Tehran, Iran, March 5
By Mehdi Sepahvand:
Executive search is a challenge in the Iranian business market because each search is a completely new story, Christophe Laurent-Atthalin, managing partner at IranianOffice told Trend March 5.
Executive search (informally called headhunting) is a specialized recruitment service which organizations pay to seek out and recruit highly qualified candidates for senior-level and executive jobs (e.g., President, Vice-president, CEO).
“Specifically in Iran it is also a challenge because we are able to measure the gap that exists between Western and Iranian habits and styles as regards interaction, management, communication, reporting, etc. But we are confident that this gap will reduce very rapidly," Laurent-Atthalin said.
IranianOffice, a specialist business and corporate development company recently started a joint venture in Iran with Alexander Hughes, a world-known specialist of executive search company.
In the meantime, Laurent-Atthalin mentioned that exceptional talents can nevertheless be found to be hired into the Iranian market. “To be honest we also have to say that we meet a lot of excellent people in Iran, and this is also very motivating for us.”
IranianOffice is primarily helping foreign companies to come, or come back, to Iran. It helps them by providing them a full range of development and operation services. After international sanctions were removed from Iran in 2016, many Western companies are seeking to open offices or find agencies in Iran.
“We witness a real need for executive search services, first of all because -even if it seems to be slow- more and more European companies are setting up in Iran and obviously they need to find local management teams, as they cannot only rely on expatriate. Several companies are immediately planning to prepare the next generation of Iranian managers after the first expatriates will leave Iran, and these companies need to recruit them well in advance,” Laurent-Atthalin explained.