The Rise of Executive Search Firms

Certain aspects of that broader story – smoke-filled Manhattan high-rises, plenty of finely cut suits and well-stocked liquor cabinets, a notable dearth of gender and racial equality – also turned out to be relatively accurate. New York was one of the first major hotspots, and executive search was certainly a man’s world, especially at the upper echelons. During the late 1970s and 1980s journalists were overwhelmingly asking, and therefore printing, male professional opinions. This status quo was soon to be rudely disrupted. In 1975 the New York Times ran an article by Marylin Bender, who explored the impact of the Civil Rights Bill. As the new laws began “to make itself felt on corporations,” recruiters were suddenly tasked with looking beyond their existing white male rolodexes. Bender writes: “Some were at a loss as to how to proceed. One veteran recruiter telephoned a female journalist and said: ‘we’re looking for ladies. Can you tell us where to look for ladies’?” (There’s a good chance Marylin was that journalist). The Civil Rights Bill sent recruiters scrambling not just to place women and people of color, but to have them join their own ranks. As one male consultant remarked “The firms are falling all over themselves to get women to do the recruiting of women.” He continued: “I wonder if it really takes a woman to find a woman.”

The main point of divergence concerned the timeline. While some professional services like advertising boomed in the 1960s, executive search firms didn’t take off properly until a couple of decades later. Looking to the big national newspapers (I surveyed the New York Times, LA Times, and the UK-based Guardian for an international comparison), it’s clear from the incidence of certain key terms (headhunter, executive search) that the 1980s was the critical decade for the industry. Although this is far from a perfect science – optical recognition software is always improving, but texts from the twentieth century do not always survive in the best form, and the words often appear out of the intended context – it does help to paint a picture.

The contents of newspaper articles provided both details and explanations for this trend. In 1975 the New York Times estimated that there had been less than 1000 headhunters; a decade later that number had more than doubled. Many of the largest firms were experiencing growth rates in excess of 60 percent in the mid-1980s. The explanations ranged from demographic analyses to impressionistic takes on generational differences. Fewer babies had been born during the depression, and the lack of executives who were 40-50 years old come the 1980s made for a highly competitive environment in which head-hunters could thrive. William H, Billington. Jr., the founder of a Chicago-based search firm opined that the counterculture of the 1960s meant that less people were going into business, because they were “growing berries and making the world a better place.” Another key catalyst in the growth of the industry was computerization. The rise of databanks where skills and experiences could be cross-referenced clearly enabled searches to be started much faster.

Although the origins of the executive search industry isn’t the most vibrant or highly-populated academic field, there has been some research into the area – and the conclusions drawn help add some color to those put forward in the pages of the press. One reason for the uptick in the 1980s is that people started moving between jobs more regularly than they had before. There’s more to dig into here, but the implication is that executive rode that wave rather than created it.

Main conclusion? The origins of executive search could make an excellent TV series.

Olivia Humphrey is a Project Manager at ECA. She can be reached at [email protected]