Developing relationships with retained executive search firms consistently should always be a part of your career strategy....

Experience with non-exemplary customer service often lead to people create inaccurate, negative generalizations of an entire industry and the recruiting industry is no exception. ...

The most effective searches we conduct are with clients we’ve formed a close partnership with over time. We prefer to develop an open and honest relationship and share an ongoing dialogue that will allow us to identify a pool of candidates that closely matches their needs....

The life sciences sector has continuously been one of our most robust practice areas at Salveson Stetson Group. We regularly perform searches for pharmaceutical and bio tech companies of all sizes to help them find their newest executives. Although we normally work with these organizations to recruit talent across multiple functions, there’s one specific group of people on my mind today: scientific and research professionals.   I have always described the research and development professionals we recruit as “citizens of the world.” They are highly degreed, often holding both Ph.D. and M.D. degrees, and usually have been employed and educated in several countries. While we may find these people in different places across the globe, they are all connected through the common goal of identifying new therapies for various diseases. Their conferences may look like United Nations meetings, but their focus is not on where they were born or educated; it is on treating one of hundreds of diseases that still baffle and torment the human race.   Through our work in the life sciences sector, we’ve collaborated closely with these exceptional people for many years and have formed great relationships. However, over the past few weeks, we’ve seen a change in their spirits that we’ve never experienced before. They have become cautious – even fearful – about joining an American company. When discussing relocation, they show even more hesitation. The reason for their concern is obvious; the announcement of our new President’s travel ban from a...

Companies don’t move fast enough and don’t recruit hard enough when it comes to hiring superstars....

What differentiates us is that we can convince people who are perfectly happy in their successful careers to consider a new opportunity....

There’s a small subset of search professionals who really know how to take this data and create personalized messaging that resonates with their target audiences. They are the ones who win for their clients and get the hard-to-get, high-potential candidates. They are the ones who anticipate how the digital world is changing the recruiting industry and effectively use the available toolsets or create new ones in response.  ...

I’ve decided to take a pass on New Year’s resolutions for 2016 and share my predictions for what will happen in the coming year instead....

I’m always struck by both the similarities and differences in our work across the globe, and I learn a great deal from our discussions of best practices, industry trends and new developments in our field....

I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the current crop of social recruiting experts out there are simply full of it.  In a vacuum, this statement is going to delight one of my partners, who routinely rejects any application of ”science” to the “art” of retained search (yes, we know you had to walk ten miles barefoot to school every day, Grampa John).  However, I believe that social recruiting, and the creative use of current and future applied technologies, will have a huge impact on talent acquisition and the way we engage with the individuals we want to join our companies.  But here’s the thing:  I just don’t think the people leading the charge at the moment are very good at it.   I’ve reviewed the published lists of social recruiting gurus and the bios of speakers at talent acquisition and human resources conferences.  From these sources, it would appear that the two most significant qualifications required to be anointed a guru are: “I tweet a lot!” and “I have a ridiculously large number of LinkedIn connections!”  This, my friends, is a very low bar.  However, the demand for social media expertise is high, and if you tweet more than your clients then, to them anyway, you are an expert.   I equate the current state of the burgeoning social recruiting consulting industry to the state of retained search in a booming economy.  Just about anyone can throw out a shingle and make a quick buck...