brand. I mean, that's interesting for some people.

Daria Rudnik (17:43.681)
Yeah, maybe that's why you shouldn't probably be hunting people for startup from Google or Meata because well, there's a different kind of people. But also we also had an episode on employer branding when we talked about build your brand now. Don't wait when you need it. Like when you launch a startup, start building your brand. You don't have a company brand yet, but you do have a founder brand. So like people can come to founders, to specific founders. They follow them on LinkedIn. They follow them, I don't know, other social media.

They like what they're doing. They like the energy. They like charisma. They like the product. And okay, yeah, I might want to risk enjoying the company and see how it goes.

John Pezoulas (18:21.074)
Yeah, I mean, every business needs to have someone as a brand ambassador. Usually it's the founder. Not every founder likes doing it, you know, but you're to have someone as the face of the business for sure. It's very much building that trust, especially in the new startup for sure. So, I mean, sometimes they have like the founding sales rep, the founding BDR be the face, right? So I think whoever's best suited for it should take that role on and run with it. And now it's almost essential now that there's someone in the company that is the face that is doing socials. I don't think it's even for recruiting salespeople now, we look at their social presence for salespeople. So it's definitely something that's more more important. And, you know, as I said, we're becoming entertainers as well as our regular jobs, you know, being talking heads on the internet.

Daria Rudnik (19:15.807)
Yeah, Social influencers, posting on LinkedIn, everywhere, Instagram, TikTok. Well, yeah. You know what? My next question to you would be about around, like once the company hired a senior, I'll tell you a story, my personal story. I was working for the company and they were hiring executives, but for the last few years,

John Pezoulas (19:21.618)
It's kind of table stakes now, you know.

Daria Rudnik (19:45.729)
No executive lasted more than 18 months and they were all gone in 18 months for different reasons. Some had to relocate, some had to find another job, some were fired, some left because of the restructuring, but it still kind of sounds like a signal. So what do you say about when companies are hiring an executive level leader, how can they make sure that they actually stay?

John Pezoulas (20:15.25)
So I think at the executive level people leave because of their boss. That's like their CEO or their leader that they're reporting to. So that's something I would say is to take a look at. Why are they leaving? mean, there could be a lot of different reasons, but I know that people will stick around. If they really like working with their leader because it's hard finding a boss that you can, you know, get along with and know that they got your back and trust and so on. So I think that's important. At the same time, at the C level, there's a lot of turnover with certain roles like marketing, for example, the average is one, I think it's 18 months for a marketing leader right now, the turnover because of the results and the alignment with. Sales and marketing and where it needs to be. So it's a tough space. There's a lot of pressure too on these public companies to get results, you know? So I guess depends if it's private or public, how that goes. But then you see other companies where the C level, you know, the whole team is together for years and they're just doing well. They, you know, it's reports. So I'd say

End of the day, everything falls on the CEO because it's their business, know, like in the board, like they need to get their ducks in a row. Why are we having this turnover? Is it our leader that's doing this and causing this? Or is it just a really unstable time for the economy? Like, you know, that's why we've had turnover. So you look at it as like, we had COVID, we had supply chain issues, wars and so on.
There's going to be turnover because of disruptions that happen to business. And so we have to make cuts. That's one thing. Or is it because people are leaving on their own for other opportunities? So what are we paying?

Daria Rudnik (22:15.919)
It is expensive to replace senior. I mean, it is very expensive to replace a senior.

John Pezoulas (22:24.464)
Yeah, we actually built a costing calculator that we give to our clients to show, you know, based on the leader you're looking for, what is the cost of you doing it by yourself, trying to recruit on it for six months or using an agency or using us or, you know, what kind of impact do you see to the business, right? So in most cases, yes, you don't want a C level position open for more than a month or two. Realistically or it does cost you money. And a lot of times people are looking at the other way. They're just seeing the salary, right? They see the salary on the P &L and they say, we're saving money by not having that position filled. Now you're like, well,

Daria Rudnik (23:10.532)
How much you're losing for not getting product done on time, for not marketing it.

John Pezoulas (23:13.98)
There's a lot of, yeah, exactly. There's a lot of those externalities, those internal costs you don't see on the P &L. They just sort of disappear. I mean, you're wondering why you're not in sales growth or something, you know? So it's interesting. if it's a revenue producing position, like a head of sales, head of marketing, know, even operations, you know, I would say.

Daria Rudnik (23:37.091)
Well, that's yeah, you can calculate that.

John Pezoulas (23:42.834)
There's a case also for HR, you know, like if you don't have an HR leader and then your attrition goes up, you have a lot of people leaving, that is a cost as well that you're not calculating. Every person that leaves is, you know, 230 % of salary, they say, is what the cost of someone leaving is, you on average. So if a person's worth 100K, it's, you know, $230,000 by them leaving. That's the cost of replacement. So it's a lot of money.

Daria Rudnik (24:09.113)
Yeah. I mean, your calculator is a great tool. When somebody is looking for a unicorn, that's one is not our industry, that's too old, that's too young, this one is wrong type of hair, wrong. And these kind of things when they're looking for something that someone, who's probably the right people like that on the market, but to find them will take you more time than to actually start doing the job stop looking for unicorns, calculate the costs.

John Pezoulas (24:38.041)
Yeah, mean, it's a hard thing to have turnover and not only disrupting the business, but also disrupts the whole C-suite, the whole team, you know, because a new person's coming in, you have to ramp them up, you have to build rapport, start over. You know, there's that institutional knowledge as well we often forget about. You know, if you have the same team working together for five years, everything works smoothly because you guys know how to work with each other.

