IACPR Global Conference Interview Transcript: Eileen Finn, Judy Boreham

Welcome to TotalPicture Radio's exclusive coverage of the International Association for Corporate and Professional Recruitment Global Conference 2011.

The new talent management, strategies for the future.

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Welcome to a special insight recruiting and talent acquisition channel podcast on TotalPicture Radio. This is Peter Clayton reporting.

Today, a sneak preview of the upcoming IACPR Global Conference with two very active members of the IACPR board and chairs of the conference planning committee, Judy Boreham, managing director at Diversified Search based in Philadelphia and Eileen Finn, principal at Eileen Finn and associates based in New York City.

IACPR is the International Association for Corporate and Professional Recruitment, a nonprofit organization comprised of retained executive search professionals and corporate executives responsible for senior level human resources, staffing, development, acquisition, management and retention.

I was fortunate to have attended the conference last year and Riviera Advisors will be sponsoring our coverage of IACPR Global Conference again this year which I'm very much looking forward to.

Judy and Eileen, welcome to TotalPicture Radio.

Eileen, let's start out by having you tell us a little about your background and that of the IACPR.

Eileen: Thank you Peter, and I'm happy to be on this broadcast. I am an executive recruiter with a boutique firm based here in New York. My specialty practice is essentially in human resources, although I do some work in the risk management area and I have had my own firm now for more than 13 years and have gotten involved with the IACPR, I guess, it's about 10 years now.

Initially I attended a couple of those sessions, every year their global conference and because of the nature of the programs and the people I met, I became much more involved with the association. First getting involved with the conference planning and then became a board member. So I really have been involved with the IACPR for 10 years and I have been overall in the search business for more than 25.

Peter: Great. Judy, can you tell us about Diversified Search and your involvement with IACPR.

Judy: Yes of course, and thank you so much for inviting me to do this and participate. Diversified Search is the largest women-owned retained search firm in the US and we're now affiliated with a global group called AltoPartners.

We have eight offices coast to coast in the US focusing on a number of industry areas including healthcare, life sciences, financial services, media and entertainment, industrial, retail, higher education and not-for-profit and some functional practices in human resources, supply chain and the board practice.

I've been with the firm for the past 16 years. I've been in search for 19 years and prior to that was with Baxter Healthcare and Johnson & Johnson in business-to-business roles. I became involved in IACPR… I was going to say 8 years ago, but if Eileen's been involved for 10 maybe it's a little bit longer than that.

Eileen: You were at my first conference, Judy.

Judy: Okay that's where we met. That's where we met, so it must have been longer, longer ago than that. Really, just loved the conferences and loved the support that I felt from the IACPR community and got more involved in conference planning along with Eileen and have been a board member for about the past 6 or 7 years now.

Peter: I'm really interested in having you guys tell me what makes this organization unique to the extent that you are willing to volunteer as much time and effort as both of you have in this organization and this conference.

Eileen: My involvement with the IACPR really started from me around more professional development for me to really understand what was happening in the whole area around talent management.

Our programs are always very content rich and deep so that was really…it was once a year. I would go to the annual conference and I would come back with a deeper knowledge of the industry or the functional specialty I served across all my industry groups and then because of the people that I met and also what I know are the context that I bring to this association both from a participant perspective but also my ability and all of our abilities on the conference planning committee to really bring the best thought leaders into the association in terms of presenting at our annual conference.

We have really put forth great agendas over the past few years, the 2011 conference which will be in a couple of weeks is no exception and so I think we've been able to really pull resources from, if you will, our rolodexes – now it's our contacts – but we've really been able to craft these great conferences really with the complete thought around, thought leadership and what does (a) the audience want to hear and (b) who are the best thought leaders out there. That's the reason why I think I give so much of my time and we really do feel that we're doing something great for our constituents.

Peter: Judy, do you want to add anything to what Eileen just had to say?

Judy: Yes, sure. I echo everything that she said, but I think you said it, Peter; this is a really unique organization. There is no other organization that I know of, or conference like it, where the corporate decision makers and the search professionals share this common platform.

