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World Atlas
Headhunting in Venezuela Today
By Nelo Sekler and William A. Conkright, Signium International Venezuela
Carrying out executive search in Venezuela presents ever-changing challenges that must be accepted with good humor and optimism, lest you go mad.
For example, four searches for two companies – in their final stages – were canceled because they were taken over by the government. Like good capitalists in a socialist world, they paid us. Three searches from the largest private food company were put on hold after Hugo Chavez, our president, threatened the company in a speech. To make life even more complicated, about 25 percent of the candidates we try to reach have left the country, most of them to Miami or Madrid. Rampant inflation has made salary negotiations a boiling issue in every hire. That’s the bad news.
The good news is, strange as it may seem, that leading firms in executive search are having one of their best years ever. As far as we can determine, all the major firms are up over last year, even after discounting inflation. This obviously creates a puzzle for which we have several iffy explanations:
- There is more revolving, since most of our work involves replacing people who have left the company vs. finding personnel to staff new projects. We believe the reason for this is that some companies don´t compensate for inflation adequately or quickly and lose key players.
- The above-mentioned emigration, which seems to be accelerating.
- In these uncertain times, companies are being more careful and preferring proven firms over fly-by-nights, which are legion.
- Given the constant changes in the economy, search firms are much more active than they were in prospecting for new clients, and this has borne fruit.
As for Signium International Venezuela specifically, all of our new clients cite bad experiences with other firms as why they’ve turned to us.•
Return to The Navigator Q2 2010
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