IN THE aftermath of the financial crisis, companies were too busy trying to survive to do much recruiting, so they cut back sharply on their use of executive-search firms. When Korn Ferry, the biggest “headhunter”, announced its results for the year to April 2009, it seemed to be in trouble: annual revenues were down by 20%, to $676m, and it declared a net loss of $10m. But as The Economist went to press on June 11th, the firm was expected to report that it had become the first in its industry with annual revenues above $1 billion, with net income in the past year of around $85m.
Like its competitors, Korn Ferry has been buoyed by the stronger American economy. According to Hunt Scanlon Media, a trade publisher, the industry’s revenues in America rose by 11% last year. Its core business faces fierce headwinds, however. LinkedIn and other career-networking websites are making it easier for companies to do their own recruiting: JPMorgan Chase now has almost 500 executive recruiters of its own. As a result of this trend, Korn Ferry collected less revenue from searches last year than in 2008.
Instead, its growth has come from pushing into new areas of business. Korn Ferry has bought a host of firms that aim to improve workforce performance even when there is no vacancy to fill. Recently it added Pivot Leadership, which offers...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1Qrdj9n
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