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Posted on September 3, 2019 2 Comments
Today, approximately 8.3m school pupils return to school for the new school year. If the other 8,299,999 were anything like my 10yr old daughter, the end of another summer and beginning of the new school year brought a mix of emotions – part excitement, part dread. At the same time, 31m adults likewise ‘return’ to work after summer, many returning to […]
Posted on November 9, 2018 7 Comments
The UK is running out of workers. Depending on whose definition you use, we are at, or very close to Full Employment. At 4% the unemployment rate is at the lowest level for almost 50 years. 4% is even well below the current rate in historically low-unemployment countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Canada. An […]
Posted on July 17, 2017 6 Comments
I’m lucky enough to have just come back from a sunny, summer holiday. There are a myriad of reasons why holidays/vacations are a good thing. Rest & Recuperation, spending quality time with family, de-stress your daily life, recharge your professional batteries…..few things are more pleasurable than standing in a warm sea, with your child/ren holding […]
Posted on April 12, 2016 18 Comments
Fat-Cat pay stories took an unusual twist over the last week in the wake of the Panama Papers leak and the UK media’s determination to find a story worth reporting. Having seen that both the Prime Minister & Chancellor of the Exchequer have declared all income, and paid all due tax (in excess of 40% […]
Posted on May 7, 2015 9 Comments
It’s over 50 years ago that JFK defeated Nixon in the first ever, televised presidential debate. JFK won, not just because of what he said, but because he and his team knew how to manage that new medium. He knew that a blue shirt played well on screen, Nixon just wore his standard white and […]
Posted on April 30, 2015 4 Comments
If yesterday’s polls are to be believed, the SNP are about to reclaim Scotland, predicted to win every one of the 59 Scottish seats. Big political statement, a potential Tsunami over British Politics,….and a worrying invasion over English politics and political power if Ed Miliband [or his union backers] happen to a) win the largest […]
Posted on March 1, 2015 15 Comments
This question was posed to me last week. It hit me harder than the best shot I took in the boxing ring last year. It is possibly the best question, and response ever. The question poser was a former advisor to 3 different FTSE-100 CEOs and one of the most enigmatic leaders I have ever […]
Posted on February 1, 2015 8 Comments
I got into recruitment nearly 20 years ago with the phrase “Gary, you’re a gobby little sh*t. Ever considered recruitment?”. My career as an accountant was ended with a 50% pay rise and a company car. My personality had got me the job. 6 months later it saw my Mondeo GLX company car replaced with […]
Posted on March 3, 2014 7 Comments
Short is good. It’s been a life mantra of mine for years ever since my sub-5 foot Grandmother reminded me that “you don’t get diamonds as big as boulders”; …but brevity is becoming ever more important. Modern life is more immediate. We no longer want to wait; immediacy is key. 25 years ago we would […]
Posted on January 23, 2014 1 Comment
For weeks on end, for 10 years, millions of TV viewers have watched Simon Cowell and his successors publicly berate dozens and dozens of people, all with a quest to exploit their talent in the name of success. Many people proudly stride onto the X-Factor stage, convinced their talent is world class only to be ripped to shreds and […]
Posted on January 8, 2014 21 Comments
For all its flaws, the interview is still the best means of assessing individuals for a specific role…..but only if done properly. Let me start by saying there is no definitively perfect interview. My approach and style certainly isn’t, and thus what you read below is wholly subjective. However, the way I conduct my interviews, […]
Posted on January 7, 2014 3 Comments
“We’ve decided not to appoint a headhunter, we’re going to have a look on LinkedIN instead.” Possibly the most increasingly common thing I have heard from businesses with a need to recruit in the last year or so. LinkedIN has, without doubt, revolutionised people’s ability to network and to forcibly expand their own networks of contacts (much as the premise […]
Posted on December 30, 2013 8 Comments
A Dark Art? Not really. True Head-Hunters will typically have approaching 20 years commercial experience, often far more. Their knowledge base of high-performance individuals and key leaders is typically immense and when married to an ability to map, research and approach unknown individuals in target organisations becomes a compelling skill. True and effective Head-Hunters are great […]
