Resources

Executive Search Quarterly Report: Q2 2024

Midway through 2024, and it feels like—maybe—the market is finding its footing.

Though executive search volume dropped 3% quarter-over-quarter, this can be seen as a win for a market used to taking two steps forward and one step back.

The last time the executive search market seemed to be rebounding, the next quarter saw a 13% drop in search volume, erasing nearly all the momentum from the previous six months. Against that backdrop, Q2 feels like a positive development.

Executive Search Quarterly Report: Q1 2024

The start of 2024 felt a lot like the end of 2024: solid.

Executive search volume grew 8% year-over-year in Q1 and 12% quarter-over-quarter—similar to Q4 2023.

It has been almost three years since we have seen more than two consecutive quarters of consistent performance in the executive search market. While there is a general sense of optimism, it’s hard to ignore macro developments as indicators that there may be limits to the remaining rebound.

Executive Compensation & Hiring Benchmarks 2023

If you needed to sum up 2023 with any sort of adjective or succinct description, it might be fitting to call it the year of the anti-narrative.

For 12+ years, save for basically one quarter of COVID uncertainty, the growth narrative was clean, consistent, and fairly linear.

Last year, though, was a reminder that, outside of those times, much of the macro works in varying degrees of fits and starts where a single thread is harder to highlight: The pessimism of 2022 was met with a strong public market start to 2023.

Maintaining DE&I Momentum in 2024

Executive leadership is starting to question the impact and investment related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I)—79% of exec talent leaders say their bosses want to see metrics regarding DE&I and another 42% are being asked to provide more frequent progress updates.

In this recording, panelists Kirt Morris, Chief Equity Officer, Sabrina Long, DEI Talent Acquisition Leader, and Alexis Millen, Early Careers Program Leader, share their expertise building a transparent and data-driven culture around DEI initiatives at Merkle and Dentsu.

Watch the recording to learn more.

Executive Search Quarterly Report: Q3 2023

A splash of cold water. That might be Q3 in a nutshell. Rewind three months and optimism was high. Everyone was hoping for a rebound and many were willing to believe certain data points—a market rally, continued growth in executive hiring—served as confirmation we were there—or, at least, almost there.

Mid-Year Executive Search Report: Q2 2023

Executive search volume is up for the second straight quarter. A year after the frothy 2021-2022 executive talent market seemingly fell off a cliff, we’re nearly back to where we were before the takeoff started. All things considered, that’s a positive first half to 2023.

Webinar: “Differentiating DE&I: Revisiting and Uniquely Supporting Each Pillar”

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&l) isn’t as much a dedicated initiative as much as it’s being woven into the fabric of organizational cultures. One of the leading voices in that effort—Mita Mallick, Head of DEI at Carta and author of “Reimagine Inclusion”—joined us and our partner, AboveBoard, for a webinar that offered practical advice on how to do this.

Watch the recording to learn more.

Executive Search Quarterly Report: Q1 2023

Opened searches increased nearly 12.5% quarter over quarter in Q1—the largest single-quarter growth since Q3 2021—but some sectors of the market aren’t yet seeing that turnaround. 

Overall, it seems, we are in an environment that has created three very different markets.

Our report highlights key developments in the macro environment, within each asset class and the technology sector specifically, as well as executive compensation and search velocity benchmarks by asset class.

2023 Executive Search Pulse Survey

While our 2022 benchmarks report quantitatively showed what happened in the back half of the year, we turned to talent partners and executive search leaders to tell us how they’re planning for 2023, what obstacles they see and where they’re focused on delivering value.