It's true value added, and like Eileen, I don't think that I've been to an IACPR conference where I haven't felt that I haven't gained something and usually it's very substantial. It's serious but fun. It's the best in its class. I don't think there is anybody else in this class. What I really love about it is that it's reputation is stellar. These are the people that are making changes in the talent market. These are people that we're reading about and are quoted constantly, and they come to give their insights and its tremendous value and a huge area for learning. This one is always top of the list because it always has the best content and the best attendees, and everybody gets so much out of it.

Eileen: Peter, I would also just add if your audience doesn't know this that the IACPR is in its 33rd year and was founded initially by an executive, an HR Executive from Pepsi and that person recognized that there was no association or organization that provided that platform between retained executive search and the talent management/acquisition community.

I think that over the past 30+ years there have been many individuals like Judy and myself who have been involved and I think that we really try to adhere to that initial charter which is to bring great thought leaders together, have a professional development moment if you will across a couple of days time span and really stay to the initial charter so I would just add that.

Peter: I appreciate that. That's some great background. Let's talk about this year's event. The theme of this year's conference is "The New Talent Management Strategies for the Future." Can you unpack this headline for us? How is talent management changing, especially in this economy and especially with Fortune 500 companies.

Judy: Peter, I think depending on the economy, the industry that you're working in, market dynamics can be very different and certainly today, we are in a climate that we've never seen the likes of in the past.

Talent becomes exceptionally critical in times like this. To help companies stay competitive and progresses, and this conference will discuss the elements behind this. So strategy for the future I think is a very relevant title for an economy that seems to be shifting day by day and the competitive nature of these organizations, the success of these organizations that are driving these economies forward or hoping to drive these economy forward, very much rest on the kind of talent that they have within these organizations.

So that becomes critical to the health and the future growth, and so that's what we're trying to address and that can come in very different types of packages. It can be due to very different elements, but we take the largest of those elements and try and dissect those and really get behind what the best companies are doing, but I think is really the aim of the conference this year.

Peter: Eileen, from your perspective there in New York.

Eileen: Under the talent management umbrella from a functional perspective, you've got the acquisition piece, you have learning and development, you've got leadership. You have succession planning. You have all of those pieces and functions that really track someone from the time that they enter the door, from the time that in fact throughout their whole process within a particular company.

One of the areas that I know my clients are talking to me about, I'm sure Judy's are as well, is how do they retain their best employees. How are they developing the high potentials? How are they preventing, given a market like this where there is compression on compensation; stock is worth a little bit less (maybe a lot of bit less) – how do they create these either programs in terms of identification but also moving these individuals through organizations?

I read some place over the past few years that something like 70% of all individuals in the C-suite would be open to another opportunity if it presented itself. That's a pretty scary prospect for individuals who are at the CHRO level, the individuals at the top of the HR organization, worrying about how do they provide the best talent in a pipeline to drive business results.

So that's why I believe that this program is absolutely going to be a fantastic program that will address all of those areas including compensation, by the way. We have a killer compensation panel with some of the very best minds within compensation. So that's just one piece of it but it's all the way through.

Peter: Speaking about employee engagement if it's that's scary at the C-level, one can only imagine what it's like when you get below the C-level and a recurring theme at an event such as these has to do with successful approaches to employee engagement.

There was really an interesting article in the New York Times last month titled "Do Happier People Work Harder?" According to the authors, America now feels worse about their jobs and work environments than ever before. One-third of the study of 12,000 employees was unhappy, unmotivated or both and workers expressed frustration, distain or disgust.

So not only does that impact employee engagement but that really has an impact on productivity on the workplace.

Judy: I think a lot of that is due to the changing economy but also people are demanding more. They're expecting more from their employers and I think one of the areas that we're seeing this most really is the demographic shift that every company is experiencing.

With the Gen-X's moving up the corporate ladder, there will continue, I think, to be a C-change because of this and the ideals and the expectations from the sort of coming up middle managers, and it is a different generation. What has been the norm in corporate recruiting will not be the norm in the future. The expectations are very different and companies are realizing this and brings into play something I'm sure we'll be talking about which is employee branding. Companies are offering different types of, for instance, working arrangements, different types of benefits and packages to attract and retain this top talent.

It's not only coming through the ranks, but they really had to change their thinking in the way that they retain individuals and having to be much more flexible in working arrangements. Working from home, Monday to Friday commute, to accommodate people's lifestyle as well and employees are being much more vocal about what they want and if they can't get it from company A, they'll be looking at company B to provide that.

