Globalization, digital disruption, changes in workforce demographics, and shifting attitudes toward workplace engagement have created one of the most competitive and dynamic global talent markets in history. “Elevating executive results: The c-suite’s guide to winning the war for talent” identifies eight critical steps that enable companies and organizations to do a better job in finding – and keeping -- the leadership needed for sustained high performance in today’s demanding business environment.

1. © Acertitude 2016
The c-suite’s guide to
winning the war for talent
FEBRUARY 2016
executive
results
Elevating
acertitude.comCopyright © 201 6

2. 02
INTRODUCTION
Do your talent strategies give you a
competitive advantage in one of the
most dynamic global labor markets
in history?
Despite widespread acknowledgement that talent is
key to organizational competitiveness, the process for
successfully hiring, integrating, and retaining the very
best executives continues to elude many of today’s top
business leaders.
of CEOs say they recognize
the need to change their
talent strategies.1
93%

3. 03
THE ISSUE
Organizations face increasing risks in executive hiring and selection.
Globalization, changes in workforce demographics, and shifting
attitudes toward workplace engagement all play a role.
72% CEOs concerned about geo-political uncertainty.2
63% CEOs concerned about
availability of leadership talent1
US workforce reaching
retirement age by 20203
35%

4. HOW CAN YOUR TALENT
STRATEGY DRIVE SUCCESS?
What can organizations and their retained executive
search partners do to address the shortcomings of
historical search models, adapt to a quickly changing
global landscape, and chart their course for success in
the pursuit of top-tier executive talent?
Learn 8 action steps that are
key elements of an effective
talent management strategy to
transform results.804

5. 1.
KNOW
YOUR
BENCH
An ongoing executive evaluation process is the cornerstone
of leveraging talent to advance organizational goals. The
key in today’s environment is to evolve beyond succession
planning to fluid concepts of “work needing to be done.”
To link strategy, structure, and talent, ask:
• Where are we going as a business?
• How do we need to organize resources to pursue our strategy?
• What skills or competencies are required to win?
• Do we have the capability in our “talent pool” to fill the required
roles?
Then address the gaps.
05

6. 2.
PROACTIVELY
SOURCE
TALENT
06
As competition for talent increases,
engaging passive candidates will
be critical to securing the best
leadership for your organization.
• Think beyond collecting LinkedIn
profiles to proactively mapping the
best talent in your industry.
• Engage employees to
refer like-minded stars
from their networks.
• Employ social media campaigns to
establish two-way conversations
with your talent market.
• Join online forums
where your ideal
candidates are active.
• Connect through meaningful
occasions, information, and events.

7. 3.
AGGRESSIVELY
MANAGE YOUR
TALENT BRAND
07
The most important audience for
your brand may be internal!
Employees ultimately deliver
your brand and live its values.
Talent brand by definition is the:
a) highly social, totally public version of your employer brand
incorporating what talent thinks, feels, and shares about your
company as a place to work and
b) a significant asset or Achilles' heel for hiring/retaining great
talent and promoting your corporate image to the market.”4

8. 08
How can you strengthen
your talent brand?
Candidates today
are not looking for a
career… they’re looking
for an experience.5
• Nurture a great candidate experience.
Think like retention begins in the recruiting process.
• Up the ante on integration.
Foster positive transitions into your company and culture.
• Audit career community sites.
Glassdoor reviews may help you see strengths and opportunities
• Focus on drivers of employee engagement.
Meaningful work, opportunity for growth, ongoing training and development,
engaging with transparency, and fostering trust in leadership.
• Give employees the tools to amplify your story.
Star employees are your best brand ambassadors!
• Invite employees behind the curtain.
Employee input s a sincere platform and widespread behavioral commitment.

9. 4.
DRIVE
DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
Few question digital acumen as a
standard for success in today’s
business climate. How does this new
paradigm impact talent strategy?
74%
15%
09
of business executives say
their company has a digital
strategy. 6
feel they have the skills and
capabilities to execute it.6

