Category: Management & Leadership

When a business conducts a financial professional search, there should always be a higher goal above the task of simply recruiting a competent individual with the necessary qualifications. Every company should constantly be on the lookout for an innovator who has the potential to disrupt their industry on the scale of a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg.

Raising productivity levels has traditionally been a key goal for corporations, but the modern economy appears to be increasingly dominated by companies that are able to introduce game-changing innovations into their industries. And, although many of the most prominent examples of this trend are found in tech companies such as Apple and Facebook, it is critical for individuals and organizations across all industries to recognize the growing importance of innovation in successful business models.

Recruiting a few disruptive thinkers can help a company develop an overall culture of innovation where generating fresh, new ideas is the norm. This in turn builds the value of the business’s brand and can help entice new talent to join the company.

Those businesses that are looking to hire innovative professionals for open jobs in finance will need an edge in their recruitment efforts. Many businesses may be able to make use of temporary staff or outside financial project consulting services while searching for new hires, allowing them to focus on finding truly outstanding candidates that will add to a company’s value over the long term.

The best way for a business to successfully identify and hire this type of individual is to work with established corporate recruiters. When it comes to finding top-quality workers, there is no substitute for the depth of experience that professional recruiters bring to every candidate search.

Francesca’s Collections, a retailer of women’s apparel, may currently be in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over messages sent out on Twitter by the company’s former CFO, Gene Morphis.

On March 7, six days before the company filed its annual report with the SEC, Morphis tweeted “Board Meeting. Good numbers=Happy Board.” This appears to be a violation of SEC regulations, as the tweet contained material, nonpublic information that was divulged only to a select audience – Morphis’ Twitter followers.

Morphis’ name did not appear on the account profile, but it was linked to his Facebook and LinkedIn accounts as well as his personal blog. The account has since been deactivated.

After a two-day investigation, Morphis was fired on May 13. In a press release announcing the termination, the company simply stated that he had “improperly communicated company information through social media.”

Francesca’s Collections claims it had been unaware of Morphis’ activities prior to May 11, but the company may still face SEC enforcement action. David Cifrino, a securities attorney, told CFO Magazine that violations of that type typically result in monetary settlements ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 and, more importantly, can do significant reputational damage to the company.

“To the extent the company can show it had policies prohibiting that sort of behavior, the SEC might take that into consideration,” says Cifrino. “But ultimately, a company is responsible for the behavior of its officials, and anyone it entrusts as CFO ought to know that tweeting material nonpublic information would be a problem.”

The incident clearly highlights the risks of hiring unreliable individuals for high-level executive and financial positions. CFO jobs especially demand individuals with discretion and a forward-thinking disposition.

Working with professional recruiters can help companies ensure that they are reaching top-quality candidates in every financial professional search. Relying on the judgement of experts allows companies to avoid future scandals by hiring the right applicant for each open position.

ExecuNet, a senior-executive networking group, recently released the results of a survey involving over 4,000 executives and hundreds of executive-search and human resources professionals. The research turned up a significant amount of optimism among respondents, centering on indicators of an improving market for executive jobs.

Topping the list of good news was rising interest in high-level hiring. Of the companies represented, 25 percent expect to add new executive positions during the remainder of 2012.

There was also evidence of increased interest in retaining talented individuals. Of the executives surveyed, 67 percent said their companies are focusing more on executive retention compared to last year. Over 50 percent said their companies are increasing executive salaries and bonuses to retain top quality management staff.

However, the executives were still looking to maximize their options, with 58 percent saying they had updated their resumes in the last three months and 67 percent saying they were now actively using the internet to shape their professional image and increase their visibility to potential employers or business partners. Furthermore, 66 percent identified networking as the best way to open up new opportunities and expressed interest in expanding their own professional networks.

A great way to reach out to established executives is to work with one of the recruitment firms that specializes in your company’s industry or geographical area. The executive recruiters surveyed by ExecuNet stated they were expecting a 21 percent increase in executive-search assignments compared to last year. This surge in usage clearly illustrates the utility of working with professional recruiters, as perceived by those companies that are currently looking to expand their executive teams.

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.