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author and educator
ExecuNet Exclusive: Recruiters Remain
Optimistic About Executive Hiring Source:
ExecuNet
Nearly 60
percent of executive recruiters are "confident" or "very
confident" that corporate demand for executive talent
will grow during the first six months of the New Year.
Also, 52 percent anticipate the number of search
assignments they conduct in the first half of 2008 will
surge between 10 percent and 29 percent. That's
according to the findings of ExecuNet's latest Recruiter
Confidence Poll, a survey reflecting the business
forecasts of 138 responding executive search
firms.
Corporate Drive On To Integrate Talent
Acquisition With Development, Rewards There's a change
afoot deep within the walls of an increasing number of
corporate Human Resource Departments that's beginning to
alter the search for leaders who can maximize
organizational return on human capital.
"There's
a pretty big push on to merge talent acquisition with
talent development and rewards," Francis J. Luisi,
principal with Charleston Partners, a boutique executive
search firm specializing in recruiting Human Resource
professionals globally, tells RecruitSmart Today.
"Progressive organizations are doing this."
Luisi
says the integration of these key human capital
functions is in some respects to make up for the fact
that they had been put in silos by some organizations
that now recognize the benefits of tying them
together.
Luisi says that's shifting the
search for senior HR talent because more organizations
now expect the most senior talent acquisition leaders to
also be responsible for and accountable to the talent
development agenda and a rewards-based compensation
system.
Of course, there remains a corporate
emphasis on talent pipeline development. Further, Luisi
contends, the new leadership model that integrates those
critical functions also requires that the HR leaders in
charge of them have or gain exposure to the board of
directors and its Compensation Committee. That, alone,
Luisi says, "is elevating and integrating the
role."
Chief Marketing Officers Seeking
Greater Strategic Influence On
Organizations Two-thirds of
chief marketing officers want more involvement in
business strategy development and increased profit and
loss responsibility. Many are still fighting to increase
their involvement beyond that of traditional marketing
to gain greater influence within their
organizations.
That conclusion comes courtesy of
a joint survey of more than 130 chief and senior
marketers from companies with revenue of more than $100
million conducted by Forrester Research and Heidrick
& Struggles.
"CMOs who can acutely tap into
customer needs and evangelize them throughout the
organization will be able to drive growth and strategy
for the business," says Jane Stevenson, global managing
partner of Heidrick & Struggles' CMO Practice. "At
the end of the day, an evolved CMO is an enduring
business leader, a strategy-driving, influence-wielding
executive with a finger on the pulse of the organization
and the customer."
That conclusion is drawn, in
part, from the survey findings, which revealed a
disconnect between the career aspirations of marketing
leaders and how they spend their time.
When asked
which competencies are the most important to their
personal success, 82 percent of chief marketers
identified strategic thinking as a top imperative. Other
leadership-driven competencies such as people
management/team development, relationship building with
the senior executive team, business acumen, and energy
and inspiration completed the top five. However, CMOs
reported spending less than 10 percent of their time on
career development.
"CMOs have a great
opportunity to transform their marketing teams from
order-takers to collaborators, but it takes more than
harnessing available opportunities to win credibility —
it takes diligent self-development," adds Cindy
Commander, analyst with Forrester Research's CMO Group,
an executive-level peer knowledge and networking
community for chief and senior marketers. "If CMOs want
to become true business leaders, it's time for them to
step up to the plate and proactively evolve their
role."
However, the survey found that one-quarter
of CMOs are not involved in any way with customer
service and support, distancing marketing from what
customers are saying in the field. In addition, less
than half of CMOs identified being the voice of the
customer a top priority for their personal success, with
even fewer identifying listening to/interacting with
customers, and personal knowledge of customers as
crucial to their jobs.
Strategic Planning, CEO Succession Top
List Of Director Concerns For Third
Year Board directors
named strategic planning as their top concern followed
by corporate performance and CEO succession in a
National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)
Public Company Governance Survey.
The NACD
survey, done in conjunction with Oliver Wyman — Delta
Organization & Leadership, shows that the three
issues that emerged as key director concerns last year
are perennially top concerns for directors but are also
areas where directors indicate low levels of
effectiveness.
"Strategy took a back seat over
the past few years as boards grappled with volatile
markets, shareholder pressure and regulations, but
directors recognize the need to focus on the
longer-term..." says NACD president and CEO Ken
Daly.
Directors also expressed discomfort about
their relationship with shareholders. Only a third (36.4
percent) of directors thought their boards communicated
very effectively with shareholders, and likewise did not
believe that shareholders communicated well with
boards.
Diversity Still Lacking Among Senior
Management Ranks Despite the
professed commitment of many of them to increased
diversity in the workplace, many corporate employers are
still in search of the first or second diverse member of
their senior leadership team.
The latest
BlueSteps Diversity Report from the Association of
Executive Search Consultants shows that 76 percent of
357 global senior executives report their companies have
one or no minorities among their organization's top
executives. This despite the fact that 54 percent of
responding executives indicate their company has a
formal corporate commitment to diversity.
The
U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics
reports that minorities make up 17 percent of the
workforce, with that number expected to increase to 20
percent by 2016. Women currently represent 46 percent of
the workforce and the number of women in the labor force
is expected to grow faster than the number of men
through 2016.
Comparing the survey on a regional
basis, the majority of executives from North America and
Asia Pacific, 61 and 50 percent respectively, say their
companies have official diversity policies, while the
majority of European executives (54 percent) said their
employers do not.
2007
Executive Job Market Intelligence Our 15th Annual Executive Job Market
Intelligence Report captures the latest trends and
developments in senior-level hiring, compensation and
executive search.
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you for providing the best service of its kind in the
industry. My own experience with ExecuNet has always
been positive, as has been the feedback I've gotten from
the many people I've referred to you over the
years."
- Steve Brieger, Principal, Thorne,
Brieger Associates
Executive recruiters
expect a 27% increase in assignments in 2007. They will
be networking to locate the best talent, reports the
ExecuNet 15th Annual Executive Job Market Intelligence
Report.
Nearly 60
percent of executive recruiters are "confident" or "very
confident" that corporate demand for executive talent
will grow during the first six months of the New Year.
Also, 52 percent anticipate the number of search
assignments they conduct in the first half of 2008 will
surge between 10 percent and 29 percent. That's
according to the findings of ExecuNet's latest Recruiter
Confidence Poll, a survey reflecting the business
forecasts of 138 responding executive search
firms.
