By Jenny Ciappa, Vice President - Agency Recruiting, Hawthorne Executive Search

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Having recently joined Hawthorne Executive Search as a recruiter, I now have a new appreciation for the importance of telephone interviews. As all new business folks know, good telephone rapport is the first step to relationship building. Today, I speak with more than 50 people in the course of my day discussing both employers and candidate's needs and concerns. Recruiters need to understand requiremen ... (read more)

Robert Hawthorne, the President of Hawthorne Executive Search

Over the past few years my recruiting group has seen some dramatic changes in employment in the Yellow Pages industry, from the rapid growth of online Yellow Pages/Search Engines, to acquisitions that are changing the landscape of the publishing industry on a regular basis.

One of the most common questions I get asked in discussions with our clients is how the job market looks. Most are seeking an independent gauge for how their business is doing relative t ... (read more)

By Robert Hawthorne, President - Hawthorne Executive Search

The growth of IYP/Local Search has certainly brought some excitement to the Yellow Pages industry. But the excitement has also generated some new challenges for organizations looking to add qualified staff to their team. The Yellow Page industry is now in direct competition with many of the new non-Yellow Pages search engine marketing and interactive advertising companies who are also looking for expertise in sales, marketing and operations.

What h ... (read more)

Ken Clark, Vice President of Business Development for Hawthorne Executive Search, the leading recruiter in the Yellow Pages and interactive media segments, was a featured speaker in the Professional Development track of last weeks Direct Marketing Association's annual conference in Atlanta.

In his presentations (contact Ken for a copy of the slides) Clark provided attendees with insights on how to interview, screen, and hire top talent. He also ... (read more)

Robert Hawthorne, the President of Hawthorne Executive Search, the leading recruiter in the Yellow Pages and interactive media segments, in a presentation at the Kelsey Group's Directory Driven Commerce 2005 industry event being held in Denver, Colorado this week indicated that based on a recent survey, nearly two-thirds of sales reps would consider a job change if approached.

While these results indicate a stunning weakness in the typical Yellow Pages publishers' most important ... (read more)

By Tina Barden, Hawthorne Executive Search

In this months article I thought I would offer feedback we've gotten from some of our clients on some of the biggest mistakes even the best candidates make when interviewing. While there is a long list of possible ones we could have picked, I stayed with just the top five.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Treating it as an interrogation versus an interview:

Most candidates expect that any interview has to be an interrogation, but a ... (read more)

By Tina Barden, Hawthorne Executive Search

In the past, the usual wisdom was that hiring managers only preferred job candidates with years of experience at their companies. Employers obviously wanted candidates with stable work records who had demonstrated loyalty and commitment to their firms.

But then the technology bubble burst in 2000 and it seemed that many workers outside of the Yellow Pages industry were job-hopping every six months in search of the next opportunity. In many industries mass layoffs, r ... (read more)

By Tina Barden, Hawthorne Executive Search

The temperatures and humidity are up in most parts of the US, and Memorial Day has come and gone. It must be summertime. The pace of book closings slows a little, and the office begins to look a little less crowded each week. It must be vacation time. Yet many of you are still at work everyday or at home checking your work e-mail every night. That's because for a large number of Americans, there seems to be no real holidays or vacations anymore.

Isn't it a curio ... (read more)

By Tina Barden, Hawthorne Executive Search

How many times have you heard the old adage that a company, a business, is only as good as it people? If that is true isn't it critical for businesses to develop a retention strategy for holding on to the employees you've worked hard to recruit, train, and develop in your company?

While all of this sounds logical, many small businesses overlook this critical component in their human resources program. For example, a recent Watson Wyatt su ... (read more)

By Ken Clark, Vice President - Hawthorne Executive Search

If you look purely at the stats, you would probably wonder why more women aren't running U.S. companies. Women hold slightly over half of all managerial and professional specialty positions in America, but only about 15.7% of corporate-officer jobs in the largest companies (up from 8.7% in 1995), and 13.6% of board directorships (up from 9.5% in 1995). They hold only 7.9% of the Fortune 500 highest titles, and represent only 5.2% of top earners.

So what's the hold up? A recent survey by Catalyst, a New York resea ... (read more)