A job-seeker’s best quality
Korn Ferry CEO tells Maria Bartiromo what he looks for. One on One,
Jobs and wages continue to be among the most important issues for voters ahead of the presidential election. Yet the candidates on both sides of the aisle have yet to define specific plans on just how to create jobs in this slow economy. So I turned to one of the leaders in jobs placement — Korn Ferry, with more than 7,000 employees in 50 countries — to find out where the jobs are and what does one need to nab one of them. My interview with CEO Gary Burnison follows, edited for clarity and length.
Q How would you characterize the employment situation in America?
A It’s groundhog day. We keep seeing our own shadow. If you have a college or advanced degree, then it’s steady. But the reality is that today’s college is yesterday’s high school.
Q Why such a struggle?
A There’s a whole host of reasons. Growth has been very elusive. We don’t have conspicuous consumers. And now you’ve got worries about China. The reality is that we’ve put ourselves out of business. Technology has had an enormous impact on the average American. I was raised in a very small town in Kansas. And it used to be you could make a great living punching a red button or a green button. And that’s not the case today. Also, people are living longer and working, so it creates a barrier for people coming out of college like my own kids. My daughter graduates from college and has to take a few parttime jobs. So you’ve got that funnel that’s being clogged as well. Those three things contribute to a lackluster situation. You’ve got a labor participation rate that’s frightfully low.
Q It’s true that almost 40% of working age Americans are either without a job or they’re without a job and they have given up.
A The single biggest trend other than technology is everything ’s being “uber-ized.” What I mean is you probably won’t be working next to Bob on the fac-- tory floor. You’ll probably work with Bob, who’s in Bangalore, India. It’s a virtual borderless workforce. That’s a huge change. There’s also been a seismic shift in that amount of time people stay in one job. You and I probably would have five jobs in our lifetime. But for somebody coming out of college like my oldest daughter Stephanie, she’s probably gonna have 20 or 25 jobs. This generation is not gonna sit around for 20 years and wait for a gold watch.
Q What is holding back CEOs from hiring more people?
A First, my tax rate in the U.S. on a corporate basis is at least 10 percentage points higher than anywhere else in the world. The health care costs are out of control. If you consider that the single biggest line item on a CEO’s income statement is people, just let’s assume it’s 60% or 70%. What you’re finding every year is that health care costs are going up 10% to 20%. The reality is I can’t pass that on to my customers, or to my employees. So you’ve got two or three percentage points every year. Why is there no wage growth? Well, No. 1, you’re not getting the price increases. You can’t get the pricing to customers. Then you’ve got the cost of doing business. Just take health care alone. That’s adding 2% to 3% to expenses. I see a seismic shift that companies are actually going more towards bonuses, more toward variable, short-term compensation that’s tied to performance. Ten or 15 years ago it was very common that you would get a 5% or 10% raise every year. Those days are gone. Organizations are shifting how they look at rewards. And some of that could be anywhere from a mobile manicurist to unlimited time off, to short-term bonuses. But it won’t be in salary. You’re finding now that 15% to 20% of the compensation is tied to more variable compensation. That’s a far cry from the way it was. I think that’s gonna increase.
Q Let me get your take on the white-collar jobs because This is really where you play. Where do you see the jobs? Where are you placing people these days?
A It’s all about science, engineering and math. It’s not about poetry. if you get a degree in poetry, you’re probably very articulate and bright. But boy, it’s hard to get a job. The world’s becoming so specialized whether it’s physicians or machinists or nurses. Health care continues to be very strong with 20% of the economy in health care. Anything digital because we’re digitizing everything. So any kind of digital skill in any kind of industry is key because CEOs are looking for growth. And one of the ways to grow is try to sell things through different channels. Oil and gas is tougher. Financial services is slow and steady. But it’s really those hard skills. It’s the science, the technology, the engineering and the math. It’s not poetry.
Q Those are the jobs that are harder to come by because they require a certain skill that most people do not have.
A That’s right. If today’s college is yesterday’s high school, I don’t know if we’re overeducating or not educating correctly. But how is it that my daughter, with 30 girls in her fraternity, sees only two of those girls with jobs? And those two girls are accountants. You’ve got the Millennials that literally are at least a 25% unemployed or under employed situation. It’s disheartening.
Q Those STEM jobs that you mentioned — science, technology, engineering and math — are those higher-paying jobs?
A They’re gonna be higherpaying jobs than my daughter has at $12 an hour. You’ve got kids going to college and they’re spending $10,000, $20,000 a year or more. And they’re coming out and making 12 bucks an hour. And you probably have to have a couple jobs. Maybe they’re part time. The hard truth is education determines our workers’ earnings per life. And that is undeniable and it’s ever increasing.
Q What’s the average amount of time that somebody with a college education is looking for a job?
A The time to look for a job is when you have a job. That could be several months. As hu-- man beings we have a lot of different biases. One of those biases is I walk in a room and you’ve made a decision on me before I even speak. That’s human nature. The other bias is that if you don’t have a job, people wonder why. Despite how hard you try to overcome that, it is a natural tendency. So I would encourage readers if you do have a job and you’re not happy and you wanna do something else, boy, the best time to do it is actually when you have a job.
Q What are the most important skill sets that a person needs to have today? What’s attractive to potential hirers?
A There’s one that rises above anything else. And in layman’s terms, it’s curiosity. In scientific terms, it’s learning agility. So this insatiable appetite to be nimble, to grow, to learn, to want to read, to want to listen to all sorts of music. We have actually proven that the No. 1 predictor of success for an individual is learning agility. People agility. Mental agility. Strategic agility. It’s an ability to have an interest in life. In simple terms, it’s curiosity. We’ve actually demonstrated this literally in the thousands of placements that we’ve made. The hard skills will always evolve and change. Like right now it’s digitization. I don’t know what it’s going to be in five years. But the reality is that it’s curiosity that will enable the next thing.
“There’s also been a seismic shift in (the) amount of time people stay in one job. ... This generation is not gonna sit around for 20 years and wait for a gold watch.”