John Borrowman has been recruiting in business valuation and professional services since 1995—and in that time, he's seen what most firm leaders never will: the full talent market, not just the handful of roles they've personally hired for. In this episode, John brings his ”forest vs. trees” perspective to one of the most overlooked challenges in the profession: why BV practices keep making the same hiring mistakes, and what it actually takes to fix them.

John introduces his Unique Hiring Problem framework—a simple but powerful way to understand why leadership-level hires fail when firms treat them like entry-level ones. He walks through the three cyclical drivers of appraisal demand (tax, litigation, and M&A), explains why the BV talent pool is structurally limited at the senior level, and shares the top 3 mistakes firm owners make: storyless job posts, fuzzy compensation timelines, and applying the wrong evaluation process to the wrong type of role. He also covers the practical tools he uses to assess candidates—live case studies and platform-based skills tests—and the non-obvious insight about offer velocity that could be costing your firm top talent right now.

Whether you're a firm owner actively hiring or just trying to build a stronger bench, this conversation will change how you think about finding and landing the right people.