Hiring and Managing in Turbulent Times
The present times are turbulent in several countries such as the USA, UK, Canada, Argentina and Italy. All these countries have seen political upheavals or elections and the people are anxious for assessing the economic implications. That is when the story of HP must be studied more carefully. Founded in the 1930s, the 1940s were a very difficult period of a lot of IT firms, but HP went on a spree of talent recruitment of top engineers or scientists leaving US military labs in the post war era. While the founders were initially cautious due to the external climate, they eventually went on hiring as they felt this was a golden opportunity. No wonder within a few decades, HP was among the topmost recognized US brands. The case of Egon Zehnder is similar. They surfaced during the dot com bust of the early 2000s when their profile of executive search was not seen as very attractive. They stuck by those difficult times, rode the recession, but emerged through all these crises as stronger.
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