Succession Planning: Why Most Boards Aren’t Ready for Their Next Leadership Exit
Succession planning has never mattered more, and the numbers explain why. Through the first half of 2026, 920 chief executives left their posts at companies tracked by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Boards have always absorbed exits. Retirements get planned for, resignations get managed, and the occasional abrupt departure gets handled. The exits themselves are rarely […]
What The Best Passive Candidates Actually Want
If you own a hire that cannot afford to fail, and you have spent the last few months reading shortlists where nobody was quite good enough, this one is written for you. You know the shape of it by now. The role has been open for three months, it is senior, and it is the […]
Will AI Replace Recruiters?
Every month brings another headline about AI’s recruitment takeover. ‘Will AI replace recruiters?‘ ‘Another wave of redundancies.‘ ‘Your job is next.‘ This kind of content is written to scare you – because fear drives clicks and engagement, and they know it. The question keeps coming up in board meetings and hiring strategy sessions: can AI […]
Exclusive Recruitment vs Contingency: Why One Recruiter Wins
It’s Tuesday and for the third time this week you are explaining the same role from scratch. The same context. The same nuance about why this hire matters. The same quiet warning about the last person who did not work out. Three agencies are on the role means three email trails to manage, three catch-up […]
Right First Time: Inside Our Executive Search Scoping Process
A hiring brief arrives in the inbox: a VP role at a pharmaceutical company in Germany. So, what do most recruiters do? They jump on a teams call with the client. The obvious ground gets covered. Previous experience, qualifications, the basics anyone would ask. What’s missing is the deeper territory: skills beyond the CV, motivators, […]
What Separates a Structured Hiring Process From a Gut-Feel One?
“I just had a good feeling about her.” Every leader who has ever made a hire has said a version of that sentence. And every leader who has ever made a bad hire has said it too. That’s the problem. Gut feel is the one thing in your hiring process that has nothing to do […]
Your Recruitment Partner Is a Business Risk Decision. Treat It Like One.
Talent acquisition has come a long way in a decade. Better technology. Stronger internal teams. AI-enabled sourcing. Richer market data. Recruitment partner evaluation, by contrast, has barely moved at all. For a decision that directly shapes leadership quality, business performance, team dynamics and culture, it is still routinely treated with remarkably little strategic scrutiny. A […]
The EU Pay Transparency Directive: What Hiring Managers Need to Know
In a months’ time, hiring across the EU changes permanently. If you hire into Berlin, Madrid, Milan or any other European location, the directive applies to you. Regardless of where your business is headquartered. At Solutions Driven, the conversations we are having with hiring teams across the UK and Europe right now point to the […]
Why Hiring Is Broken (And What Companies Need Instead)
hiring Is Broken Because The Recruitment Industry still operates on Outdated Assumptions Companies outsource critical decisions to vendors who carry zero accountability, rely on vague processes, and optimise for speed or volume instead of outcomes. The result is sadly predictable: mis-hires, inflated costs, delayed projects, and leadership gaps that stall execution. Most recruitment firms talk […]
Your Employer Brand Is Not What You Say. It Is What Candidates Experience.
Most organisations invest considerable time and budget crafting their employer value proposition. They build career pages, define culture statements and promote their workplace on social media. And yet, candidate trust in those messages is declining. That was the central theme of a recent webinar hosted by our CEO Gavin Speirs, joined by Enrique Rubio, founder […]