Category: Management & Leadership

Many positions demand specialized skills or training, but new research is looking at the increasing importance of “soft skills” in the modern job market. A recent study by Millennial Branding, using Experience, Inc.’s data pool, explored the current needs of employers and the trends affecting hiring decisions.

Although 100 percent of the employers surveyed said that they believed college prepares students for the workplace, they also stressed the importance of soft skills. Communication skills, positive attitudes and teamwork skills were identified as being important or very important by 98 percent, 97 percent and 92 percent of respondents, respectively.

“It’s clear based on the data that employers truly value the so-called soft skills, such as analytical thinking and communication ability,” explains Jennifer Floren, CEO of Experience, Inc. “I think this speaks to the fact that specific on-the-job skills change, and they change more quickly these days than ever before.  As a result, employers are looking for raw material – talent that they can work with and develop, people who can adapt to changes over time.”

This is true across many industries. Even more technical jobs in finance demand on-your-feet thinking and the ability to communicate clearly and effectively. And, while “hard skills” can be taught, soft skills are generally ingrained parts of people’s personalities, built up over the course of their life experiences. However, they don’t always necessarily fit on a resume the way specific work experience does.

This is what makes it so valuable to work with professional recruiters. The staff at these firms have a wealth of experience to draw upon when evaluating job applicants. They can put their full focus into finding candidates who are not only qualified in a technical sense, but are also well-rounded individuals with the interpersonal and critical thinking skills necessary to bring real value to a company.

A survey of 32 leading economists points to strong job creation in the first few months of the year with optimism that the trend will sustain greater economic growth throughout the rest of 2012.

Unemployment was 9.8 percent in November of 2010, but the economists surveyed predict that it will drop below 8 percent by November of this year.

From January to March, the economy added an average of 212,000 jobs every month. This growth is expected to decline slightly, with 177,000 jobs expected to be added each month from April through June, and an estimated 189,000 jobs per month for the rest of the year.

Despite the decline, growth is still going to be much higher than last year, when the average rate of job creation was only 158,000 per month.

Also, the economy only grew by 1.7 percent last year. This year, the growth rate is expected to be around 2.5 percent.

Phillip Swagel, a University of Maryland economist, explains that “the job market is improving enough that consumer spending can grow,” which means that “businesses are finally confident enough to hire and invest.”

This is good news, but companies still need to do the dirty work of matching applicants to open jobs. Any businesses looking to expand should be aware of the benefits of letting corporate recruiters play a role in their search for qualified candidates. Nothing compares to the experience of having a full-time hiring firm on the job, especially when it comes to filling high-level executive positions. Professional recruiters bring their experience to the table and are also able to dedicate themselves completely to the task at hand, leaving the client company’s staff free to focus on their main responsibility: running their business.

A new survey indicates that 2012 will continue to be a critically important time for businesses looking to fill executive positions.

The survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, included input from over 2,000 human resources professionals and hiring managers. Twenty-three percent of them said their company was planning to hire new executives within the next six months.

Those companies determined to gain an edge in this competitive hiring period would no doubt benefit from reaching out to one of the many headhunting firms with expertise in high-level recruiting. This is specially true for a company looking to fill more specialized positions. Working with professional recruiters can be a major advantage when it comes to filling executive positions or jobs in finance.

Experience trumped education in the eyes of the recruiters being surveyed. Among those whose companies were planning to hire executives, only 20 percent stated that they look for an MBA or a comparable degree. The number that looked for experience-related credentials was much higher. Sixty-two percent said they look for candidates with proven skills in problem-solving. Fifty-four percent said they want someone who has demonstrated that they are capable of motivating co-workers.

The survey also asked about recruiting from internal versus external sources. Eighteen percent of survey respondents indicated that they preferred to hire executives from outside the company. Thirty-five percent said they would even consider someone with no industry-specific experience. Demonstrable creativity and critical thinking skills appeared to be the most important qualifications in the eyes of the HR recruiters being surveyed.

However, these skills are extremely difficult to measure. This is one of the main reasons that using an experienced firm of professional recruiters can be such a huge advantage for companies looking to fill top spots. Especially when it comes to searching for great CFOs, an executive search firm can act as a major asset to any company.

According to a new survey of 500 HR professionals by relocation services provider Allied Van Lines, 2012 is shaping up to be a huge year for corporate recruiters. Two out of three of those surveyed said they planned to conduct “moderate” or “extensive” hiring this year. For businesses with over 10,000 employees, that figure is even higher at 80 percent.

