Hundreds of Happy Executives

Hundreds of Happy Executives (Despite Unprecedented Upheaval)

Anyone who reads or listens to the news knows how turbulent this year has been. But if you look at how our clients are landing, it simply goes to prove that there is always movement in the executive market—regardless of macroeconomic circumstances (if you know where to look).

Take the continuous progress our clients have achieved in gaining interviews and landing positions so far this year. Hundreds of offers accepted. More than 1.3 per work day. And more than twice as many first interviews so far! Sure, some sectors are softer than others, but here is where our clients have landed from an industry point of view this year:

At the top of the list, Healthcare covers a lot of ground, including major pharmaceutical companies, hospital systems, and medical device manufacturers. Financial service companies, retailing, banking, manufacturing, and management consulting also include a large number of well known firms listed above in the Sample Employers overview. The “Other” category simply defies easy classification.

As we will see a bit later, title and income do not always go hand in hand.

Let us begin with the title geography of our landed clients. (See the Client Roles (Titles) graphic.)

The C-level group holds the whole range of expected titles from CEO to CFO, COO, CIO, as well as less common designations such as CHRO (human resources), CPO (procurement or product), CRO (revenue). Chairman, President, Partner, and Managing Director also show up in this category. 

The S/E/VP category holds a broad array of Senior, Executive, and plain vanilla Vice Presidents for a wide variety of functions including Sales, Business Development, Marketing, Finance, Operations, Information Technology, Supply Chain, Governance, R&D, and other, less common options such as Enterprise Accounts or Investment & Data Systems. We also included the General Counsel and General Manager roles in this grouping as well as the “Head of” title that contains substantive responsibilities such as Investor Relations, Strategy, Customer Success and/or Engagement, as well as the tried and true Business Development, Sales, Operations, and regional roles such as Head of Europe.

The Director level is even broader, encompassing as it does the usual functional areas of Sales, Marketing, Finance, Information Technology, etc. but also exotics such as Innovation, Construction, Training, People Strategy, Process Excellence, Compliance, and Human Environment. The Manager title is broader still, covering senior manager roles, sometimes at the associate partner level, and large roles such as major plant management responsibilities, as well as very specific spheres of influence such as Senior Manager of Digital Aviation or Senior Manager of Renewables.

As to the “Other” category on the charts above, many clients feel they are not at liberty to divulge their employer information or their roles defy simple categorization, for example, Professor, Chaplain, Analyst, and Advisor. In other words, from the title alone it is difficult to say what organizational level these roles occupy.

From a compensation point of view, we find it easiest to begin with base salary. The Base Salary Compensation graphic provides a good overview of the breakdown, whereby 81% of our clients who landed in 2022 earn $150,000 or more in base salary. The percentage breakdowns should be relatively self-explanatory.

What is much less transparent is the bonus agreements, sign-ons, benefits, and perks that our clients also earn, in part because of our adept negotiation support during their offer discussions with prospective employers. Here we can only offer a sampling:

• 5% sign-on bonus
• $10K relocation package
• $25K bonus
• $25K relocation package
• 25% bonus based on profitability
• 25,000 shares of company stock
• $30K relocation package
• $35K sign-on bonus
• 40% bonus
• $40K sign-on bonus
• $42K bonus
• $399K in stock and $100K bonus opportunity

We do cover this information each week in our Frontline Reports if you want more detail. To generalize, we can virtually always add $10K, $20K, $30K or more in total compensation during the offer negotiation process simply because we have been doing this for more than 30 years and have a far better understanding of what is possible than the average executive candidate.

Note that we can easily identify Senior Manager or Director Roles that actually earn more than some Vice President or even C-level roles just from this year’s landed clients, so please do not confuse title with income from the outset.

Most important in any case is your own fulfillment. If you are happy in your work you will be more satisfied in your life, and prosperity will likely follow. That is why our five-step career change program begins with a thoughtful assessment of who you are, where you are in your life, and where you want to be in five years—the Clarity Program©. Clients routinely tell us that this program has completely changed their perspective on their subsequent employment plans—a good place to begin any career change process.

From there, our six-member client teams help clients package and present themselves, gain access to executive opportunities they typically did not even know exist, interview successfully, negotiate enhanced compensation packages, and then on-board effectively in their new roles.

If you are considering a career change, you might do well to hire the market leader in the career management field, The Barrett Group—cited by Forbes Magazine now for the third year in a row as being one of the very best in the business of helping executives discover that next opportunity. We look forward to hearing from you.

Peter Irish, CEO
The Barrett Group