Executive recruitment revenue at Boston’s 25 largest executive search firms dropped to $128 million last year, compared with $134 million for 2007, according to the Boston Business Journal.

The article quotes Dave Sanford, the executive VP of client services at recruitment firm Winter, Wyman & Co.

“Clearly we, like everybody else, have been feeling the downturn. It’s been pretty significant. What obviously happened in October is that [companies] put their heavy right foot on the break pedal all at once. Everything took a precipitous drop,” said Sanford.

He noted that Winter Wyman’s executive search revenue actually rose 12% to $20.8 million in fiscal 2008, which ended in September. However, business was down between 30% and 40% year-over-year for the last three months of 2008.

Heidrick & Struggles has hired John S. Wood, previously with Spencer Stuart, to serve as Vice Chairman and Managing Partner of the firm’s newly combined global CEO and Board practice.

The company — already known for counseling CEOs and board members on complex issues — is counting on Wood to handle everything from CEO succession planning to the recent TARP executive compensation restrictions. He has completed nearly 200 chief executive officer and board director searches for a broad range of international corporations. Also, he will work with senior management to integrate the firm’s leadership consulting services, creating a complete offering in one practice.

Wood, who has more than 15 years of executive search consulting experience, will report directly to CEO L. Kevin Kelly.

Deloitte Consulting is out with two reports on what top business leaders from around the world have to say about managing today’s most pressing talent issues.

It’s a “high-wire balancing act,” says Jeff Schwartz, principal of Human Capital at Deloitte, who adds that executives are seeking to find the right balance between reducing headcount/workforce costs and focus on strategic talent issues.

In “Threading the Talent Needle: What Global Executives are Saying about People and Work,” it looks like CEOs are playing a greater role in talent management. Two-thirds of the interviewed executives mentioned that their CEO is connecting more with employees around the globe — particularly those with high potential.

In the second report, “Managing Talent in a Turbulent Economy: Playing Both Offense and Defense,” 52% of the executives surveyed report their company plans to restructure jobs to lower costs and increase efficiency. In addition, 40% will try to attract more critical talent with hard-to-find skills, while 30% are looking to bring on more critical leaders. More than 25% will increase the use of flexible work schedules through measures like telecommuting and reduced work weeks to engage and retain key talent.

Bill Humbert, a recruiter in Iowa, claims that Iowa’s sales tax on employee recruitment fees is unfair.

His company contracts with employers to provide recruiting strategies and performs a limited amount of hands-on recruiting. 

Recruiters who only placed individuals in employment at locations outside of Iowa are not subject to the tax if the person’s principal place of employment is outside of Iowa.

However, he learned last month that his company now owes sales tax on recruitment services provided to out-of-state companies, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette.

That’s because Iowa state law says that out-of-state exclusion doesn’t apply to executive search firms, and Humbert found out the hard way that an “executive position” simply meant someone earning $30,000 per year or more.

When does the sales cycle start and end in the staffing industry?

Seems like an easy and straight- forward question, but ask 10 different industry professionals and you’re likely to get 10 different answers. My experience is that many staffing organizations and sales professionals think once the job requirement comes in and sales “hands over the order” to the recruiting team, the sales cycle ends. I couldn’t disagree more.

Many staffing and professional services organizations deploy this philosophy as their customer-service model. I like to call it the “bird dog” sales strategy or “bird dogging.”

What this means is the sales representative goes out and finds job orders and brings them back for recruiting to work on and fill. Once recruiting has the job order(s) it’s the sales representative’s responsibility to go find additional job orders and let the recruiting team fill the existing order(s). This strategy is akin to a hunter who shoots a duck. The hunting dog fetches the duck in the field and brings it back to his master. After fetching and retrieving the duck, the dog runs back into the field to fetch the next duck.

Staffing organizations like to deploy this service model because they want to keep their sales people focused exclusively on prospecting for new business (or fetching ducks). Prospecting for new business is critical to success, but this is a poor strategy.