Modest Hiring Increases Offset by High Confidence in Executive Search

Even as data from The Conference Board suggest that hiring is increasing modestly at best, findings from ExecuNet indicate that executive recruiters' three-month confidence levels regarding the executive job market is at a two-year high -- a phenomenon perhaps reflecting recent high turnover in the C-suite across several industries.

Executive recruiters’ confidence in management hiring plans in the short-term hit a two-year high this month, according to ExecuNet's benchmark Recruiter Confidence Index (RCI) in June. The RCI, an industry-acknowledged leading indicator compiled since May of 2003 and based on a monthly survey of executive search firms, revealed that 58 percent of 174 responding executive recruiters are “confident” or “very confident” the executive employment market will improve over the next six months, down from a recent record of 65 percent in May. However, confidence in the growth of the executive employment market over the next three months reached a two-year high in June with 51 percent of search firms expecting the market to improve between July and September. Any reading above 50 percent indicates that recruiters are “confident” or “very confident” the number of executive search assignments launched by employers in the next six months will increase.

Contrast ExecuNet's solid findings with some of the latest data from The Conference Board on industry-wide job demand: Online advertised vacancies inched up by 19,600 in June to 4,154,000 following a small decline in May, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine™ (HWOL) Data Series released June 30. Translated, this means job demand remained essentially unchanged in May and June, but was up to more than 500,000 nationally during the first 6 months of 2010. Looked at another way, the gap between the number of unemployed and advertised vacancies (supply/demand rate) stood at 3.62 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in May (the last available unemployment data), but is down from 4.73 in October 2009.