ENERGY DELIVERS
2/26/2020
Take me to a leader - Corporate headhunters are more powerful than ever | Briefing | The Economist
Simulations are also becoming increasingly popular with clients (if not with candidates). Frontrunners might, for instance, be sent reports about an imaginary company, then asked to run mock board meetings, calm down emotional managers of troubled divisions or weather earnings calls with aggressive analysts. In the end, though, closing a big deal still often requires the human touch. Jill Ader, the chairwoman of Egon Zehnder, recalls taking an ideal but hesitant candidate o -site for three days to discuss the purpose of his life. For the headhunters, their candidate’s signature on a new contract equals success. For their clients, it’s more complicated. Plenty of data exist on would-be ceo s. Korn Ferry estimates that 87% of all executives aspire to become bosses; over one-third of applicants had career blow-ups before winning a top role, reckons gh smart , an advisory rm; and so on. Yet it is trickier to measure the wisdom of choosing one candidate over another; it is impossible to know whether one of the rejected candidates might have done the job better. Getting it wrong can be costly. The Conference Board, a think-tank, nds that the costs of changing bosses (severance, search, lost productivity during the transition, and so on) are generally equivalent to 5% of annual pro t.
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https://www.economist.com/briefing/2020/02/06/corporate-headhunters-are-more-powerful-than-ever
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