The current business model for cost-efficiency is to push down responsibility and accountability to lower-paid but highly trained resources.
In healthcare, for example, for five years I have been served well by physician assistants. Not medical doctors.
Tuesday, one issued me a prescription for an antidepressant. The intake was efficient and comprehensive. No, I didn't have to consult (and pay for) a mental health specialist.
So I was puzzled in my encounter with search/executive development corporation Heidrick & Struggles to be dealing with a partner.
After all, I was applying for a part-time contract coaching opportunity. Here, let me introduce myself - Download ReimaginingYourPersonalBrandwithJaneGenova
No, I wasn't applying for a permanent full-time C-suite position such as Senior Vice President of Search.
I approached Heidrick & Struggles through an unsolicited resume, transmitted via email.
I learned that very effective tactic from "What Color Is Your Parachute?" by Richard Bolles.
Back in the late 1970s when I read that career guide (it's updated annually right up to the present time) I tried it out.
Within three weeks I catapulted from nonprofit to the private sector. My compensation went from about $11k to $22k. I received a country club membership. My superiors assessed my developmental needs, rotated me around the company and flew me to specialized training. Days of heaven.
In the late 1980s, when I launched a boutique, I again leveraged that way of pitching. Within seven months I was earning $30k more than I had been grossing in corporate (healthcare insurance was very affordable then so that wasn't a significant expense I had to deal with in self-employment).
But there is plenty of rejection or just no-response in that mode of a search for work. So, I was over the moon when Heidrick & Struggles responded to my pitch. It listed three time slots for the one-hour video interview. That was a Monday.
The standard MO, at least in my experience, is for the company to lock in automatically the time as soon as you indicate you continue to be interested.
There was no such notification all day Monday.
Nothing Tuesday.
I figured, perhaps wrongly, that the on-the-ball thing to do was to follow-up. That I did on Wednesday.
The rest could forever remain a darkness in my memory bank.
Get this: A partner was in the loop. He was a point of contact on the email.
That partner responded. And, that email response was with a tone and content I never had expected. Also, I hadn't bumped into anything similar in my decades in professional life.
Immediately, I responded by email that I seemed not to be a fit for Heidrick & Struggles, withdrew my application for assignments and cancelled an appointment that was then made after I had made the contact.
First let me tell you: I am from the mean streets of Jersey City, New Jersey. That ability to "roll with the punches" is embedded.
In addition, I had been socialized by the Frank Hague political machine. I understand how power operates.
However, after the partner's email I speedcycled through two anxiety attacks.
No, I am not a cry-baby. But I decided to share that experience with Heidrick & Struggles' human resources, the legal department and the chief executive officer's office.
The response came from Heidrick & Struggle's in-house legal department.
I experienced that email as lacking human connection. To me it also seemed inward looking, not focused on me.
Specifically, I perceived it not aligned with the investing ESG ethos of including people in what business is about. That is, going beyond the one-dimensional bottom line or the total focus on maximizing profits. ESG is also called "the triple bottom line."
As I noted, I have been on medication for clinical depression for three days. It should kick in another week or so.
I know from my legal training and being a syndicated legal blogger, that it is inappropriate to even suggest a correlation between X and Y, never mind a cause-and-effect relationship. I am not making any accusations. It is indeed possible that the anxiety attacks and the clinical depression are just the result of the reality that life is an existential tragedy.
But I also know, as an investor myself (but not in Heidrick & Struggles), that it is curious how this corporation seems to function.
Recent analysts' decisions about the stock should raise concerns. In Q2, Nuveen Asset Management lowered its stake in Heidrick & Struggles by 14.6%. Zacks Investment Research changed its rating from "buy" to "hold."
Why am I sharing these two encounters with you?
My mission is that this sort of thing doesn't happen to other vendors to this corporations and other firms in professional services. It can stop right here.
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