10. 10
• Explore partnering opportunities. If acquiring other firms
or hiring senior digital executives to drive business value
is out of scope, partnering may be the answer.
47%
Companies that annually invest
$1,500 for training per employee see
an average profit margin 24% higher
than those that don’t.10
24%
• Develop essential skills. Increase digital fluency through
executive training programs.
• Embrace new ways to engage with top-tier candidates
and high-performing executives.
of CEOs say access to new technologies
is a top-three reason for partnering.2
• Adopt new and emerging roles to transform how
business is done, among them chief digital officer and
chief experience officer.
• Acquire new skill sets. Deep-pocketed giants like
Walmart have acquired several mobile, social, and
technology firms.9
– McDonalds’ partnered with beacon solution provider Piper7
– P&G has an employee exchange program with Google8
Gamification techniques can enhance
learning ability by as much as 40% .11
L’Oréal gamified its recruitment
process.12
40%
Online videos, which account for
50% of mobile traffic, will begin
to dominate recruiting messaging.1350%

11. 5.
OPTIMIZE PEOPLE
ANALYTICS
11
Leverage the opportunity for data and other
predictive analytics to focus on talent as a
growth engine for your business.
• Apply state-of-the-art assessment technologies to
identify A-players and measure cultural fit.
• Integrate HR and business data to inform business
strategy and organizational design.
• Practice social listening to collect candidate data
from external social platforms.
• Crowdsource employee performance data from
internal social platforms to enhance accuracy.
of HR professionals feel that
crowdsourced recognition
data is an important source of
information for performance
reviews.14
78%

12. The opportunity to access diverse talent
across markets, geographies, and demographics will
continue to drive critical advantage. With growing
concerns over global instability, there will be greater
focus on geopolitical expertise in boardrooms and
across executive leadership. Leaders need to be
adept at managing:
6.
THINK
GLOBAL
The Atlantic reports, “An increasing number of corporations are hiring political scientists, starting their
board meetings with geopolitical briefings, and seeking the advice of former diplomats, spymasters,
and military leaders,” noting the example of Private Equity firm KKR’s high-profile appointment of
retired general and CIA Director David Petraeus as the chairman of its global institute. 15 12
• Distributed workforces
• Complex operations
• Real-time supply chains
• Variable international tax
• Government regulations

13. 7.
GET OUTSIDE
THE OFFICE
Supporting virtual employees and flexible
work styles can be a meaningful talent
brand differentiator.
Make remote experiences as rich as possible to build community
and drive innovation. The ideal is to create a virtual workplace
where employees feel personally connected to their teams,
leaders, and the social and cultural fabric of the company.13
74% of millennials want flexible
work schedules17
1 9% of millennials already
hold a leadership role18
76% of global labor pool will be
millennials in 2025 16

14. 7.
REIMAGINE YOUR
EXECUTIVE PARTNERSHIPS
• Genuinely passionate about your business goals and
vision
• Forward-thinking about the strategic issues and
mega-trends impacting the executive talent market
• Drive measurable success and high client satisfaction
through its professional practices
As the fight for top executive candidates
becomes more competitive, enlisting the right
outside executive recruiting partner and
understanding the return on your investment will
be more important than ever. Find executive
search partners who are:
14

15. 15
THE CASE FOR
GETTING IT RIGHT
With numerous studies demonstrating the value of effective talent
strategies, it is clear that attracting and keeping the right people yields
strong competitive advantage.
3.5x / 2.0x
Companies adept at recruiting enjoy 3.5x the revenue
growth and 2x the profit margin of their less capable
peers.19
Companies capable at Onboarding new hires and retention
outperform the least capable companies, experiencing 2.5x
revenue growth and 1.9x greater profit margin.20
2.5x / 1.9x
Organizations with a formal onboarding process saw a
60% greater annual improvement in revenue per full-time
employee and a 63% greater annual improvement in
customer satisfaction.21
60% / 63% 50% / 28%
A strong talent brand is associated with up to 50%
savings in cost per hire and 28% reduction in employee
turnover.22
“People Companies” (defined
as making “Fortune’s 100 Best
Companies to Work For” list
at least 3 times in the past 10
years) outperform the market
average growth in share
price 8 out of 10 years and
cumulatively beat the S&P 500
by 99 percentage points. 23

16. 16
SUMMARY
The issues facing organizations in their search for executive
talent, and the trends described in this report, are changing the
way leading organizations are approaching executive search
and engagement. With an improved business outlook,
executive mobility is forecasted to rise.
1. KNOW YOUR BENCH
2. PROACTIVELY SOURCE TALENT
3. AGGRESSIVELY MANAGE YOUR
TALENT BRAND
4. DRIVE DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION
5. OPTIMIZE PEOPLE ANALYTICS
6. THINK GLOBAL
7. GET OUTSIDE THE OFFICE
8. REIMAGINE YOUR EXECUTIVE
RECRUITING PARTNERSHIPS
Is it time to raise the
performance of your
talent strategy?
of executives planned
to at least look for
a new executive
opportunity in 2015.18
87%
reported being more
willing to make a
career move in 2014
and 2013.18
74%

