New York City Executive Recruiting Year in Review 2022

ACCUR Recruiting Services has several decades in the NYC Executive Recruiting market, working with both established companies and emerging brands in a number of industries. 2022 stood out as a year of change in the NYC Executive Recruiting market for several reasons:

Continued economic recovery from the pandemic
A strong return-to-office push amid many companies opting to go hybrid or fully remote
Markedly increased demand in a number of our industries like Hospitality due to pent up demand

Top Recruiting Categories in NYC for 2022

The lion’s share of the positions we recruited for in 2022 in New York came from the following industries:

Beauty: many of the largest beauty conglomerates have headquarters in New York City, with a number of smaller startup companies and skincare lines that also operate within the city.
Fashion: New York and Fashion normally go hand and hand, with a large number of designers, manufacturers, fulfillment, distributors and retail concerns headquartered in the city.
Wines & Spirits: With a huge restaurant and tourism infrastructure, New York is highly important in the wine & spirit industry and is a market we serve often.
Watches and Jewelry: New York has for a long time been a based of operation for luxury watch-makers and jewelry, and 2022 was another strong year for this category.
Home goods: Building on our experience in retail and consumer packaged goods, we were asked to fill several executive positions with a home goods company.

The State of Executive Recruiting in NYC in 2022

Executive recruiting in New York City takes place against a rapidly changing and also tight labor market for talent in NYC. Some of the factors behind the executive recruiting landscape in NYC include:

Several years of pandemic-related shutdowns which affected tourism and hospitality, retail and had many midtown workers working from home.
NYC’s economic recovery, which is seeing high tourist numbers and high demand for restaurants and nightlife.
General inflation in the economy which is affecting salary expectations.
The rapid adoption of work-from-home habits.

Important Trends in Executive Recruiting in NYC

Some of the key trends we are watching for 2023 and how they will affect how we approach recruiting:

Hybrid offices and hybrid selling: with the shift to hybrid work in NYC also comes a shift in how consumers buy goods. There is a much stronger focus on digital sales and delivery, and hybrid sales like curbside pickup. In addition, as customers return to stores, we see companies in search of executives who can strategically oversee the scaling of experiential retail both regionally and nationally.
Social Selling: We are always looking for executives well versed in social media, especially popular platforms like TikTok and Instagram. “Social selling” is an emerging category that’s of particular importance to brands that want to reach Gen Z and younger consumers.
Innovative hospitality products: As travelers return to both business and recreational travel, we find ourselves tasked with finding executive talent with the vision to create new travel products, experiences, and of course, new opportunities for revenue growth.
Revenue generation focus: We are always on the lookout for NYC-based executive talent who can focus on the bottom line while realizing operational efficiencies in organization.

The Unique Challenges of Scaling Venture-Backed Companies

NYC is the home to a number of venture-backed companies that are laser focused on growth and profitability. Regardless of whether we are working with an NYC client on a consumer goods based business, wines and spirits, or another industry, we know that our private equity and venture capital clients in NYC are seeking executive candidates who can:

Typically, we find that private equity firms are looking for the following in candidates:

Financial savvy and a track record of being able to raise revenue on a tight timeframe.
Proactiveness in dealing with the firm’s needs.
Quickness to adapt to the firm’s culture, operations and reporting structure.
Relentless focus on growth.