Peter: Well of course on the other side of the HR and recruiting coin, we have the candidate experience. Paul Marchand, the VP of Global Talent Acquisition at PepsiCo is moderating a session on this topic that I'm really looking forward to, and I have to assume, Eileen, that the candidate experience is much better at the executive level (at least I hope it is) than when you get down lower in the food chain. Am I right?

Eileen: I think you are right. The one thing I would add is that companies like PepsiCo and many other companies that have focused on this whole branding and candidate experience is really part of this, are focusing at it across the board like bottom to top.

One thing I might add is that searches and at the levels that we're dealing with, they're usually from director on up, but searches are taking longer. Very often there is not the feedback and the reporting, especially if there is not a third party like a search firm involved.

The frustration that candidates feel by just being left sort of hanging out there without this sense of feedback or communication, I think is quite staggering. When I talk to candidates, they don't hear and its candidates I might identify for a particular search but if they have been sort of in process with something else for a very long time.

I think that companies do themselves a huge disservice when they don't expect that a candidate is going to be out there not only talking positively but also negatively about an experience.

Pepsi is paying attention to this, and I think a lot of more progressive companies are doing the same thing.

Peter: So what is the time to fill these days? Eileen, once you've presented three or four candidates that you've already vetted and that clearly qualify for a job, how many interviews and how long does it take before an offer letter is sent out?

Eileen: I think on average, it is probably for my practice somewhere around the 80-day to perhaps 100-day mark but I just filled a search within 45 days. I also had another search go on for more than four months and it wasn't because we haven't identified the candidates, it was because of the process within these companies.

Remember too that there is this sense of great in trepidation across all companies right now before they go out to hire and yes, they will retain firms like Judy's and mine but when it comes to really sort of making that final decision, it can be extremely elongated and they also want if there are 10 criteria maybe they'll settle for 9 or 8.

When you shift from what I consider to be buyer's to a seller's market, those criteria can lessen a bit, but we're still in a buyer's market, and so the companies hold out until they find exactly the talent that they want.

Peter: Judy, has that happen to be your experience as well?

Judy: It is. Yes, absolutely. I mean there's no doubt since the economic downturn that companies have been much more risk averse than ever before and are looking for more consensus in that decision making. They will invite a larger group of people to vet the candidates once they get to interview stage, and that's something that we're really saying and that is elongating the process, there is no doubt about that.

Candidates are also more risk averse, taking much longer to make these critical decisions. I don't know that I can put a number on it but my feeling is, is that I think it's always an interesting statistic, time to fill, because it's not necessarily that the time to sell that we should be looking at, it really is the time to present those initial qualified candidates because the time between when we first initially present them to the time you fill the position itself can be elongated by people's travel schedules, candidate travel schedules or minor things.

So critically you really want to look at the time to present that that first slate of candidates. I don't think that that has changed a lot from my perspective but then the time to make the decision from the client's perspective have become a lot greater, and I think it's due to this risk averse nature that we're all living in today.

Peter: Another area that's getting far more attention these days, thanks to social networks and sites like GlassDoor and vault.com, is employer branding. As executive search consultants is there something you're paying more attention to or are your clients paying much attention to employer branding? Eileen, you mentioned PepsiCo and I know they certainly are.

Eileen: I would also say that any company that doesn't recognize that anything and everything about their company is out there on the worldwide net is not really thinking from a critical perspective and they're not being strategic about their companies.

It's interesting because I'm currently doing a search for a particular client, and they have a very interesting brand scenario going on. One of their brand is coming off patent, and it's interesting because I knew that was happening but it's not something that I brought up. Well the candidate said to me, "What's going on with the patent for this particular product?"

So within a very, very short period of time and, by the way, the company strategically has managed that so I was able to respond to it. But the point is, is that everything is out there, so that companies really need to pay attention to how they want to be perceived out there in the marke place.

So the candidate experience folds very nicely under that whole employee branding topic.

Judy: This is a really critical area. We mentioned risk in moving it this time and it's used to be the stronger the branding, the less risk the company appeared to have. And as we've seeing from the unfortunate demise of some of the financial institutions, that is not the case.

But there are many ways a perspective candidate to get information online now. Companies are responding to the need for positive PR, but also recognizing that there will be opportunities for candidates and they are being very open about this with our perspective employees in asking – not only ask, but face to face – where this feeling is coming from and where these comments are coming from.

