Here’s a potentially concerning development all media owners would be advised to keep an eye on: this week, the Financial Times revealed ‘several’ mobile operators are proposing to lock advertising on their networks, with one European provider preparing to do so before the end of this year.
If you’re thinking of recruiting digital executives in the next 12-months, this could be a live issue with which they (and you) might have to deal.
Gamification is increasingly touted as a way for big firms to improve recruitment programmes, staff training and retention, but if the results of a recent survey are to be believed (and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t) wholesale uptake isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
The report – commissioned by people management firm Penna – found that far from rushing to bring gamification technologies in to their recruitment programmes, many companies have no interest in adopting its techniques.
In addition, the survey found, despite gamification currently being bang on-trend in the HR and recruitment sectors, 89 per cent of employees had never actually heard the term.
Gamification may be in vogue, but when Penna asked leading HR directors about its use in the workplace, and 70 per cent said it had never been used at their organisation.
Off the top of your head can you guess where Britain’s fastest growing technology hub is located?
East London? Manchester? Cambridge? Liverpool?
Nope, it’s none of those places. According to this year’s Tech Nation report, Bournemouth is by some distance the fastest-expanding tech cluster in the country. Between 2013 and 2014, it saw a 212% rise in new tech companies forming. It’s growing nearly twice as fast as Liverpool, its nearest rival.
Online publishing businesses in the UK expect to be at the heart of a 2015 recruitment boom driven by the adoption of programmatic advertising systems, according to research released this month.
Data from the annual Association of Online Publishers’ Organisation Census said 71% of online publishers in the UK expect to recruit additional staff in the coming year – the highest percentage seen since the survey began in 2003.
Recruitment and skills development is now a key investment area for online publishers, according to the AOP, as the industry begins, at speed, to adopt the use of programmatic trading.
The results of the AOP Census mark something of a turnaround from last summer when a separate survey found nearly a third of all publishers in the UK – online and offline – hadn’t even heard of programmatic advertising.
As an executive search firm which specialises in making senior leadership hires in the media and information sector, we are often asked to find general managers who have a track record in leading international/global teams.
Many of our clients have operations in the Asia-Pacific region and the Americas, as well as in Europe.
Leaders who have experience of managing geographically-disparate and culturally-varied teams are essential if these firms are going to work well and in a cohesive fashion.
When recruiting global team managers, a hiring firm should look for a candidate who has experience in, and insists on, these core competencies:
Earlier this month my eye was drawn to an unexpected stat amid the latest crop of ABC figures; amongst the various lists of declining circulations was a rare piece of good news: the UK’s current affairs magazine market is, if not booming, at least outperforming the rest of the market by quite some distance.
A quick look at the figures suggests at least half the titles have grown circulation year-on-year, some quite substantially. When you consider the current climate for print media, that’s an astonishing achievement.
Big beasts like The Economist, The Week, and Private Eye, all continue to put in a strong showing. Two of those three are still growing and while Private Eye’s sales have dipped slightly, they retain the highest paid circulation figures in the sector. Our good friends at Prospect magazine are also on the up, as are Monocle, New Statesman, The Spectator and the possibly miscategorised BBC History magazine.
Workers rejoice! The days of firms barring employees from looking at social networking websites could be at an end. Why? ‘Cause Facebook is aiming to help everyone do their jobs just that little bit better…
In-house recruitment professionals should be especially excited by news that Facebook has launched a new social network specifically for office communications – it’s called Facebook At Work.
The speculative amongst you may care to think that sounds a bit like Facebook making inroads into LinkedIn’s territory, albeit in a different way – we’ll come to that…
So far just a handful of companies have be asked to join an extended trial of Facebook At Work, but the service is expected to be rolled out to the wider business community in the coming months of 2015.
Like its big sister site, Facebook At Work lets users create an account, post content, and interact. But instead of doing that with friends, it’s with co-workers.
It seems like 2014 has shot by in a blur. The executive search industry moves fast, and for us this year seems to have moved particularly quickly. Yet, here we are with the calendar year drawing to a close. Well, what better time could there to pause and look back at some of the major trends and challenges that clients (and us headhunters) have witnessed and undergone in that time?
