Ask a Recruiter: What Luxury Brands are Looking for in Candidates

A job seeker asks:

In looking for jobs within high-end brands, what is valued more by the hiring managers: experience, ambition, relationships, organizational fit, or affordability (salary expectations)?

Thanks for your question. We always tailor our approach to hiring executives for luxury brands to their specific culture, history and organizational style, and in our experience, every luxury brand has unique qualities. That said, we’ve seen some common themes emerge that should help candidates tailor their pitch to the perfect company.

Luxury Watches & Jewelry

“Bespoke” luxury categories like watches and jewelry encompass very high end products that will never be priced at a mainstream level and therefore we find that relationships and cultural fit are paramount. With these businesses being so personalized to the clients’ needs, we search out candidates who are highly attuned to delivering the sort of extraordinary service and care that the ultra high net worth individuals who patronize this business sector increasingly require.

Luxury Beauty and Volume Sales

In luxury beauty, we see companies that run the gamut from historic brand groups that have an appetite for expansion to more strategically positioned upstarts and boutique brands. In beauty, we always feel like analytical skills are prized, as well as a higher level of ambition and potential.

These brands typically have broader consumer bases and a wider variety of products. As a result, these organizations are often looking to employ more analytical strategies, market research, trend analysis, and competitive analysis to ensure they stay ahead in the market.

The growth of digital retail changed many minds in the executive ranks at beauty companies inspiring a new mode of operating at the highest ranks of luxury beauty. That’s why we are increasingly tasked with finding candidates with Amazon-specific skills.

Salary Expectations: Always a Factor

As for affordability or salary expectations, this can be a consideration, especially for entry-level or mid-level positions. However, at the higher levels, and especially within luxury brands, the ability to deliver value to the organization often takes precedence over cost-saving.

Here at ACCUR Recruiting Services we have lots of experience of evaluating multiple variable to give our clients a quick read on the competitive landscape. This, we feel, is key for a strategic approach to the hiring process. And while a salary range is ultimately a set of numbers, it’s derived at by a set of factors that have a huge degree of influence on the types of candidates you will attract in the executive search process.