World-renowned executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles committed a major blunder when not fully vetting Scott Thompson before presenting him as a CEO candidate for Yahoo. In fact, they never uncovered Thompson’s falsified educational credentials! Instead, it was activist shareholder Daniel Loeb, whose hedge fund Third Point controls 6% of Yahoo’s stock, who discovered that Stonehill College didn’t even offer a computer science degree until four years after Thompson graduated. This raises a lot of questions about Heidrick & Struggles quality of work including: 1) Why did it take until 4 months after Mr. Thompson started to unearth this falsehood? And 2) Why didn’t Heidrick & Struggles discover this misstep themselves as part of their background investigation?

This spotlights the need for our main mantra, being thorough. As part of our extensive background investigations we check criminal records, civil records (e.g. bankruptcies), educational credentials and references. Our private investigator, who is an ex-FBI agent, doesn’t just rely upon mass databases, which are often outdated and riddled with errors. Instead, he digs deep by going to directly to the courthouses where key information is housed. He takes this extra care because past behavior is the best predictor of future missteps. We have even trademarked our unique process, which is called Accu-Check™. Please go to http://www.strategicsearch.com/accucheck.php to learn more.

This thoroughness has paid off many times over including during our recent search for a CEO of a venture-backed nanosensor company. During the vetting process we unearthed several DUI’s with one of the top candidates. Though he adamantly denied the infractions, I repeatedly quizzed him about this (Key: I learned from my investigator to ask and restate the same question in a variety of ways in order to “trip up” candidates). One version of my questioning was, “why would you agree to pay fines and do community service if you were not guilty of this infraction?” He folded under repeated questioning. As a result, my client was saved from the trauma of misinformation.

With the mega IPO pending for Facebook, I am reminded that LinkedIn has been a much better business networking tool for our firm. Though Facebook is trying to push into the business market, they still seem to be more slated towards personal contacts. This contrasts with LinkedIn, which has netted me a lot more useful passive candidates for very difficult searches. That is why I have put very little effort into either Facebook or Twitter as business networking tools. Instead, I have put a lot of effort into building up 1300 key connections on LinkedIn, which makes me one of the top 1% of all LinkedIn networkers!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported this morning that the unemployment rate fell .1% to 8.1% in April. Unfortunately, only 115,000 new jobs were created, which was a drop of 5,000 from March. Furthermore, the number of both unemployed and underemployed (e.g. involuntarily working part-time or just giving up and as a result not being reported) stayed the same at 22,800,000! This is 1 in 6 of all Americans! Fortunately, relief exists in the new form of networking: Link Building.

After several years of reporting on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for numerous media outlets, I came to realize the importance of applying SEO to job hunting. As a result, I built up the largest, non-profit, professional SEO group in the Chicago area with almost 600 members. Last week I hosted a special symposium focused on Link Building, which is one of the most important SEO tools. It is the new, electronic version of adding contacts to your Rolodex. As applied to job-hunting, it helps link high-quality connections to one’s online presence (e.g. blog or website) by providing what search engines call “Link Juice” or increased reputation. Candidates can leverage this increased reputation to enhance their chances of being found and hired by desired employers!

Please click here to view the Power Point presentation on Link Building.

Today’s figures released by the ISM (Institute For Supply Management) point to an expanding manufacturing base and increased hiring activity. Manufacturing activity expanded for the 33rd straight month as evidenced by the reading of 54.8 in April. This was an increase of 1.4 over March. The key is that any reading above 50 means that manufacturing is expanding. Also, the ISM employment gauge increased to 57.3 in April from 56.1 in March, which was its highest reading since June 2011. These figures point to more and more openings and scarcities of talent in many areas.

Recruiting among the largest U.S. companies has increased exponentially over the last few months due to those companies emerging from the deepest recession since World War II more productive, more profitable, flush with cash and less burdened by debt.

Over the last two months, I have noticed this anecdotally, but this has been confirmed by recent analysis by a series of corporate financial reports, which demonstrate that cumulative sales, profits and employment last year, among members of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, exceeded the totals of 2007 (i.e. before the recent recession and financial crisis began). Deep cost cutting during the downturn and caution during the recovery put these companies on firmer financial footing, helping them to outperform the rest of the economy.

This means that they will be aggressively recruiting the rest of this year including top engineers, scientists and other technical people especially in the Chicago jobs market. For some key positions, this will lead to:

1. Increased salaries and compensation needed to attract desired talent.
2. Shortages of certain talent.
3. Increased recruiting times needed to fill certain jobs.

Employers only created 120,000 jobs last month, which was 50% of the number added in the prior month. It was the first time since November that jobs creation fell below 200,000. Most of the one-tenth of a point drop was due to fewer Americans seeking work and not more workers finding jobs! However, relief exists in the new form of networking: electronic networking.

As an executive recruiter over the last 25 years, I have found that over 70% of my most qualified candidates were uncovered by networking. Today is no different. However, new, electronic methods of networking exist. Two are: 1) leveraging social media sites like LinkedIn and 2) Link Building. Like in past times when you swayed contacts to be added to your rolodex, Link Building is an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) adaptation where by you convince high-quality contacts to link to your online presence (e.g. blog) to provide what search engines call “Link Juice” or increased reputation. Candidates can leverage this increased reputation to increase their chances of being hired by desired employers! To learn more, I invite you as my special guest to an extraordinary symposium I am hosting on Wednesday, April 25th starting at 5:30 p.m. entitled, “Link Building In 2012 And Beyond.”

Anecdotally, I have heard from several sources fewer candidates want to relocate for a new job and fewer companies want to pay to relocate a candidate. It seems like an evolution in today’s jobs market. What are your thoughts?

We have seen many turndowns for the men’s head basketball coach at the University of Illinois including Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens. It’s now time for Athletic Director Mike Thomas to get creative. Since his goals are:

1. To hire an Afro-American candidate.
2. Get a winner.
3. Recruit from the Chicago area.

One idea is to hire Simeon head basketball coach Robert Smith. You may say, “Smith does not have any college experience.” That’s true, but he needs to get it some day. Why not now? Also, I recommend bringing in a mentor to acclimate him to the college game. For example, how about John Thompson, the former, successful Georgetown coach? Coach will have nothing to worry about because Thompson isn’t interested in coaching anymore. Instead, he will gain a lot of valuable tips and mentorship from coach Thompson on route to achieving Athletic Director Thomas’ goals.

The best way to share confidential information to candidates during the interview process is for you to selectively share it with those that you really like privately in your office after the interview. The reasons for this are:

1. As a rule-of-thumb the more people you share this with (e.g. mentioning before the interview) the more risk that the information will be disseminated to others you do not want to know about this.
2. You can control who learns this information. Especially with all the social media outlets that exist, you want as few people as possible knowing about this.
3. This can be a nice “carrot” to add to their interest when they leave.

Many top-level recruiters trumpet the difficulties of high-level executive searches. I have found just the opposite. Unlike a Design Engineer or Purchasing Manager search where it is often difficult to identify candidates, CEO candidates are very easy to find. Many resource directories clearly identify them. Also, it is easier to identify their successes. Company success or failure is the key scorecard. Lastly, CEO candidates tend to be more open to new opportunities. Therefore, I feel that executive searches for CEO candidates may be in some respects less difficult than lower level recruiting efforts.