Posted on December 20, 2013 25 Comments
Interview skills are probably the hardest and most underestimated part of the recruitment process. It is the biggest area we have to train our clients, and something everyone thinks they can do…until they are faced with doing it. This is the transcript of a recent interview I did on Interviewing for an Exec Search Publication: […]
Posted on September 3, 2013 18 Comments
Yesterday, Gareth Bale stood proudly in the Santiago Bernabéu stadium wearing his Real Madrid shirt. He showed his ball control skills, until he dropped the ball. But is he the only one? The move has been on the cards for months, and has had universal approval (even from most at White Hart Lane given the […]
Posted on May 9, 2013 7 Comments
First the shock resignation of Pope Benedict; Then yesterday the announcement of (for some) an even more significant departure of an even bigger spiritual leader. Sir Alex Ferguson. Early yesterday morning when Sir Alex’s retirement was still just a rumour, one of my fellow gym goers commented that he was sure that wasn’t an assignment […]
Posted on February 11, 2013 11 Comments
In the last few months, dozens of CEOs of major organisations have ‘resigned’. For most it leads back to the ‘Shareholder Spring’ and Fat Cat revolt of H1 2012. As discussed in Pick on the Big Guys as early as last May, we predicted an ongoing trend in major corporation’s CEOs departing, often with a […]
Posted on November 2, 2012 24 Comments
Sir David Walker started his new job yesterday as Barclays Chairman. Less than 24 hours in, he has already announced he is to clear out a great number of non-exec directors and pave a similar route for execs…. and already he has received great applause for that announcement. Rid the bank of the scourge of […]
Posted on October 26, 2012 25 Comments
I love women. We all love women. Lord Davies wants us to make sure we have at least 25% of them at every party. Martha Lane Fox wants more than that. Viviane Reding wants even more still, and wants to enforce it with a 40% quota backed by European Law. I am of course talking about […]
Posted on September 6, 2012 89 Comments
Last year, Lord Davies of Abersoch decreed that businesses should have 25% of the seats around the country’s boardrooms occupied by women, and set a target of 2015 for the top 250 businesses in the UK to get there. A year on, how is positive discrimination going? Well, the FTSE-100 now has 16.7% female board […]
Posted on August 20, 2012 36 Comments
Later tonight, Robin Van Persie is likely to make his debut for Manchester United. The move has had universal approval (Emirates Stadium dwellers aside) with even the most critical of opponents secretly wishing their club could have stumped up the cash. The move will cost Man Utd £24m, plus wages of £36m over 4 years, […]
Posted on July 25, 2012 39 Comments
Last week, Yahoo appointed their 5th CEO in 5 years. They have chosen an outstanding candidate. Two degrees in Computer Science from Stanford, glittering, revered career with Google and value backed-up with the fact that at just 37 years old, the new CEOs remuneration will be significantly in excess of $1million per month. As you’d expect, […]
Posted on July 10, 2012 65 Comments
“Barclay’s CEO, Bob Diamond, resigns with immediate effect” the Sky News tickertape announced just before 7.30am a week ago today, 3rd July. I was at the gym and the whole place stopped to read the story before gradually nodding with the appearance of a David having finally defeated Goliath. Over the following few hours, news […]
Posted on May 16, 2012 24 Comments
We’ve currently got four FTSE C-Level searches live; three FTSE-100, one FTSE-250; two CFOs, two CEOs. It’s a great coup, but the stories behind them are also very telling of the market. Last year we saw what was branded as ‘Arab Spring’; the uprising in several ‘Arab’ nations, entire populations typically fighting against tyrant leaders, leading […]
Posted on March 8, 2012 8 Comments
It’s my wedding anniversary today; four years, no time at all in the halls of marriage….. but in career terms, four years is now a well above average tenure. What happened to the ‘job for life’? Times move on, businesses move on and careers have certainly moved on. The average (median) tenure for people’s current jobs […]
Posted on January 30, 2012 8 Comments
It used to be that the hunting season began in August, on the ‘glorious 12th’, with Grouse, before moving onto Partridge and Pheasant. Nowadays, however, it begins several months earlier with Bankers bonuses. A hugely political hotbed, fuelled by politicians (who have demonstrated absolutely no moral compass when it comes to remuneration/expenses) and tabloid media […]
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