I have a current client at the moment that is well aware that there is a blog about the organization, not a particularly favorable blog online and anybody can access that obviously but they're actually welcoming that because they're responding to it in a way that 'we know we're not perfect. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We're going to make this better.' There are different ways of looking at it.

Some employers are embracing it and others are pushing it away, but there's no doubt that candidates are accessing this and we're accessing it also to be able to ask our clients how we should respond to some of these things that are coping up.

Peter: I think your client has absolutely the right approach in trying to establish a dialogue and a conversation, especially with their critics because that's the only way that they are really going to be able to address this stuff.

Judy: Absolutely, and people are much more vocal than they have been in the past. The smart companies are addressing it head on.

Peter: Judy, there are two sessions on diversity at IACPR this year, and I know this is an area your firm is very involved with. What's the attitude of most large companies regarding diversity and are they serious about building diverse teams, especially at the executive level?

Judy: I think, Peter, companies are always very serious about building diversity into their workforce, but I would say they're not always very effective at doing so. Many, many talk the talk but don't walk the walk as we say.

They think it's easy to attract diverse candidates but all candidates are discerning when it comes to making a move and as we said before, they'll be looking for signs of integrity and diversity history in this area and will have high expectations if they're going to be making a critical career move.

It's not enough, and it's never been enough, for organizations to say we should be more involved in diversity; we should have a more divert executive leadership team. That's step one, but it has to be followed very quickly by what's the infrastructure, what is this going to lead to and how can we make this successful because otherwise what we're continuing to see and it happen time after time is just a revolving door with diversity programs and no consistency, and that's very damaging I think not only to the company because it looks inconsistent, but also to the whole area of diversity.

So the companies that are very serious about it have strong programs. It's really embedded in the company to the point that they don't even talk about diversity programs because it's just part of who they are.

Other companies are still on the ground floor and really need help in identifying ways that they too can embed a diversity culture, but it's not an easy thing to do and candidates are very discerning when it comes to making a move for that diversity placement.

They do go and due diligence and that's one of the reasons why other companies are not successful at putting these programs into place.

Eileen: Peter, I like to add something. From what I see, the diversity functions within the HR area I think have been rather hard hit during this last 3-year cycle, and so the programs and the initiative that really tackled diversity – and it's not just about bringing in a workforce that looks a bit different, it's about diverse thought. It's about vendor management. It's about employee engagement. It's about branding. It's all of that. I would agree with Judy with companies that have that mentality embedded in their organization I think that continues, but I do think that companies who might have struggled with it or who may have brought individuals to really carry the banner, I think those companies have taken a step back because of cost cutting and because survival has been out there and because companies now manage quarter to quarter.

It used to just be financial services, now I view all corporations at this point. Everyone's managing so tightly quarter to quarter and I believe that diversity has taken a little bit of a backseat and I'm not sure what we're going to see going forward.

Peter: Interesting. A question I'd like each of you to answer, what's happening in executive recruitment today and what are you expecting in 2011? Judy, can we start with you?

Judy: It is changing every client. It seems to be this little consistency in their approach to executive recruitment and we're having to be – and we like to be – as flexible as we can in terms of accommodating what they're looking for that timeframe and really helping them think outside of the box.

No news there, I think. That's typically all the case, but more so now than ever, I think, there is an urgency to get these positions filled as quickly as possible. There is no room for error, no margin for error at all, and the speed at which we're being asked to conduct search is very difficult searches, seems to be increasing every day.

Nevertheless, I would say that despite the economic forecast, we are having a banner year. I don't think we've ever been busier. I wouldn't say that it's particularly in any one industry; I think it's across all industries and functional areas. We certainly feel very lucky that businesses are very strong and we expect to see that in 2012.

I would say that we are still seeing a lot of confidential searches out there. I know we didn't talk about that, but as companies are evolving, they are becoming leaner and looking at their business in a different way. There are a lot of executive positions that are being changed out, often board appointments and those are confidential searches and we've seen a real leap in numbers from 2010 and certainly continuing in 2011, and I would imagine that will be continuing in 2012 as easily to shift positions are maneuvered. But I think it's going to continue to be strong for the executive talent industry. I'm being bullish about that but I do believe in positive thoughts, and I think that it's going to continue to be a strong area for growth.