Respondents also expressed optimism about the mobility of the U.S. workforce, with only 6 percent stating that they believed workers would be unwilling to relocate. The survey data suggested that professional recruiters acknowledge the importance of offering relocation benefits, but that their employers are largely either unwilling or unable to actually offer the kind of comprehensive package that would really be an asset in attracting top non-local talent.

Seventy-two percent of the companies offered only four of the 10 relocation-related benefits listed by the survey, such as information on local schools for parents. The lack of diverse relocation incentives was identified as a major barrier to long-range recruitment.

Those businesses looking to attract the best candidates should seek to set their company apart from the competition by offering a diverse package of benefits, including relocation incentives. Opening up a recruitment search to include a greater geographical area can be vital considering that even those describing their recruiting program as “highly successful” stated that they still lose around 25 percent of their top-choice candidates.

Of course, other benefits come into play in the recruitment process as well. A February 2012 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that many CFOs consider the quality of a company’s healthcare benefits to be closely linked to its ability to attract talented workers.

But, whatever benefits a business offers, it still needs to make contact with people before it can hire them. And finding good workers continues to be a challenge. Companies looking to bolster their chances of finding a perfect fit should strongly consider contacting a recruitment firm.

Research and development (R&D) is a key component of business practices. Without adequate R&D, businesses render themselves unable to innovate properly, which could curtail a company’s ability to grow and improve its offerings. Considering the explosion of businesses – especially in technology sectors – consumers will always have options to receive better products or services from other companies.

Companies need to be careful with how they plan for long-term R&D projects. While these initiatives may seem to represent expenditures at first glance, some businesses consider them to be assets since they provide direct financial benefits to companies. Accountants should also consider the duration of time that a company receives a direct benefit from the project.

Given the challenging landscape of today’s economy, many organizations have come to view R&D projects as extraneous expenses that can be near the front of the chopping block when costs need to be cut. After all, the benefits of R&D initiatives are never guaranteed, along with net gains that are derived from these projects. Many companies would rather cut these projects than reduce services or institute layoffs.

According to a recent Harvard Business Review article, this is precisely the wrong direction a company should take as it tries to rebound from years of difficulties. HBR estimated that had the top 20 companies in the United States enhanced their R&D expenditures, they would have added $1 trillion to their coffers.

“R&D is the basic engine of economic health,” according to the article. “Ill-advised cuts in research spending for the sake of a short-term bottom-line improvement stifle growth that would otherwise benefit the company – and society – over the long term.”

When trying to find business professionals who are well-versed in long-term financial planning and understand the substantial benefits of R&D work, companies should work with finance recruiters that have experience in a number of different industries.

The number of risks a business faces on a daily basis is nearly endless, with problems ranging from minor hang-ups to devastating disasters. Preparation for these hurdles is critical, but even the most experienced CFO or financial professional may still find risk management to be challenging.

Whether organizations formally address risk through an internal committee, an external auditing service or if risk management is embedded in a company’s culture, what is important is that risk is not ignored entirely. Many companies also emphasize communication throughout the risk mitigation process, as stakeholders are regularly kept in the loop about risk processes.

Writing for Harvard Business Review, three authors advocate business decision makers accepting that harmful incidents will occur and planning accordingly for the consequences. These low-probability, high-impact events are generally very difficult, if not impossible to predict, making any attempt to do so mostly futile.

“Risk management, we believe, should be about lessening the impact of what we don’t understand – not a futile attempt to develop sophisticated techniques and stories that perpetuate our illusions of being able to understand and predict the social and economic environment,” Nassim Taleb, Daniel Goldstein and Mark Spitznagel wrote in October 2009.

Executive teams, particularly CFOs and other financial professionals, need to be well-versed in risk management and long-term planning strategies, as a lack of foresight among members of the finance team can set a company back substantially.

To fill finance and CFO jobs with these strategic thinkers, business should rely on financial recruitment firms that have accessed to experienced industry professionals. A financial professional search accelerates this process and provides business makers with an expanded pool of qualified candidates that they can choose from when making a final hiring decision.

Back in the early 2000s, most CEOs could all but guarantee they would last about one decade in one corner office position. In light of shifting economic conditions over the last 10 years, these business leaders now serve an average of 8.4 years, according to a new study.

The Conference Board’s 2012 CEO Succession Practices report made that determination following a thorough analysis of S&P 500 companies in the last year. Although a nearly endless number of reasons could explain the drop in average tenure, researchers specifically mentioned more CEOs leaving voluntarily due to expanding pressures.

Another explanation has to do with the evolving relationship between corporate officers and the boards to which they are responsible. The business world has become increasingly competitive, leaving many business decision makers unwilling to wait for results.