Here is my guide to the major themes of 2014 for headhunters and their clients:
With Christmas round the corner you’d think weary journalists and bloggers would begin to relax, to picture mince pies and a warming fire. This isn’t the case. Around now, fear rises. The mouth gets dry, the head light. They know it’s inevitable: any minute now the editor will lumber over and ask the question they’ve spent most of December hoping to avoid:
“Old chap,” the editor says. “Fancy writing a few hundred on what’s going to be big next year?”
Dusting off the crystal ball is amongst the most loathed of journalistic tasks: when asked to make predictions on what will set a certain industry alight in the next 12 months, it’s usually a toss-up between making grand proclamations that immediately turn you into a hostage to fortune, or saying so little as to barely cast your imagination forward at all. In short, it’s an unenviable task. But that said, let’s give it a go anyway…
A recent article in The Wall Street Journal summed it up succinctly: some brands, it said, are increasingly using programmatic systems to buy digital ads themselves, rather than paying third parties to do so for them. A survey from Forrester Research and the Association of National Advertisers suggests a reason: it says 46% of marketers are concerned about the transparency of agencies tasked to buy online ads. Put simply, if the agency doesn’t tell you how much of your money its live buying desk spending on ads, and how much it’s taking as a fee, fears can spread.
(If you’re unsure of what programmatic ads are – might be an idea to pause here and read this…)
Hiring the right senior talent into your business can be a time-consuming and expensive process. That’s where engaging the right executive search team to source talent can be crucial – it’s a time-saving and, ultimately, cost-effective process.
Time and time again we see hiring managers do things that, in the long-run, set them back. Common mistakes get made and, if not put right, they can repeatedly cost the hiring firm.
Here’s a quick and easy guide to the type of mistakes that occur time and again when recruiting senior executives – and the simple steps that can be put in place to rectify them:
As headhunters, one of the questions we get asked most (other than ‘how much is it paying?’) is ‘how is our company perceived out in the wider market?’ It’s something of which busy company directors can easily lose sight. In fact, I’ve been asked that question twice this week.
The nature of my executive recruitment job means I talk to hundreds of people every week, and in doing so I pick up an enormous amount of chatter about how happy (or unhappy) people are in their roles. Sometimes the reasons are personal – say, a lack of opportunities for progression. At other times, they’re directly related to office culture. We get a lot of the latter. If you’re in senior management in the media, the chances are we have a better idea of how prospective employees perceive your company than you do.
Earlier this week, I spent a fascinating half-hour or so on Glassdoor.co.uk. For those who haven’t seen it, it’s a bit like Tripadvisor for job seekers. It give people an opportunity to hear a number of views on what it’s like to work somewhere, before they sign on the dotted line. On my first visit, I immediately looked up 20 companies I’ve worked extensively for in the past. And on every single occasion, the feedback was pretty much as I’d expected.
Bad senior or executive appointments, most businesses have made them. An established firm would be hard-pressed not to have made a bad hire or two in their time; it’s almost unavoidable. The trick is to learn from that and to reduce the number you make in future. But how do you go about doing that?
The biggest error an organisation can make – especially when it comes to senior management – is choosing the wrong candidate for the role – trying to make a square peg fit a round hole. This may sound obvious but getting the candidate wrong is still a widespread problem.
According to a global survey of 6,000 HR and hiring managers carried out by Careerbuilder, 62% of UK firms admitted to having made poor appointments.
One of the knock-on effects of digital technology is that like never before business leaders can draw on enriched information when making critical choices – but do they really let data rule, or are experience, intuition and gut feeling still the keys to successful management?
In recent weeks we’ve looked at several ways data gathered through digital sources is changing business. We’ve examined how supermarkets are using technology to revolutionise retail, how knowledge of data can help you get a job in both the editorial and commercial departments of a newspaper, we’ve even looked at growing data use in education and how the difficulties of understanding Big Data are, in some instances, restricting the development of personalised, one-on-one marketing.
