Client Landings Rise 15% Against Prior Year in Q1

At The Barrett Group (TBG) it is no secret that the market for executives is always active if you know how and where to look. Now even the executive search community sees an uptick. Thrive Marketing’s March 23rd weekly update reported as much: “CEO searches are up 18% YoY quarter to date.” But remember, the recruiter market represents only about 10% of our client landings. Fully 75% of our clients land through unpublished opportunities revealed via our five-stage career change process.

It is no wonder that our client landings surged 15% in the first quarter over the same period in 2023. Even more positive is that TBG client interviews with prospective employers are up 30% against prior year. That bodes well for further landings in the future.

Our process begins with the Clarity Program©. It helps clients clarify their true targets, taking their whole lives and futures into account. Here’s how one client recently described his Clarity experience:

I cannot overstate how motivating and inspiring it is to have gained the sharp focus on my career development and plan thanks to the Clarity Program done with Tatiana, [his Clarity Coach] making immediate changes in the right direction, focusing my energy and time in the right activities for the concrete aims and goals I will achieve! [Client Miguel Lasprilla, Read more.]

By the way, we are not talking about junior roles either.

See the overview of the titles our landed clients earned in Q1 2024. Their employer list includes many well-known firms, too—Accenture, ADP, MGM, Viacom, and Blue Origin to name but a few.

Many of these roles were not even advertised. We routinely help our clients understand the bubbling unpublished market. These are positions so new they have not even been formalized into job descriptions or compensation plans. As a result, our clients have far more latitude to co-define their roles and influence their pay packages. This is especially with the support of their TBG team, who bring more than three decades’ experience to bear.

We have rarely seen so many CEOs land in such a short space of time, too, and in all manner of industries. Health Care was particularly hot in the first quarter. But Retail also shows a lot of life, as do Restaurants, Manufacturing, Information Technology, and many other segments. See the Landed Clients’ Industries chart for more information. By virtue of our holistic process, our clients realize that they are not stuck in one industry or role. They can repackage their experience to break free or break into new realms of experience once they shed the blinders that constrain most executive recruiters and many hiring managers.

As a result, our process is designed to help clients see and discover more opportunities than they could ever find on their own. [Read more: Dangers of the Do-It-Yourself-Market.]

Then there is the question of compensation.

Many executives working on their own would gladly accept the first offer that comes their way and thereby forego potentially $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 or more in annual compensation and benefits. TBG has developed a tried and true methodology over 30 years that utilizes more than 100 compensation and benefit options to customize each client’s response to a draft offer so as to improve its value without seeming grasping, greedy, or unreasonable.

Here is how one recent client explained the negotiation phase of her TBG program:

I tend to downplay myself during negotiations and George [her TBG Career Consultant] showed me how to position myself for a better offer. He used the visual of a scale to explain how employers have more leverage during the hiring process, but once they give you an offer, you now have more leverage to ask for what you want. We also went over a list of negotiation questions I should ask during the process. Thanks to George, I got a better package than I otherwise would have. [Read more: Samantha’s success.]

And Samantha’s experience is typical in the sense that TBG can virtually always add to any starting offer.

Now some clients prefer not to share or are prohibited from sharing their final offer data so we cannot provide complete information, but for those who chose to share in Q1, 2024, see the results as explained in the Client Compensation Packages (Base Salary) chart.

Bear in mind that these figures exclude many of the compensation elements that are simply harder to explain, put in context, or in some cases quantify such as relocation allowances, education benefits, stock options, equity, etc. Nevertheless, the median reported base salary was $195,000 among our Q1 landed clients.

In short, if your efforts to find that perfect position that satisfies and rewards you are coming up short, perhaps it’s time you took advantage of the expert in the career management market, one that Forbes has cited regularly as one of the best in the business now for years.

Take the first step toward landing the position you’ve always wanted. Contact the Barrett Group today.