17. 17
About Acertitude
Acertitude is a global executive search firm and talent
solutions consultancy focused on transforming standard
industry recruitment models to address the increasing risk
organizations face in their search for top executive talent.
With the new digital economy creating significant disruption
and opportunities, our team pairs a deep understanding of
the nuances that impact today’s talent needs with data-
driven selection methods to powerfully impact our clients’
businesses.
Our firm replaces traditional approaches to consultant
compensation with a unique system that ties consultant
rewards to client satisfaction. Offering market expertise in
consumer, healthcare & life sciences, industrial, private
equity, professional services, technology,
telecommunications & media, and nonprofit & foundations,
we specialize in helping organizations discover, engage, and
empower Brilliant People at Work®.
Find out more at: acertitude.com

18. 18
SOURCES
1. PwC (2014). 17th Annual Global CEO Survey: The Talent Challenge.
2. PwC (2015). 18th Annual Global CEO Survey: A Marketplace without boundaries?
Responding to disruption.
3. Baird Capital (2014, March). “The Global Talent Search: Baird Capital’s experts examine
recent recruiting trends.” Retrieved from: http://www.rwbaird.com/news/global-talentsearch
4. LinkedIn Confidential© (2012). 5 Reasons for Investing in Your Talent Brand.
http://www.slideshare.net/linkedin-talentsolutions/5-reasons-for-investing-in-your-
talent-brand-v3
5. Bersin, J. (2015). Ten Disruptions in HR Technology for 2015: Ignore at Your Peril.
6. Forrester Research, 2014
7. Bohannon, C. (2014, December 19). Mobile Commerce Daily: “McDonald’s Beacons
Reap 18K Offer Redemptions.”Retrieved from:
http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/mcdonald-follows-consumer-behavior-to-
mobile-withbeacon-deployment
8. Buvat, J. (2014, October). Wired: “The War for Digital Talent Has Begun.”
9. Capgemini (2013, October). The War for Talent Has Gone Digital.
10. Huffington Post (2014, August 30). “Not Investing in Employee Training is Risky
Business.”
11. pgemini Consulting (2013). Digitizing HR: Connecting the Workforce.
12. CaCapgemini Consulting (2013). The Digital Talent Gap. Retrieved from:
http://www.slideshare.net/capgemini/digitaltalent-gap-27698726/
13. Sullivan, J., M.D. (2015, January 12). The Top 10 ‘Bleeding Edge’ Recruiting Trends to
Watch in 2015. Retrieved from: http://www.ere.net/2015/01/12/the-top-10-bleeding-
edgerecruiting-trends-to-watch-in-2015/
14. Capgemini Consulting (2013). Using Digital Tools to Unlock HR’s True Potential.
15. Freeland, C., (2015, May). The Atlantic: “Globalization Bites Back.”
16. Workforce (2015, May 1). Creating a ‘Generation Connected’ Workplace.
17. Ashgar, Rob (2014, January). Forbes: “What Millennials Want In the Workplace (And Why
You should Start Giving It To Them).
18. The 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey. (2016). Retrieved from Deloitte.:
http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html
19. Strack, R., Cay, J.M., von der Linden, C. & Hoen, P. (2012, August 2). Realizing the Value of
People Management. Retrieved from BCG Perspectives by THE BOSTON CONSULTING
GROUP.
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/people_management_human_resources
_leadership_from_capability_to_profitability/?chapter=2
20. Ibid.
21. Nolinske, T. P. (2014). Onboarding is Critical to Business Success. Retrieved from National
Business Research Institute: http://www.nbrii.com/employee-survey-
whitepapers/onboarding-is-critical-to-business-success/
22. Gultekin, E. (2011). LinkedIn© What’s the Value of Your Employment Brand?
23. Strack, R., Cay, J.M., von der Linden, C. & Hoen, P. (2012,August 2). Realizing the Value of
People Management. Retrieved from BCG Perspectives by THE BOSTON CONSULTING
GROUP.
https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/people_management_human_resources
_leadership_from_capability_to_profitability/?chapter=2 30. Blue Steps (2014). The 2014
Blue Steps Global Executive Outlook.

19. 19

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