The World of Head-hunting Has Changed

I have blogged before on the increasing demands of candidates in the face of the new war for talent – how the power has shifted from fast economic growth and the matching dearth of candidates, to fractured markets and the emergence of numerous new niches creating talent gaps.  Wise companies recognise that these VUCA times require them to work harder to identify and secure the very best talent but that they also need to pay attention to retaining the very best people & how to drive the highest levels of productivity from them. In order to know who to retain you have to assess first who your most talented people are, check they are in the right roles, qualify their skills, get to know them deeply and then match the long term opportunity to that person.

Historically Head-hunters have not seen this as their business, rather they have stuck doggedly to their core offering, however in the mid noughties, partly in response to the declining economic outlook they started to search around for additional revenue streams and focussed in on broadening their offer (see here) now ten years later the focus is starting to pay off. As a recent article in The Economist highlights:

Gary Burnison, Korn Ferry’s boss, says he sees his firm as a McKinsey for “talent strategy”, combining traditional headhunting with such things as coaching managers, succession planning, and analysing and improving corporate culture. Korn Ferry now gets just over half of its revenues from executive search, down from 90% a decade ago. (Source)

Gary Browning, our CEO at Penna welcomes this shift

“VUCA times and the “Black Swan” events ( highly unpredictable, disruptive and consequential) they generate,  require a new more holistic  approach to Talent Strategies – it is encouraging to see that firms like Korn Ferry are waking up  to this realisation. At Penna we have taken a full talent approach to our client work for over a decade and believe that there has never been a more appropriate time to ensure that organisations attract the right talent for the role, the context and the moment, ensuring that the person is supported and engaged throughout the early days and into their career”

We believe that this not only guarantees a better outcome for everyone it also helps us to build a strong, more stable business.  It also means we can manage complex delivery, for example I recently managed a campaign for a Networks business that required a new CEO and at the same time to hire ten senior members to the newly defined team. To maximise the market profile they also wanted us to advertise the positions. As a result I led a programme of delivery that included creative comms (including website build), the construction of a suite of formal assessment tools, the design of a 90 day coaching programme for the successful CEO, the management of advert respondents and crucially extensive research led Executive Search globally. 

The world of head-hunting has changed and Penna is at the heart of this shift.