Every CHRO has sat through this cycle: a VP of HR role opens up, the job description gets built collaboratively, and somewhere between the first stakeholder meeting and final sign-off, the brief quietly turns into a wish list. Transformation experience. Commercial credibility. M&A exposure. Deep reward knowledge. International scope. A future CHRO in waiting.
Read MoreSearches stall when a hiring manager won't give timely feedback or goes dark for weeks. Every delay risks losing exactly the kind of passive, in-demand candidate the whole search was built around reaching.
Read MoreReferred candidates are hired at roughly 30% versus 7% for candidates sourced any other way, and they pass probation at 98%, compared with a 78% average across all hires.
Read MoreSome executives become so uncomfortable about redundancy that they try to obscure it. That's rarely helpful.
Read MoreIt is an argument for recognizing that professional relationships are long-term assets. Treat people well because that's who you want to be. Not because you might need them later.
Read MoreBeing unemployed is a status. It is not an identity.
Read MoreTrust grows when people feel their differences are acknowledged rather than erased or forced into agreement.
Read MorePerhaps most importantly, show the hiring leader that you aren't looking for a permanent role simply because you have had enough of interim work.
Read MoreA short conversation about how and where a new leader shows up, even if just a single honest post, can shift how a transition lands internally and externally.
Read MoreGreat HR is no longer about simply managing people. The best HR professionals understand business, influence strategy, drive growth and turn people decisions into measurable commercial results.
Read MorePeople talk. They remember leaders they enjoyed working with. They remember people who handled difficult situations well. They remember people who were commercially minded, honest, pragmatic and courageous. They also remember people who weren't.
Read MoreThe reality is that the senior HR job market operates differently from the broader employment market. A general job seeker may be able to apply for dozens of suitable roles every week. A senior HR professional cannot.
Read MoreOne of the biggest mistakes senior professionals can make is disappearing from their network for years and then suddenly contacting everyone when they need new employment.
Read MoreIt pains me to think the answer is to eliminate the human-to-human connection. Instead, perhaps the answer is to make that connection more purposeful.
Read MoreThe organizations making genuine progress are working backward from a specific, well-defined operational problem — not forward from "what can this AI tool do."
Read MoreA VP of Employee Relations isn't overhead. It's the function that protects everything else you're trying to build — your culture, your talent brand, and, not incidentally, your own credibility as the person the board holds accountable when things go wrong.
Read MoreYou have spent years developing your professional judgement. Don't abandon it because you're temporarily unemployed.
Read MoreThe objective isn't to manufacture activity so you can tell an interviewer about it. The objective is to remind yourself that your professional value didn't disappear when your employment ended.
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