Most owners hire a COO when the company has outgrown the way they run it. The founder is in too many decisions, and the company is winning work it's nervous about delivering.
The COO is one of the hardest seats to fill well, because the right person depends almost entirely on the CEO they'll work beside. Here's how to hire one, step by step.
1. Make sure the seat is a COO
Before writing a job description, check that a COO is the hire. Owners who are stretched thin sometimes need a chief of staff or a VP of Operations instead.
A COO runs the whole operation and partners with the CEO on strategy. A VP of Operations usually runs project delivery and leaves the strategy and key relationships with the CEO. A chief of staff extends the CEO's reach with no operating authority of their own, and we've compared the two in chief of staff vs. COO.
If the operation itself is waiting on you, it's probably a COO or a VP of Operations.
2. Decide what the COO owns, and what you keep
This is the step that decides whether the hire works.
Write down which decisions move to the COO on day 1 and which stay with you. Cover hiring and firing in the field, pricing and bidding, capital spending and the key client relationships. Then decide what the COO will be judged on in their first year.
The pairing matters as much as the list.
A big-picture CEO usually needs an operator who runs the details. A CEO who's already deep in operations may need a systems builder who can step back and design how the company runs. Getting that pairing wrong sinks plenty of COO hires.
In a FireSeeds search, this is settled in the Bullseye Meeting, with everyone who has a say in the hire in the room before anyone goes to market.
3. Describe the problems they'll solve
A COO job description that lists responsibilities will attract people who've held the title. A profile describes the problems this COO has to solve, and attracts people who've solved them.
A useful profile names:
- the operational problems the COO must fix in the first 12 to 24 months
- where the company should be in 3 to 5 years, and what the COO owns when it gets there
- how the company makes decisions and what it won't compromise on
- the hard parts a strong candidate will find out about eventually
That last item matters. A candidate who hears the hard parts early and still wants the job has already decided to fix them.
4. Settle the compensation before you start
Agree on the full package, including any equity or profit share, before the first conversation with a candidate. Compensation that gets worked out late is one of the most common reasons a COO offer falls apart.
If the market says the range is light, it's better to hear that in week 2 than in week 10. A search firm will tell you early, because its first weeks of conversations test the profile against what strong COOs actually earn.
5. Go to the ones who aren't looking
The COOs worth hiring are already running an operation somewhere else. They don't read job boards, and a posting rarely reaches them.
They have to be approached directly, by name, with a specific reason this role is worth a conversation. That reason is usually a bigger seat: real ownership, and an owner ready to hand over authority. We covered what moves an employed leader in how to recruit top talent.
In construction and home services, the person making the call also needs to know the trade. A COO with 20 years in operations can tell within a few minutes whether the caller understands the work.
6. Test for the job they'll actually do
Interviews alone are a weak test for a COO. Strong operators can describe their systems well, and plenty of weak ones can too.
Look for evidence that they've walked into operational disorder and built the systems that fixed it. Ask for the numbers before and after, and who on their team grew while they did it.
Then call references who worked under them as well as above them. Ask the people who reported to them how the COO handled a job going sideways.
Finally, test the pairing. Spend a working session with your finalists on a real problem in your business, with the CEO in the room. You'll learn more about how you'd work together in 2 hours than in 4 rounds of interviews.
7. Make the offer, and plan for the counteroffer
Once you've chosen, move quickly. Strong COO candidates usually have options, and a slow decision tells them how the company runs.
Expect their current employer to try to keep them. Plan for that conversation with the candidate before the offer goes out, so the acceptance holds.
8. Get out of the way in the first 90 days
A COO hire fails most often after the offer, when the owner keeps making the decisions they agreed to hand over. The operating leaders notice within weeks, and they keep coming to the owner.
Announce the new authority to the company in plain terms, then route those decisions to the COO, even when it would be faster to answer yourself. We've laid out what the first 90 days should look like, and why a new executive's first year fails when it does.
How long it takes, and what it costs
A COO search usually produces an offer somewhere in weeks 12 to 16. Interviews spaced far apart, or a profile that keeps changing, stretch it further.
A FireSeeds search starts with a deposit. You pay nothing more until you hire, then a payment at hire and a final payment 30 days after the offer is signed, and every placement is guaranteed.
Set the fee beside the cost of the wrong COO, which reaches far past their salary once you count the people who leave and the second search. Our cost calculator runs that number for your role.
How we approach the construction COO search specifically is on our construction COO page. If you're getting ready to hire one, start with a conversation.