canadian headhunter

By the Time I Get to Phoenix....

Headhunting firms in Phoenix are up in arms because the local economic council has hired a Florida based search firm to conduct the search for a replacement for their outgoing president.


They didn't even give any of us a chance to make a presentation," said Chuck Pearson, chief executive officer of Pearson & Associates Inc., a Phoenix-based executive-search firm. Pearson and several others said they were miffed as to why an organization with a mission to attract high-wage jobs to the Valley would not give more weight to local firms in its selection process.

"The message should be: 'If you are going to have a large search like this, you should at least give consideration to local firms beyond a request for qualifications,' " said Rich Wilder, executive vice president of DHR International, which has Phoenix operations. He, too, was disappointed that his firm wasn't among the finalists.

You have to feel some sympathy for the Phoenix search firms but this is a pain Canadian firms know all too well. Michael and I used to do a lot of searches in the SW sales arena and always had plenty of candidates who told thus their ideal opportunity would be a US firm who was setting up shop in Canada.

However these firms seemed to always arrive with their own headhunter in tow. Not that we minded that they were using headhunters we just weren't convinced that a firm based in Los Angeles had a better grasp on the local market than we did.

Of course we have no compunction about doing searches in other cities either. In fact the great bulk of our work is done by telephone which makes location somewhat moot.

However there is something to be said for throwing local businesses a bone.

Full story here