In short, what we’ve seen is that analysis and data skills will be key to an array of future jobs.
Here at Martin Tripp Associates we’re often approached by people when they have made the decision to move roles and are actively looking for a new job opportunity. While our end goal is to place the best candidates in the best roles, our primary objective is to help clients find the best available talent for the post or business function they need to fill, rather than to help candidates source new jobs.
Unlike most recruitment agencies, retained executive search specialists aren’t looking for a ‘transactional’ relationship with candidates, it’s not the job to try and fit candidates into as many available vacancies as possible, it’s more a matter of establishing relationships with the right people in their specialist area, so when client vacancies come along, we know who to approach.
With this in mind, I thought it might be useful to set out some simple ways in which a senior executive can establish and nurture a relationship with an executive search firm.
Last month, I had a surprising conversation with a regular media client. He’s used Martin Tripp Associates extensively over the years, but only to help headhunt content roles. I was amazed that he was unaware we also recruit in other areas – heads of digital, marketers, general management, commercial roles, strategy directors, and so on…
So, being a statistics geek, I thought I would share the following infographics with you. They help visualise what it is we do here. Based on last year’s activity, the first chart shows a breakdown of our assignments for media clients according to the disciplines we recruited.
While ‘General Management’ was the largest single category we worked on, the big rise was for ‘Product/Insight’ roles and this reflects a trend toward better-informed product development and customer-led innovation.
We have also seen rapid growth in demand for digital-savvy commercial leaders. They are in short supply, and highly prized by their employers; like the Product/Insight people, the best are only found and recruited by a thorough search process.
In the last two years we have worked closely with several key firms producing successful workflow tools for the professional services sector. In that time we’ve had many wonderful conversations with our partners, but again and again these discussions seem to orbit one central concern – in a digital age, how do our partners build products that are indispensable to their professional service clients?
The message that comes from these discussions is that at the heart of every process to product and content development should be an acute understanding of the user, the intricacies of their day-to-day work, and a fundamental grasp of their pain points.
As specialists in media recruitment we often get asked about interview technique – what are the best ways candidates can present themselves to us and to potential employers. More strikingly, perhaps, we rarely get asked about the howlers, the absolute no nos, the things you really don’t want to say or do say during an interview – yet time and again we see the same issues cropping up.
Quite rightly, candidates focus on the positive aspects of their interviews – the points they intend to raise that show them in a good light to a potential employer – but too often not enough thought is given to the kind of behaviour that is best avoided.
If you want to avoid coming a cropper, it might be worth bearing in mind these few simple things:
One of 2013’s most eagerly awaited gaming releases, Grand Theft Auto V, has proved to be the most successful launch in the industry’s history – but what does that mean when compared with other media earnings of recent times?
The game – developed by Rockstar Games – had reported sales topped $1bn (£626m) within three days of its release.
To put that success in some kind of context it’s useful to compare the figure with earnings in media verticals that sit away from the world of computer gaming.
The BBC does have an amazing propensity for self-flagellation – as I have noted before.
Last night was a great example. I was interviewed for around ten minutes by Newsnight to reflect on the NAO’s damning report into severance payments at the BBC.
Hiring, firing and media recruitment at the BBC is always a hot topic. The Corporation has paid out an extraordinary-sounding £25m over three years to 150 senior executives for redundancies, compromise and other exit payments.
In the longer pre-recorded interview, the point I wanted to get across was that the BBC was, on the whole, a fairly responsible organisation. Certainly, its payoffs for George Entwistle and others pale in comparison with those to some media executives like Sly Bailey and Rebekah Brooks. £25m over three years represents less than 0.2% of the Corporation’s £5bn annual budget: pretty good going for a business undergoing a massive relocation and restructuring programme. (Bailey and Brooks between them would have accounted for half of that.)
My strong feeling is that the BBC is under such scrutiny because it is – with some justification – hugely resented by other media companies because of its guaranteed source of income. They see the Corporation as the privileged, over-fed progeny of successive governments: whereas, in truth, the mentality inside the Beeb is a little like that of an unwanted and bullied step-child.
