BusinessWeek Blows It: Executive Recruitment Diversity 'Study' Isn't Real
By Barbara Frankel
February 13, 2008
First it was The Washington Post telling its readers that diversity training wasn't worthwhile. Then, it was national media publicizing an outdated Rand survey on diversity. This time, a story in BusinessWeek headlined "Diversity Pledges Ring Hollow" told its readers that "A new study shows that in spite of corporate promises to promote diversity in senior management, very little progress has been made."
But here's the problem. This "study" isn't a study at all. The BusinessWeek article cites the BlueSteps Diversity Report from the Association of Executive Search Consultants (AESC). This "study" of global senior executives actually was a pop-up "quick query" of AESC members on its web site, and 357 responded anonymously to three questions:
- How many women are there among your company's top executives?
- How many minorities are there among your company's top executives?
- Does your company have an official "diversity in the workplace" policy?
Who were these anonymous respondents? They were people who join AESC to post their résumés to be viewed by executive recruiters. Eryn Feinsod, AESC's marketing manager, tells us they are mostly executives earning at least $100,000 a year. She says they don't know for which companies they work or if they are even employed. AESC charges between $219 and $299 for the membership.
AESC compared its results from a similar "quick query" it did two years ago and found that 76 percent of respondents report that their companies have one or no "minorities" among their top executives, and 56 percent have one or no women among their top executives, although 54 percent of the respondents said their companies have a "diversity in the workplace" policy. This compared with 59 percent having had "diversity in the workplace" policies two years ago.
Executive-Search Firms Are Not the Answer
A press release from AESC must have grabbed the attention of BusinessWeek columnist Joseph Daniel McCool, who apparently took the survey at face value. BusinessWeek follows the AESC company line to say that the key to effective diversity recruiting, especially for senior positions, is executive-search consultants who, according to BusinessWeek, "are uniquely positioned to assist companies to do just that by helping them build management teams that better reflect their current and future customer bases." The article does go on to say that "executive recruiters won't be seen for much longer as credible sources for diversity leadership talent unless their own recruiting consultants become more diverse."
We would beg to differ on one crucial point--executive recruiters are not NOW seen as credible sources for diversity-leadership talent. Most of The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity®, the nation's most progressive companies, find executive-search firms of virtually no use.
The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity are quickly scooping up much of the available talent, especially at the executive level. Consider these statistics: Although Top 50 companies employ only 5 percent of the U.S. work force, they employ 17 percent of the college-educated people of color (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and National Center for Education Statistics). Top 50 companies report that an average of 26 percent of managers are people of color, compared with 15 percent nationally, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Executive-search firms don't care about diversity because they aren't diverse themselves. We contacted the four largest executive-search firms (by revenue) in the country: COMSYS IT, Tatum, The Judge Group and Development Dimensions International. All declined to release the racial/ethnic/gender demographics of their staffs and leadership.
DiversityInc held a roundtable of Top 50 executives to discuss executive-recruitment firms and found they were roundly deplored for their lack of diversity and their lack of real commitment to bringing a diverse slate of candidates to the table. Read this article in the Fall 2006 Special Issue of DiversityInc magazine.
Dan Guaglianone, executive director of recruiting and staffing at Merck, No. 18 on the Top 50, said recruiters often "are looking for the shortest distance between two points. [Their strategy is] fill your job, do it very quickly and I don't care who you pick, as long as you pick a person."
Elaine Arthur, executive director, executive talent planning and acquisition for Sodexo, No. 13 on the Top 50, added: "I really have had no success in working with search firms that do not have a diversity practice … they're looking to fill this as quickly as possible."
And Janet Manzullo, senior vice president, director of recruiting at Wachovia, No. 11 on the Top 50, said Wachovia has its own internal executive-search resources because they have a higher success rate than external firms.
So if executive-search firms don't "get" diversity, why would BusinessWeek take an anonymous and unscientific reader survey by an executive-search firm association as a valid "diversity study"? We don't know the answer but we do know that we'll continue to evaluate any "studies" that appear so our readers will know what's legitimate and what's bogus.
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