You know what they're strong in, what you're strong in, and you can, you know, it's like everyone leans on each other and so on. Like there's a certain, it's just like anything. The more practice, the more perfect you get, right? The more, the reps you get of something together, it's faster and more efficient. So if you have to keep redoing that every 18 months, yeah, there's, you never find the rhythm of the business and it's just disruptive, right?

John Pezoulas (25:33.137)
And it also creates more personality conflicts. think if you have the same five people, you're like, okay, I know I don't like Jim, but I can work with him. But if you have someone new in the seat every year, then you're like, oh, who's the new person? Now I'm gonna...

Daria Rudnik (25:46.095)
That was the story I told you about. They had a core team that was working together for six, 10 years together. And then when new person is coming, they just couldn't be there because they've kind of pushed out of the company because of this core team that used to work together. Okay, we know that this one talks too much. This one talks. mean, they all have their flaws, but we know their flaws and we like working together. don't want anyone from external world interrupting our cozy corner.

John Pezoulas (26:17.082)
Yeah. Well, it's also the pressure too. Every time you bring a new person in, the pressure it creates on the business in terms of like the new person now is like, oh, I have to make an impact right away. And so they're stressed because it's like, I got to make an impact right away or I'm going to be gone too, because this role they keep changing. So, um, and they'll hear, right? When they come in and they'll talk to everybody, they'll be like, yeah, you know that the role you're in, we've had three people in five years. They'll find that out.

John Pezoulas (26:45.146)
And then they'll get stressed that, I need to do something. And so that can sometimes create rash decisions because they're like, okay, it's all short-term thinking now. I just need to win 90 days to keep my job. And I don't think it's a good for the work environment and the culture if that's, know, it kind of all falls apart when you have a lot of attrition, a lot of changes. You never get that.

John Pezoulas (27:10.65)
that rhythm of the business, where everyone's feeling confident and working well together. There's something to be said for that. And I think that this is a culture building exercise. Recruiting is also a culture building exercise, if that sounds right.

Daria Rudnik (27:23.191)
Yes, absolutely. And the next step, like you hire someone and the next step is onboarding, onboard them so that they know what they're doing, onboard them, have this relationship with the CEO and onboarding with the team. Like you said, every new person disrupts the team, which is, I mean, it might be hard, but it's good. It kind of brings new flood, new ideas, new thoughts. So, but being able to accept this new person to quickly learn how to work together. it's not, this disruption is not like movie is not standing in the way of efficiency. That's something organizations need to do internally. Well, John, I'm really curious. You're an expert. What's with the job market? What should we expect in 2026?

John Pezoulas (28:08.57)
Yeah. So I mean, I'd say in general, we're saying if you're an executive, you're looking, your job search is going to take you six to nine months. And, I would say you need to look at what industry you're in because some industries are still hiring. Some are not, you know, that I'd say do some research, right? I'd say some of the hot markets right now or anything that are AI enabled or AI driven like health tech and, insure tech.

Any kind of tech enabled that's also integrating AI. There's a lot of hiring in those spaces. Supply chain, while there was some disruption and obviously with the tariffs and everything else going on, there's some disruption. Certain industries are still doing okay. Oil and gas, mean, it's sort of a roller coaster across different industries.

So I'd say for everybody just sort of, there's a lot of job hugging going on, meaning like people are holding onto their jobs more than ever right now because they're unsure of the future or what's gonna happen. So you're not seeing as much people move around, but yet unemployment remains pretty high. And that's, and you're seeing continued layoffs in the tech sector, right? So yeah, with everybody just sort of buckle up, it's gonna be a wild ride.

John Pezoulas (29:37.018)
I can't predict what's going to happen because the news changes every day. You know, I didn't think we'd be having war in Iran. You know, this, is not on my bingo card for 2026, you know? So a lot of weird things have been happening. Yeah. I mean, just buckle up. It's going to be a wild one. you know, if, anyone can predict the markets, you know, they're making money. I really don't know what's going to happen, but I'll just say in general, yes, job search is taking longer.

Daria Rudnik (29:49.727)
So much we didn't expect in the last five years.

John Pezoulas (30:06.897)
The top jobs we're seeing for recruitment are sales operations jobs are the top. Also, I'd say certain sectors like HR very slow right now on the HR side. Very slow for like certain tech roles as well because of all the layoffs, so much talent out there. So, but yeah, really just do the research, you know, using AI you can

You can quickly do research on your sector, see what's going on, and see who's in growth. There are still some companies that are growing and going towards who's actually hiring and so on. So be strategic with your job search for sure.

Daria Rudnik (30:51.919)
Well, thank you so much, John. It was an incredible conversation. We talked about what makes a good recruiter, curiosity and willingness to learn quickly. And we talked about how hiring new executives might disrupt your team, but also how you can make it better and more efficient. And what will happen on the job market this year in 2026? We don't know that, but well, we can.

Make some estimated guess. Well, thank you so much on how people can find you. How can they learn more about what you do and if they need your help?

John Pezoulas (31:25.765)
Yeah, so they can look me up, John Pizzoules on LinkedIn, or visit us at readystatexec.com.

Daria Rudnik (31:32.995)
We have all the links in the notes of this episode. So stay with us for the next episodes. If you like this show, please rate us on Apple podcasts and Spotify and subscribe to our YouTube channel and stay tuned for the next episodes. Bye bye.

John Pezoulas (31:47.291)
Thank you.