Peter: And Eileen, from your perspective?

Eileen: I think there are a few things happening right now in the executive recruiting world. Executive recruiting used to be defined as let's use a compensation level of maybe a total package of 200,000 on up. And what is happening within companies right now is that from that 200,000-350 range, there are many of those companies that are doing their own internal recruitment for those levels, unless they are confidential searches which I also have been involved with, you know, changing out certain executives; I've had that experience just like Judy has this year.

So I think for those of us and like that is part of my market and then on up clearly, so some of that work is either going in-house or it's going to external contingency firms if they find those firms that are talented and can help them. So I do think there's a certain number that are coming off the table.

I also would talk about 2012. I'm probably not as bullish as Judy. I just came from another industry conference and I think that we're lacking a little bit of momentum and what I mean by that is that we used to be able to look. In my view at a 2 to 3, maybe even a 4-year cycle, and recognize that there was momentum building. And I think just like the stock market, we see ups and we see downs. Just as a client of mine said to me a couple of years ago when we were talking about these hills and these valleys and he said to me, "Get used to it. This is the new normal," and that's what I see and maybe being located in New York, I feel it a little bit more because of this focus in financial services which is only a portion of my industry focus.

So I'm not sure that 2012. I spoke to a candidate out on the West Coast to work in the entertainment business, and he said to me they're hiring like mad in 2011, but we've put the brakes on for 2012. So I think it depends on sort of the industry you're in and the type of work that you're doing.

Peter: I have one last question for both of you. Will you present a candidate to a client that is currently unemployed or will you only present candidates that are currently in a job?

Eileen: I'll present an unemployed candidate. I will do referencing, extensive referencing but I will because I think that this market has presented individuals who have lost their jobs despite perhaps their performance and so I think yes, I will and, in fact, have recently placed two individuals who are unemployed.

Peter: That's very encouraging. Judy, how about you?

Judy: I think that through no fault of their own, there are some extremely talented individuals out there who have been displaced and like Eileen, that's always a question of what happened, what were the circumstances. But very often people get hit in a downsizing and they have a tremendous amount to offer and, in fact, I'm about to close a search in the Midwest and the individual is not working currently but has phenomenal talent and was just a victim of circumstance.

In a way that we would look at any candidate critically, you're looking at history. You're looking at consistency. You're looking at talent and skill sets. I don't see any difference between somebody who is employed, somebody who is unemployed, as long as the circumstances are explainable and that there's no hidden agenda there, then there's no reason not to present somebody who's not working.

Peter: Judy and Eileen, thank you so much for taking time to speak with us today on TotalPicture Radio. Is there anything we haven't discussed, especially around IACPR that you would like to tell our audience?

Judy: I just like to encourage the audience to attend the conference. It will not disappoint. It is well worthwhile and, of course, the core is around talent but that really spans all areas of a corporation. We've got such interesting topics this year. So I would encourage everybody to take a look at the agenda, go onto iacpr.org and signup.

Eileen: I would second to what Judy has said and I will also add that not only do we have a content rich agenda but one of the wonderful byproducts of getting all these great people in the room together is this wonderful collegiality and networking opportunity that everyone has.

So not only do you have takeaways but very often you are really making friends and really meeting new colleagues that have been overwhelmingly the feedback we've received from former attendees.

So I hope that you'll join us. We'd love to see you there.

We've been speaking with Judy Boreham, managing director at Diversified Search based in Philadelphia and Eileen Finn, principal at Eileen Finn & Associates based in New York City.

The IACPR Global Conference will be held October 23rd-25th at 3 West Club in New York City. Visit iacpr.org to learn more.

Please make a point to visit rivieraadvisors.com/podcasts for the monthly podcast series "Insights: Amplified." You'll find a complete library of thought provoking interviews on HR and recruiting including the complete transcripts from these in-depth discussions with leaders and HR and recruiting at the IACPR conference.

While there, please join the conversation with recruiting and staffing professionals on the insights from the Riviera blog. To learn more about Riviera Advisors real world experience and leading and managing corporate internal recruiting and staffing functions, please call toll free 800-635-9063.

This is Peter Clayton reporting. Thank you for tuning in to TotalPicture Radio, the voice of career and leadership acceleration.