Johnston's Profile
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Brian Johnston, a communications graduate from North Carolina State University, began his search career in 1984. In Johnston's early career he served as both recruiter and manager of multiple regional and national search firms. He was instrumental in entering new markets, opening new offices and establishing strategic relationships with key prospects for his employers. He credits his success to the training he received early in his career as well as his natural relationship-building skills.
"When I cut my teeth in this business" Johnston says, "there were no on-line job boards, Google, LinkedIn profiles or viral marketing. I was taught how to pick up the phone and ask people for help; to ask people who they might know that I should speak with. I discovered that I enjoy following the threads of networking that lead me through fifteen to twenty contacts before I find that perfect candidate. It's a bit like a scavenger hunt, but I love the chase. Even with the advent of modern technology search tools, I have never abandoned my early success pattern of picking up the telephone. I am a "Head-Hunter" in the truest sense."
In the late 90's Johnston partnered to form a technical search firm with offices and employees in multiple states. Through this partnership, Johnston enjoyed the wave of the dot com start-up economy and helped numerous new and growing companies identify both senior leadership and technical staff. Through the building of the Johnston's multi office search firm, however, Brian discovered that he was spending too much time mentoring junior staff members and serving administrative tasks with not enough time left to carefully conduct his own searches. As the technology market began to soften, Brian divested the technology search business to a partner company in Michigan to truly focus in the healthcare industry.
In 2006 Johnston "jumped the fence" and engaged in an exclusive contract with one of the largest for-profit hospital companies in the country. In this role Johnston managed over 45 C-level searches for both the chain of hospitals as well as ambulatory surgery centers and imaging operations across the country. This "short-term" assignment stretched almost two years. In late 2007 Johnston negotiated his transition with the client, identified his own replacement and exited this internal search management role.
Since then Brian has focused on working his personal book of healthcare senior executive searches. Generally Johnston works no more than five engagements concurrently so that he can personally manage the relationships with both the clients and the candidates to ensure the highest levels of quality. "Selfishly" he says, "it's what I love to do! I have relationships with affiliate recruiters that I trust who can help if the volume gets too high, but I don't want to give up control again."
"I really feel like I have hit my stride. I work only with people that I respect and I just don't take work that isn't fun. Strategically, I decided that even if there are breaks in the flow of my engagements, it's more important to work with good people that you enjoy and trust. Ironically, this view has not slowed my number of engagements one bit!"