It is odd to think of the BBC as a victim of bullying. It is by far the largest and best-funded child in the playground, should be afforded the protection of the headmaster (though it rarely is), and consistently hands in top work. But, of course, in the pathology of the playground, this makes it a natural victim. And the fact that it consistently takes a mea culpa position rather than punching back only makes the problem worse. Come on, Beeb, the circling bullies chant. Have a go if you think you’re hard enough.
Like many victims of bullying, it simply doesn’t know how to respond to such goading. Mostly, it demurs. Occasionally, it tries to bite back. And inevitably this misfires.
So when Ceri Thomas stepped up to say that the students who accompanied John Sweeney on the trip to North Korea had all given their consent, he must have been aware he was likely to be challenged. The BBC’s Today programme didn’t take long to get stuck in; when asked how he could be sure this was the case (students were briefed individually, without witnesses, and signed no consent document) he blustered: it doesn’t matter whether it was done orally or in writing, he said. Because of the lack of evidence, of course, it matters enormously. The corporation’s detractors will pick away at these bones, and there are at least some of the LSE students who are willing to undermine Thomas’s version of events.
Dermot Murnaghan interviewed me today on Sky News about George Entwistle’s departure and the new search for Director General at the BBC. It was a warm-up for his interview with Tim Davie, which ended testily, with the acting DG saying he had a job to get on with and walking off. In contrast, my interview was the very embodiment of civility.
Prior to my interview, I was asked several questions by Sky staff which didn’t make it to air – and some may be worth recording. The following contains a summary of those questions and my answers.
Q: Is it normal for internal candidates to be appointed?
A: As has been fairly well documented, the media headhunters concerned in Entwistle’s recruitment (not us) approached and interviewed a broad range of candidates for the role. The shortlist contained
Gordon Brown once famously said that there are two types of Chancellor of the Exchequer: those who failed, and those who got out in time. The same may be said of Director Generals of the BBC.
George Entwistle might be feeling like Napoleon’s apocryphal unlucky general today. In a few minutes, the BBC will air its Panorama Special on the Newnight investigation into Jimmy Savile, and why that investigation was dropped. (It is an interesting scheduling choice to put the programme up against Newsnight itself.) Peter Rippon has already “stepped aside” as the programme’s Editor while the matter is investigated; Entwistle’s role in the decision making process
There has been a small but, I hope, significant trend over the last few days. ‘Traditional’ UK consumer media companies have been announcing encouraging results – let’s hope the media recruiting follows. Today’s announcement from the Lebedevs that The Evening Standard has made a £1m operating profit in the last year was preceded a few days earlier by Briefing Media’s short blog on the fortunes of IPC, Dennis, and Haymarket.
Whatever its shareholders may think, News Corp
I don’t wish to turn our blog into a Kelvin MacKenzie fun-athon, but his decision to instruct his lawyers to demand an apology from South Yorkshire Police – with the implicit threat of further legal action – for the ‘vilification’ he has endured since Hillsborough simply beggars belief.
MacKenzie, lest we forget, has long claimed that his news sense is second-to-none. In his most recent statement, he has claimed
Amusing though it was to watch, Channel 4’s doorstepping of former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie added little to the debate about the mistakes made at Hillsborough and the way it was reported.
If you need the key to Kelvin Mackenzie’s attitude to news, the best document I know of is his speech to the Leveson inquiry in October 2011. It is entertaining, combative stuff, full of the usual bluster – I would recommend reading the whole thing, media recruitment tips it does not offer, quite the opposite really. It contains this passage about a story he ran in 1987 – two years before Hillsborough:
“Question seven basically wanted to know if an editor knew the sources of many of the stories. To be frank, I didn’t bother during
It will be fascinating to see whether Elisabeth Murdoch’s MacTaggart lecture (full text here) signals a glasnost moment in the relationship between BskyB and the BBC. While it is important to note that she is not an executive at either News Corp or BskyB, her company Shine is owned by News Corp, and her membership of
It was announced today that, after an extensive media executive search, Euromoney Institutional Investor has replaced its MD, Richard Ensor, with a member of the Euromoney board, Christopher Fordham. Moreover, it was announced that Ensor would become Executive Chairman of the business, replacing Padraic Fallon who has held the position for a number of years.
