By Mike Travis
P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” Yet even he would be astounded by the way in which cities compete to host the Olympic Games. One of the latest suckers is my home city, Boston.
By Mike Travis
Excerpted with permission from the author’s book, Mastering the Art of Recruiting (Praeger Publishers, January 2015)
When the candidate is motivated to join and you’ve made a reasonable offer, discussions tend to go smoothly and amicably. There’s a spirit of “Let’s make this work.”
By Mike Travis
Sadly, many candidates make simple missteps that quickly terminate their candidacies. Here are the most common mistakes I’ve seen in 20 years of executive recruiting:
By Mike Travis
There was a revolving door on medtech’s corner office this year, with more than 35 CEOs leaving their positions through planned transitions, retirement or termination, according to a MassDevice.com analysis.
by Mike Travis
2011 is shaping up to be a good year for executive hiring. An improving business climate, a loosening of VC investment, and a hint that the public markets are reopening are all cause for optimism.
Executive search firms are seeing concrete evidence of the improving economy. At a recent meeting of New England executive search consultants, the vast majority of us reported a strong uptick in business starting last summer. The two publicly-held search firms, KornFerry and Heidrick & Struggles, have also reported robust growth.
by Mike Travis
Interim and part-time executives are excellent solutions for companies that face specific management challenges. When does it make sense to use them? Following is an overview, along several real world examples.
Interim executives
Interim executives serve on a temporary basis. Sometimes they act as caretakers while a permanent person is recruited; other times they are hired to address specific issues, after which a permanent manager can take over.
by Mike Travis
First, some good news. In 2009, executive hiring in medical devices held up better than almost all other industries.
Now for the bad news: In absolute terms it was still awful. At no point in my 15 years as an executive search consultant have I known more top people who have been out of work for so long.
What’s in store for 2010? Over the last year forecasts have been worthless, so I’ve been listening to people who run businesses. Based on what they’re saying, I expect modest improvement, but nothing dramatic. If 2009 was a hurricane, the forecast for 2010 is cloudy with a chance of rain, with possible clearing later in the year.
It’s a painful exercise, but here’s a quick review of why 2009 was so weak for executive hiring.
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