Chairman's Blog Archives

Reflections in the Mirror of Your Life

October 22, 2023
Chairman's Blog

Inspiration can come from anywhere, so why not a fortune cookie? The fortune read, “Life is like a mirror. When you smile into it, it smiles back. When you frown at it, it frowns in return.” Let’s not get too metaphysical here, but there is a certain basic truth to this observation. Just as clear...

Results Don’t Lie: It’s the ROI

October 15, 2023
Chairman's Blog

Executives often ask us why they should have to invest in their careers. In the early part of your career, investment is indeed less necessary. But as you age and the telephone stops bringing hungry headhunters, investment begins to seem more reasonable. After all, your career is your most valuable...

Cherry-picking Your Career

October 8, 2023
Chairman's Blog

As an executive, you may feel that your career options are limited by your industry, your role, your location, your income requirements, and, of course, personal concerns. We might like to politely disagree with this assessment, excluding the personal concerns parameter, of course. You see, many of...

Industry Update: Information Technology

October 1, 2023
Chairman's Blog, Industry Updates

Before we look at this industry in detail let us first rise to the 30,000-foot altitude and look at the landscape for a moment. Many sources offer such perspectives but one interesting source took the abstraction to an unusual level. They focused mainly on emotional motivation. Paraphrasing this ...

Warning: Autumn Avalanche in the Executive Market

September 24, 2023
Chairman's Blog

It’s true. Call it a tsunami, a surge, or an avalanche, but when human resources and hiring managers come back from their summer holidays (in the northern hemisphere) they usually publish a slew of want ads, engage search firms, and otherwise seek to catch up on hiring candidates for all of those...

Dangers of the Do-It-Yourself Market

September 17, 2023
Chairman's Blog

You could, of course, not invest in your career. You could join the thousands of job seekers applying to online ads or bombarding disinterested recruiters with irrelevant resumes. This approach guarantees maximum competition and minimum compensation because it creates a “buyers’ market” where the...

INDUSTRY UPDATE: A World of Executive Opportunity

September 10, 2023
Chairman's Blog, Industry Updates

The Barrett Group principally covers the three regional markets noted below with some exceptions. But there is truly a world of executive opportunity out there if you know where to look. More than 450,000 executive positions were filled in the past year in these markets. To be sure, the rates of growth...

Marketable or Makeover (Part Three): Perceiving the Invisible Market for Executives

September 3, 2023
Chairman's Blog

Imagine you and two friends stumble across a huge shape in the dark. One of you reaches out and feels big floppy leaves like an enormous tree. Another feels a sturdy tree trunk, wrinkled, and strong. And the third feels a tiny stalk with a fly whisk on the end. Later when you discuss your impressions,...

INDUSTRY UPDATE: Leisure, Travel, Hospitality & Restaurants

August 26, 2023
Chairman's Blog, Industry Updates

We bundle Leisure, Tourism, Travel, Hospitality, and Food into one macro-category. There is significant overlap and transfer of executives between these related activities. Clearly, these industries suffered during the Covid-19 lockdowns. These industries have taken some time to recover, but that...

Marketable or Makeover (Part Two): Perfecting Your Packaging

August 19, 2023
Chairman's Blog

Once upon a time, a resume may well have served its purpose as a chronological recounting of a candidate’s titles. It listed responsibilities, employers, and dates of employment, but that is not a helpful strategy anymore. In fact, it might be helpful to think of a resume essentially as an exclusionary...