Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. I am very excited about starting this and hopeful that all of you will enjoy it.
As a thought leader in the research and recruiting world, part of my responsibility is to attend events where I can learn from others and share with them what I know. Just recently we were in New York City at AESC's Researcher & Associates Summit (May 3, 2007) and it turned out to be one of the best events we have attended. It was very relaxed, informative, and many of the professionals were actually speaking about how business is conducted at their firms. Lots of sharing of ideas were buzzing all around, the energy levels were high, and all were there to learn and walk away with actionable & beneficial knowledge.
I truly enjoyed one of the last events, the panel discussion that took place at 4 o’clock called the Value of Research. It was an open conversation in Q&A format moderated by Veness Nettles of Russell Reynolds, and there were 4 great panelists: Susan Chadick of Chadick Ellig, Daniel Kelley of Heidrick & Struggles, Carrie Pryor of Korn Ferry, and Joseph Ziccardi of Cromwell Partners. AESC did a great job of constructing the panel. Some firms on the panel have a recruiting process which relies almost exclusively on external research firm resources like SGA, while others primarily rely on internal research, only going to a third party source when internal research can't come up with desired results or they are under "last minute" time constraints. All agreed that Research firms like SGA are a valuable resource, and also that when you decide to team up with a research firm they all target to bring them on as early as possible in the process.
What impressed me the most about this panel was that all were honest about how they conducted research within their individual practices. They all really talked openly about how research was viewed in their businesses and what could be done to make it better.
I found this very uplifting that there is hope that we can all share ideas and best practices amongst each other at these events as opposed to holding information close to the chest. Let me know your thoughts.