When one thinks of "headhunters" one usually thinks of lawyers, software engineers, and others who work in or with business very closely. When one thinks of the academic world, it is often as a world apart, an oasis from the world of commerce. Neither of these is really the case, and in many cases the best move for an institution is to use the services of higher education executive search firms.
Academe's carefully cultivated image as a dream world is deeply stamped in the public conscious. This image, common to student orientation speeches across the country, suggests a world unrelated to everyday considerations. Students supposedly imbibe the artifacts of culture for no purpose other than their own edification and the continuation of that culture.
Meanwhile college is a big business, with endowments running in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Public higher education is a pretty significant percentage of any state's budget. Above all, the interest in attending college and gaining a degree is almost entirely commercial. Even poets want the MFA degree from a top program, and they want it for entirely careerist reasons.
Student costs are so high that they must be understood as customers even if saying so openly would be too shockingly contradictory to the old sense of purity. That image of purity should best be understood as advertising. Young people know all too well that they are incurring years, even decades, of debt, and it is the rare student who can afford that burden only to gain a subtler appreciation for Renaissance sculpture.
Students aren't the only customers who need to be stroked and cultivated. Schools must try to win grants and contracts from government and industry, and certainly from the military, which requires the brainpower that resides in their science and engineering oriented departments. They also need to compete for rich benefactors, and for the foundations they manage, especially in the arts and humanities. There is no better way to compete for this funding than by bringing aboard academe's top performing stars, those whose reputations open donors' checkbooks.
It's easy to forget that college also means collegiate sports, which often becomes all important to the school's self-image. Top coaches in top sports, with the most cutting-edge facilities, are understandably expensive. The payoff is branding that inspires students not simply during their college years but after they graduate, when they can approached for donations to their beloved alma mater.
There are two kinds of search firms, contingency and retainer firms. Contingency firms fill one search at a time on an ad hoc basis, often trying to "sell" a potential scholar or administrator to the school on the slightest clue that a need might be present. These might be best for small colleges who expect to do rather infrequent high end hiring.
Retainer firms are the better choice force both for very large, usually public universities with nearly ongoing top-level hiring needs, and elite colleges where their infrequent hiring must be among the best. Such firms establish deeper, exclusive relations with the schools, learning what they like and don't like. This makes life much easier for the overwhelmed personnel officers or department heads.
Academe's carefully cultivated image as a dream world is deeply stamped in the public conscious. This image, common to student orientation speeches across the country, suggests a world unrelated to everyday considerations. Students supposedly imbibe the artifacts of culture for no purpose other than their own edification and the continuation of that culture.
Meanwhile college is a big business, with endowments running in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Public higher education is a pretty significant percentage of any state's budget. Above all, the interest in attending college and gaining a degree is almost entirely commercial. Even poets want the MFA degree from a top program, and they want it for entirely careerist reasons.
Student costs are so high that they must be understood as customers even if saying so openly would be too shockingly contradictory to the old sense of purity. That image of purity should best be understood as advertising. Young people know all too well that they are incurring years, even decades, of debt, and it is the rare student who can afford that burden only to gain a subtler appreciation for Renaissance sculpture.
Students aren't the only customers who need to be stroked and cultivated. Schools must try to win grants and contracts from government and industry, and certainly from the military, which requires the brainpower that resides in their science and engineering oriented departments. They also need to compete for rich benefactors, and for the foundations they manage, especially in the arts and humanities. There is no better way to compete for this funding than by bringing aboard academe's top performing stars, those whose reputations open donors' checkbooks.
It's easy to forget that college also means collegiate sports, which often becomes all important to the school's self-image. Top coaches in top sports, with the most cutting-edge facilities, are understandably expensive. The payoff is branding that inspires students not simply during their college years but after they graduate, when they can approached for donations to their beloved alma mater.
There are two kinds of search firms, contingency and retainer firms. Contingency firms fill one search at a time on an ad hoc basis, often trying to "sell" a potential scholar or administrator to the school on the slightest clue that a need might be present. These might be best for small colleges who expect to do rather infrequent high end hiring.
Retainer firms are the better choice force both for very large, usually public universities with nearly ongoing top-level hiring needs, and elite colleges where their infrequent hiring must be among the best. Such firms establish deeper, exclusive relations with the schools, learning what they like and don't like. This makes life much easier for the overwhelmed personnel officers or department heads.
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