Executive Recruitment Trends

02 / Mar / 2022

Executive Recruiter Craig Elvin takes a look at what he’s currently seeing in the C-Suite recruitment market.

By: Craig Elvin

What are we seeing in the executive recruitment market at the moment?

I think that the market is still really quite dynamic.

A couple of things that we are starting to see are that we’ve still got some of that pent up demand that was caused by the pandemic, and the tail end of that is still very much in play.

I think there are companies that are really struggling to keep hold of some of their people that they managed to hire possibly 12-18 months ago.

People that perhaps took jobs that weren’t the right role for them and now it’s come to the point where they’re starting to walk away because the demand is coming from other opportunities.

Lastly, I think companies are actually starting to struggle again because what was really a candidate rich market six or 12 months ago is very much the opposite now and finding good candidates is very much a challenging thing for businesses to do.

Click here to watch Craig’s vlog on the current state of play in the executive recruitment market

Which sectors are particularly buoyant at the moment?

So, I think when I look at all of the companies within the Heads Resourcing Group and our practice areas, all of them are very buoyant at the moment.

We’re seeing it across the board.

In particular, I do a lot of work within engineering, manufacturing, and consumer brands, and two of the areas that we’ve seen that have been in high demand are very much HR and that procurement and supply chain piece because what the pandemics actually taught businesses over the last couple of years is that people, hiring, retention is really important.

So HR is getting more input and say into the business.

And, of course, everything that we saw in the news over the last two years about disruptions to supply chains has made really strong, really capable supply chain management a huge priority for a lot of businesses.

What are organisations getting wrong with hiring in the executive space?

A couple of mistakes I’m seeing out in the market at the moment are people that haven’t updated the job description to take on board what’s happening in the market now.

They’re very much hiring for people in the past.

They’re not perhaps updating their employee value proposition, even at a senior level.

You have to have a compelling reason why people should join your business, and if you’re not updating that, that can be a problem.

I think another challenge is that we’re still not seeing really strong alignment between some of the stakeholders when they’re hiring senior people, and it’s absolutely critical that you get that piece sorted out before you even think about going to market.

Thirdly, companies still aren’t doing enough to retain people in those senior roles.

People have had a bit of an epiphany over the last 12-18 months, I think, and despite people being given pretty good long-term incentive plans, that’s not always enough to keep your senior people, purpose and values are becoming really important to people, even at a senior level.

See all Vlogs

Executive Recruitment Trends

What are we seeing in the executive recruitment market at the moment?

Which sectors are particularly buoyant at the moment?

What are organisations getting wrong with hiring in the executive space?

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