“You can look at the CEO relationship with their companies as a form of marriage,” executive leadership expert Lauren Mackler told The New York Times in 2008. “And roughly one of every two marriages right now is going to end in divorce. We’ve become a disposable society. Everything is dispensable, including people.”

Mackler’s comments came several years before the most recent populist sentiment that has swept through America, as certain executives have been vilified for the pay they receive relative to their perceived output. Corporate boards are unlikely to be isolated from feedback coming from business stakeholders, including shareholders, so they may be more willing to pull the trigger and dismiss an underperforming CEO earlier in his or her tenure.

If a CEO, CFO or other C-level officer needs to be replaced, businesses may need to turn to a job search firms with experience recruiting managers and financial professionals. The candidates identified by this recruiter will identify high-quality candidates for jobs in finance who can provide value to any business.

Regular reports from businesses help company stakeholders – employees, stockholders, board members and customers – stay on the same page with their latest developments. The International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC) has endorsed a new type of reporting method that would compile all the different aspects of a business, such as financial information and organizational composition, and include how they are interconnected.

According to a new IIRC report, many businesses have expressed support for these integrated reports, which are far more involved than their predecessors from even a decade ago.

“Integrated reporting brings together material information about an organization’s strategy, governance, performance and prospects in a way that reflects the commercial, social
and environmental context within which it operates,” according to the report. “It provides a clear and concise representation of how an organization demonstrates stewardship and how it creates and sustains value.”

The IIRC report traces the development of such reports from the 1980s, when information about finances, corporate governance and management, and a company’s environmental efforts were each reported as separate and distinct portals. Although these different components of a business have slowly come closer together since then, the IIRC hopes that a more integrated model develops over the next decade.

As this model evolves, business leaders will be better able to allocate their resources going forward. With a long-term plan in place, executives can see how their company fits into an increasingly global market.

In order for these reports to be successful though, businesses must hire financial professionals who employ long-term, strategic thinking in completing their responsibilities. From those holding CFO jobs to other individuals with jobs in finance, this mindset must be promoted throughout an organization. Financial professional recruiters can help companies identify these business leaders.

Although the 2011 filing deadline for taxes looms less than one week away, mid-sized businesses would be best-served to begin thinking about their taxes for this year as soon as possible.

Tax preparation lends itself to outsourced work, since it is only required for a short duration of time. Like all independent contractors, tax and accounting professionals are highly skilled and are experts in their field. Because of the volatile and intricate nature of tax law, many businesses may not have these professionals in-house.

Businesses decision makers also need to analyze the size of their organizations and their profit-and-loss numbers. Small business executives may be able to handle their tax responsibilities without outside help, but as companies expand, tax work may become too complicated to complete without outside assistance.

When recruiting accountants and other financial professionals, companies should be sure to begin the process early. Most years, the demand for tax professionals vastly outnumbers the available supply, so companies may need to scoop up these workers well in advance of next April’s deadline.

Supply may decrease in the near future, according to a recent American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) study, which found that many CPAs are heading directly into accounting divisions of companies, instead of remaining independent.

Once businesses settle on a particular tax services provider, it should provide sufficient orientation to allow that financial professional to be successful. No matter how experienced  tax professionals are, they are unlikely to thrive if they are unfamiliar with the procedures and practices of a particular organization.

To expedite this process altogether, businesses can work with experienced finance recruiters during a financial professional search. This will ensure that high-quality candidates are hired.

Much has been made about the recent ascensions of high-profile female executives to C-level positions, including Carol Bartz, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, but companies may still have work to do once women obtain these positions.

A recent study by GMI Research found that male CFOs make about 16.3 percent more on average, or about $215,000, than their female counterparts. The results were so statistically significant that researchers were able to accurately predict the gender of a financial professional – based only on their compensation amount – about 62 percent of the time. Researchers speculated on the reasons for this disparity.

“It is possible that women are more likely than men to advance through promotion from within a single company,” study co-author Kimberly Gladman told CFO.com. “Many firms tend to pay more when making outside hires, which could lower women’s compensation levels.”

The report also speculated that women’s careers are more often interrupted to bear children, but it did not study why so few women were employed as CFOs at both the largest and the smallest companies.

A prior GMI report that found similar results – women made 78 percent of what males made at the median – further speculated that low pay among female CFOs could be attributable to those candidates being more concerned about simply getting a job than haggling for a higher salary amount.

Whatever the reason, businesses that hire financial professionals or are recruiting for auditing positions – either on their own or with the assistance of headhunting firms – need to be aware of compensation trends when determining how much they will pay these workers. An offer must be competitive enough to attract workers to their business without plunging the company to financial turmoil.