Resources

By Josh Volinsky, Co-Founder | Synergy Search

We are deep in a CFO search right now for a PE-backed SaaS company. The PE sponsor sent back candidate feedback that stopped me in my tracks – not because of who ranked where, but because of how they think.

Eight dimensions. Scored 1 to 5. Evidence cited from the actual interview.

Not “liked him” or “not sure about her.” Specific. Surgical.

It reminded me of something I have known for a long time but rarely get to say out loud: the quality of a search is almost always a direct reflection of the quality of the partnership driving it.

How PE Actually Evaluates a CFO

Most hiring managers give you a vibe. A PE sponsor gives you a framework.

The dimensions this sponsor scored candidates on included things like:

• Covenant discipline and disclosure – Did they diagnose the actual debt structure and push a cleaner solution in real time, or did they speak philosophically about lender relationships without ever getting specific?
• Direct lender ownership – Did they personally own the lender relationship, or did the sponsor carry it while the CFO sat in the room?
• Team development versus self-execution – Did they build and develop the people around them, or did they become the bottleneck by doing everything themselves?
• Board storytelling – Can they walk into a board room and tell a financial story that connects numbers to strategy? Or do they show up and throw data on a wall without context?
• SaaS metric rigor – Do they natively speak ARR, NRR, Rule of 40, burn multiple, and cohort analytics? Or do they describe familiarity with those terms without demonstrating fluency?
• Technical accounting and controls – Do they respect the controllership function and understand that financial integrity is the foundation everything else is built on?

Every single dimension connects back to one thing: protecting the investment, building credibility with lenders, and creating the infrastructure that makes an exit possible.

That is how PE thinks. They are not hiring a finance manager. They are hiring someone who will be the financial architect of a transaction that may be three to five years away. The CFO they hire today needs to be board-ready, lender-credible, and exit-ready on day one.

What Most Search Processes Are Missing

Here is the honest truth. Not every client thinks this way, and not every search is run this way.

I have been doing this for almost two decades. I have worked searches where the client’s entire feedback after a meeting was “he seemed fine” or “not sure, maybe try someone else.” No specifics. No dimensions. No evidence from the actual conversation.

That puts the recruiter in an impossible position. You cannot calibrate the next submission if you do not understand what the last one was missing. You cannot prep candidates effectively if you do not know what the client is actually grading. You cannot build a winning slate if the target keeps moving and nobody tells you why.

The PE firms that run great searches have figured out something that a lot of private and founder-led companies have not yet learned: the recruiter is not a vendor. They are an extension of the deal team. The more intelligence you share, the better the outcome for everyone – including you.

What Detailed Feedback Actually Changes

When this sponsor sent back their scorecard, a few things happened immediately.

Every subsequent candidate got run through those eight dimensions before they were presented. Not just “does this person have PE experience” but “can this person specifically speak to covenant construction with a named lender” and “do they have a documented example of developing someone on their finance team, not just managing them.”

The second wave of candidates was materially stronger than the first. Not because we found different people. Because we understood the search at a deeper level.

Candidate prep got sharper too. When you know exactly what a client is grading, you can help candidates tell their stories in the right language, anticipate the specific questions that will come up, and walk into the room ready rather than hoping for the best.

The search moved faster. Fewer misses, fewer restarts, fewer “not quite right” emails after a meeting that should have gone differently.

That is what a true partnership produces.

What to Do If Your Search Isn’t Working This Way

If you are a hiring manager or a PE sponsor running a search and your recruiter is submitting candidates you keep passing on without understanding why, here is what I would tell you: the debrief is as important as the interview.

Give your recruiter something to work with. Not just a thumbs up or thumbs down but what you actually saw and heard in the room. What question did they answer well? Where did they go philosophical when you needed specific? What did you learn about them that the resume did not show?

And if you are a recruiter working a search where the client gives you one-word answers after every meeting, push for more. On behalf of your team and your candidates, not to mention for the more likely success of the search itself, ask the follow-up question. Ask what they heard that they liked. Ask what was missing. Ask what a 5 out of 5 answer on the thing that came up short would have looked like.

The specificity of the feedback is directly proportional to the quality of your next submission. That is not a theory. It is something I see play out on every search we run.

What Sets the Best Searches Apart

The best searches I have been part of share a few things in common.

The client treats the process like a shared project, not a transaction. They invest in the intake conversation. They give real feedback after every meeting. They think about what they are actually trying to build, not just who they want to hire for the next twelve months.

The candidates are treated like partners in the process too. They get real prep, real context about the company and the people they are meeting, and real feedback when things do not move forward. Nobody is left hanging.

And the recruiter operates like an operator, not an order-taker. We are inside the search. We understand the business. We know what the PE sponsor cares about, what the CEO needs in a partner, and what the cultural fingerprint of the company looks like. That context is what separates a good submission from the right one.

At Synergy Search, this is how we operate on every search. Our team is built from people who have lived in the seats we are recruiting for – former CPAs, former finance leaders, former operators. We know what good looks like from the inside, and we bring that perspective to every engagement.

If you are building a finance or accounting team and you are looking for a true search partner rather than a resume delivery service, reach out.

Synergy Search is a boutique finance and accounting recruiting firm specializing in placements at PE-backed and privately held companies. Our team is led by former CPAs and finance executives who have sat in the seats we recruit for.