Headhunters and the ‘ideal’ executive body

Abstract

In this article, we adopt a critical perspective to study how executive search practices reproduce particular understandings of the ‘ideal’ executive body. We show how this disadvantages not only women but also men who are considered not to fit the ‘ideal’, and further demonstrate how search practices are embodied: how aesthetics, the senses and a sensorial way of knowing permeate the practices through which candidates are evaluated. We identify discourses on embodied co-presence, capabilities and voice in search consultants’ talk, and specify how notions of the ‘ideal’ executive body and embodied search practices become intertwined. We offer this contribution to the discussion on the body, gender and management and to research on executive search practice.

Compositions of professionalism in counselling work: An embodied and embedded intersectionality framework

“…Lidya’s comment suggests that a youthful masculinity, associated with being energetic and active, is seen as crucial in the context of business coaching. This reflects other research suggesting that ‘energy’ and ‘intensity’ are favoured embodied qualities following normative corporeal translations of successful professionalism in male-dominated settings (Meriläinen et al, 2015). Hence, this particular localized professional setting clearly shapes the constitution of credibility, privileging one particular version of masculinity and excluding other forms as invalid (see Simpson, 2014).…”

“…This research exposes in detail how feminine corporeality does not align well with expectations of control ‘central to the embodiment of the professional’ (Haynes, 2012: 500). Studies suggest that the ‘hegemonic visions of an idealized [professional] body’ (McDowell, 1997: 35) privilege masculine bodies, making it difficult for women to ‘fit in’ because their bodies are marked as lacking certain embodied professional characteristics such as masculine rationality, and/or as excessive, for example too sexy or leaky (Gatrell, 2013; Jyrkinen and McKie, 2012; McDowell, 1997; Meriläinen et al, 2015; Trethewey, 1999). Hence, women need to manage and discipline their bodies intensively to add ‘credibility to their competence’ (Haynes, 2012: 496).…”

Feminist Ethics and Women Leaders: From Difference to Intercorporeality

“…Cultural inscriptions on women's bodies and their representation as leaders must be spoken and challenged (cf. Meriläinen et al 2013). The presentation of women's embodied experiences and their public roles are required to be made visible, including the 'hurt, abused, objectified body, as well as the normative sexed body' (Rozmarin 2013, p. 475).…”

Feeling the Right Personality. Recruitment Consultants’Affective Decision Making in Interviews With Employee Candidates

“…Many studies have implied that the body has a central role in recruitment criteria (e.g., Adkins, 1992;Caven et al, 2013;Meriläinen et al, 2013;Nickson et al, 2003;Tipper, 2004). Informal discrimination concerning bodies of different ages, ethnicities, and genders, in particular, has been analyzed by several researchers (e.g., Combs et al, 2012;Dean, 2005;Kadefors & Hanse, 2012;Loretto & White, 2006;Nilsson, 2011;.…”

“…However, too little is still known about how recruitment staff make their judgments of job applicants' embodied capabilities, such as 'person-to-person' skills in the new 'style-labor market' (Nickson et al, 2003). In particular, the existing literature does not say much about the embodied labor of recruitment consultants themselves and how it is intertwined with their recruitment criteria (Humle, 2014;Meriläinen et al, 2013).…”