February 2022

The search and staffing industry is a classic tale of early visionaries that created an entire worldwide industry that exceeds one-half trillion dollars annually. In the executive search area, firms like McKinsey and Booz Allen were some of the earliest. Heidrick and Struggles were Booz Allen alumni who started their firm in 1953. Spencer Stuart was a partner at that firm until he left to start in 1956. Ironically Egon Zehnder joined Spencer Stuart and left to start his firm in 1964. Korn and Ferry worked at Peat Marwick and left in 1969 to form their firm. In the middle management and professional recruiting space, legends like Sanford Rose started his firm in 1959, and Alan Schonberg started MRI in 1965. Schonberg was a pioneer of contingency recruiting. William Kelly started Kelly Services in 1946 as WW2 accelerated contract help. Robert Half started his firm in 1948 and not only grew an incredibly successful franchise business, the firm ultimately bought back its franchisees to become one of the global leaders today. However, the origins of our industry created models and paradigms that have evolved, reflecting the needs of an ever-changing market. Some answers made sense historically; the top retained firms came out of the management consulting industry where the issues identified were people. Mid-management search/recruiting came out of the applicant-paid fee employment agency business, and ...