This is one of those moves that normally makes me raise my eyebrows. You call that a search? Usually, given these announcements, I am reminded of James Murdoch’s appointment as CEO of BSKyB in 2003 – and look how well that turned out.
But Euromoney is arguably different. While it is self-evidently true to say that a company has a unique culture, in Euromoney’s case this has been critical in its success. And it has been incredibly successful: it has a market cap approaching £1bn and is likely to announce profits of over £100m this year. As this article shows, when Ensor took over, the company was making one tenth of that.
Fordham joined the company in 2000 (placed, as it happens, by my former business partner John Watts), and has since overseen a hugely successful strategy of organic and acquisition-driven growth. Like his predecessor, he is very smart, with an absolute grasp of detail and a gut instinct for strong businesses. He will fill Ensor’s boots admirably – just as Ensor will fill Fallon’s.
I don’t envy the search company that had to try to better Fordham (it wasn’t us). Executive search is all about covering the market to ensure that your client has absolutely the best candidate for the job. As frustrating as it may be, you sometimes have to accept that the best candidate is already in the business.
enquiries@trippassociates.co.uk
Martin Tripp Associates is a London-based executive search consultancy. While we are best-known for our work in the TMT (technology, media, and telecoms) space, we have also worked with some of the world’s biggest brands on challenging senior positions. Feel free to contact us to discuss any of the issues raised in this blog.
The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh yesterday noted that Mail Online’s revenues have grown by 69% in the last year, from £16m to an estimated £27m. For Sabbagh, this is vindication of the Mail’s advertising-fuelled approach (and by extension, The Guardian’s) over News International’s much-criticised Times paywall. Since the wall went up, the Times’s growth has been respectable, but there are signs that it may be slowing down, with NI attempting to make up the shortfall with price hikes, particularly for tablet subscriptions.
It’s worth pointing out that even by Sabbagh’s calculations, The Times website appears to be making more through subs that The Guardian’s is through advertising, but any sign of slowing growth is a worry. This is where the Mail’s astonishing success comes in – Mail Online’s growth has been built on a platform of traditional Mail readers, bored office workers and enraged Twitter liberals. It’s difficult to read an article like this recent piece on the French election and not see a calculated attempt to whip up some lucrative, hit-friendly outrage. But it works – the Mail’s online alchemy means they’re making money even from people who hate them with a passion. Who’s likely to pay for a Times online subscription? People who already like The Times, and there’s a finite number of them.
But all this means that Mail Online is fully integrated into the way that news is predominantly consumed in 2012 – and putting journalists into media jobs – as office browsing material or part of a noisy and often chaotic network that includes other news sites, blogs and social media. Whether they’re fuming at a disparaging piece on the NHS, trawling for football transfer gossip or just looking at large pictures of Rihanna in a bikini, it means people click, people link, people debate, and then yet more people click. The Times’s paywall has cut it off from this ecosystem.
That’s not to say that paywalls can’t work under any circumstances. Far from it – parts of the B2B sector have had considerable success by charging for information people have to have and are willing to pay a premium for. They’ve largely done better than their advertising-driven rivals. The less rigid subscription models favoured by the likes of the FT and the Economist have been broadly successful. But these are titles that occupy a particular niche within their marketplace – even a Times exclusive will be followed up by the Telegraph, Guardian or BBC within minutes. News International’s defenders will point out that people have always paid for printed news in the past, but cover prices have only ever represented a small proportion of overall newspaper revenue. If The Times’s online growth is indeed levelling off, it’s time to rethink that paywall.
enquiries@trippassociates.co.uk
Martin Tripp Associates is a London-based executive search consultancy. While we are best-known for our work in the TMT (technology, media, and telecoms) space, we have also worked with some of the world’s biggest brands on challenging senior positions. Feel free to contact us to discuss any of the issues raised in this blog.
