Is executive recruitment changing?

The future of Executive Search in a changing recruitment environment

In the beginning of this year, we posted about our Hanken-student writing her Master’s thesis. Now the work is done and you can read it from here. A short summary in Finnish is available here.

What does the thesis examine?

There has been discussion about how social media affects recruitment. This thesis examines how technological developments affect executive recruitment, and more specifically the executive search field. The study aims to provide understanding, using sense-making theories, of how technological advances and social media affects executive recruitment, and possibly the executive search field. The study answers the following research questions:

• How do HR Directors make sense of the changing recruitment environment?
• What are the key elements in executive recruitment that arise in the sense-making of the recruitment environment?

To sum up

According to the interviewd HR Directors, we can conclude that there is still a need for executive search services in the future. The field is not dissappearing, and the executive search field might not get as affected by technological developments, as some believe. However, there is a reason to acknowledge demands and challenges that the HR Directors discuss; how do executive search firms place them on the markets, what services do they offer, and how can they offer more flexible pricing methods?

It is interesting to see how the field will change, due to new challenges and opportunities.

Are you interested to hear more about this? Please, do not hesitate to contact me, I will gladly present the topic and discuss it more in detail!