Slower hiring by companies – even when they have vacant leadership roles – has dampened executive recruiters' confidence in overall management hiring activity through the end of the year.

In August, ExecuNet's benchmark Recruiter Confidence Index revealed that 46 percent of 181 responding executive recruiters are "confident" or "very confident" the executive employment market will improve over the next six months, down four points from July and the first index reading below 50 percent since October 2009.

"The slippage we've seen in business confidence in recent weeks is translating into slower, more drawn out corporate decision-making about recruiting new executives," says Mark Anderson, President and Chief Economist of ExecuNet, the private membership network for senior business executives and those who recruit them.

"More companies have moved from a slow-and-steady green flag on executive hiring to a yellow caution flag, as they sort out the business implications of the broader economic indicators," Anderson adds. "The momentum we tracked in the executive employment market has certainly slowed, and executive recruiters are feeling it, and, along with most employers, closely monitoring the economy for signals of future growth opportunities."

Introduced in May 2003, ExecuNet's Recruiter Confidence Index is based on a monthly survey of executive search firms and recognized as a leading indicator for the economy and the executive job market. A reading at 50 percent or above indicates recruiters are "confident" or "very confident" the number of executive search assignments launched by employers in the next six months will increase.

Joseph Daniel McCool
Joseph Daniel McCool is senior contributing editor with ExecuNet and principal of management recruiting/succession advisory firm The McCool Group. He is also the author of Deciding Who Leads: How Executive Recruiters Drive, Direct & Disrupt the Global Search for Leadership Talent, recognized widely as "one of the best business books of 2008," and its Brazilian Portuguese translation, Escolhendo Líderes, published in June 2010.

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