The stringent employment legislation in Northern Ireland that has been seemingly rigidly enforced for the past couple of decades appears to have created an image of the employment market that has led a number of senior Executives to become reactive to it.
These Executives are not usually as reactive in their approach to business, so why have they become so reactive about their own career opportunities?
The equality legislation may be stringent and requires everyone to have equal opportunity to apply for vacancies. Therefore a number of executives in NI seem to scan the online job boards and wait for the printed Jobfinder every week
to see what is happening. More often than not they seem to grumble that “there doesn’t seem to be much about at the moment”.
This view of the Executive Recruitment market in NI is as good as viewing the image of an iceberg.
You normally only see the tip, there’s so much more beneath the surface!
Executives need to increase their knowledge of what is going on if they want to be made aware of the opportunities that are happening all around them but they aren’t seeing.
At Gilpin we are often working with clients about future roles that will come up after restructure, when a deal is secured, when an acquisition is made, or when Investment has been achieved. These roles often require the people to be in place at the right time and that means resourcing them before any public announcements are made. These roles are often filled by people who have been “headhunted” and are often resourced by people who are not necessarily actively looking for a new role, but should an exciting opportunity arise they would certainly like to know about it, especially if it is something they would be successful in and a great career move.
Senior Executives should make themselves known to us in advance and those that do are assisting the proactive management of their careers. They are on our radar and will be contacted if suitable opportunities arise.
As part of an ongoing process of sourcing the best talent available at senior level for our clients, our consultants have lined up more confidential meetings after the holidays with board level executives in the General Management, IT, Finance, and Sales functions across a range of industries.
Potential clients who would like to be introduced to these high calibre Executives, or Executives who would like to become potentially introduced to one of our growing number of clients in assignments that are often “beneath the surface”, should get in touch in strictest confidence and with no obligation.
Organisations continuously move and require people’s careers to move too. As Ernest Hemmingway once said, “the dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water”.