There has been a welcome move towards transparency and openness across all parts of the business spectrum and corporate world.
Values, mission statements and diversity and equity inclusion (DEI) remain core to the way vast numbers of businesses plan their operations. Any examples of businesses rowing back on tackling the issues around employing diverse workforces remain outliers.
The instances of our own clients at MacGregor Black asking us to align with recruitment policies mirroring these values when conducting our own searches for them remain welcomingly high.
Why Discretion Still Dominates Executive Hiring
Big business decisions on key personnel at the top of the tree are frequently done beyond the glare of an open-plan office, a hip glass-fronted boardroom or a highly visible lunchtime restaurant table in the shadow of the city’s busiest curtain-twitching windows.
Such actions, unless they’re deliberate ploys, have the ability to set the rumour mill off at 100 mph, and the honest version of any such meet will fail to maintain pace. What was it Jonathan Swift said? ‘Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.’ As early as the 1700s, one suspects Mr Swift may have made a fine recruiter with such insight if his celebrated time as author and satirist ever failed!
Discretion, while having successfully been deployed for many years, has become an increasingly sought-after trait for the best recruiters. There are many reasons top execs, who may be looking for their next big move, or indeed those boards looking for their own C-suite additions, will demand a team who can guarantee any cats will be kept firmly in the bag.
The risk of leaving the wrong person in situ for too long means searches for high-level replacements, by their very nature, demand a far more discreet approach.
If adverts or very public searches commence for CEOs, FDs or other C-suite positions, that can have far-reaching consequences for any operation. Any perceived or public nervousness about the individuals and their capabilities can easily cause negative effects on shareholder confidence and values.
French car giant Renault lost 8% of its share value when its CEO unexpectedly quit in June, making the markets nervous about what was going on. They had every right to be when the organisation issued a profits warning just a few weeks later, seeing its shares plunge a further 18%. There’s no smoke without fire.
Of course, it can work the other way round too. Kenvue’s share value jumped more than 5% after the organisation that operates a number of global health and skincare brands announced the departure of its former CEO, Thibaut Mongon, in July. A case of the markets having more conviction in the business than its leader.
The Rise of Hidden Opportunities and the Role of Social Media
Most exec-level recruiters will tell you some 70 to 80% of the high-level roles they recruit for aren’t advertised, and recent trends suggest that’s on the rise.
There are likely to be a few reasons we can attribute to that. Social media’s explosion in the last ten years has shifted the job market dramatically, even at the very top. Specifically, the rising popularity of LinkedIn as a tool to help raise your own profile, improve your personal brand and create an impressive shop window for any future employer has become a big attraction for those already in leading positions.
A report in the Financial Times at the end of last year showed estimates that in the five years to the end of 2024, LinkedIn experienced a 35% increase in individuals among the C-suite, with similar numbers (30%) also reported among the same C-suite pool in the UK.
These social media channels also offer a very private communications option that makes approaches a far more secure option.
Increasingly, the very smartest recruitment teams are able to get very targeted in narrowing down exactly what it is a certain boardroom may be looking for when considering additions or replacements. Better data, and importantly the ability to analyse it properly, means the need for open application processes, where the world and its dog may fancy its chances at a very specific and senior level role, is diminished.
We’d be hard-pushed to find an HR director who doesn’t react positively to the knowledge that they won’t have to wade through scores of applications which are a long distance from being considered suitable.
Reconnecting Through Networks in a Post-Lockdown Market
Aside from these welcome developments in data and the ability to understand and apply it properly, as well as that growth in social media, we have to assess more traditional networking methods and their value to discreet recruitment searches.
Simply getting to know your networks better in a physical capacity was something we all sorely missed during those lockdown periods. Domestically and internationally, it becomes that much harder to understand and take signals from ‘the grapevine’ if you can’t shake a fellow person by the hand and have a frank conversation with them.
The hidden job market can sometimes feel like an impenetrable one, but stop and think briefly about the sheer volume of roles that are filled outside of a ‘standard’ application process, especially at the executive end of that market, and there’s a lesson for employer and employee alike to start to think about whether you’re playing that particular game correctly.
Connect with MacGregor Black for a consultation or to explore your tailored recruitment needs. Contact us today.