While leaders in Human Resources departments often helm a workforce of in-house corporate recruiters who source and hire talent for the firm, many managers tend to outsource executive search, one highly specialized aspect of the recruitment function. Before delving into the process, you'll want to familiarize yourself with the market place of executive search. For one thing, as we've detailed previously in this column, a few things are worth noting when it comes to negotiating a fee to pay executive search professionals. It's also a good thing to know the size of an industry before engaging it.

Kennedy Information has nearly 35 years' worth of experience in researching and quantifying trends in executive search. Recently, we published Executive Recruiting: The State of the Industry 2007, a new report that distills this vast body of data. Drawing on data that dates from early 1970s editions of our very own Executive Recruiter News all the way to this past year's "40 Largest Retained Executive Search Firms in the U.S." and "20 Largest Retained Executive Search Practices in the World" rankings from the same newsletter, the report eliminates much of the guesswork that you, an HR professional who wishes to know this industry's dimensions, might otherwise resort to.

The report's estimates, which are based on the most comprehensive assembly of data available on the executive search profession, place this industry's size between $6 billion and $8 billion in yearly revenue. It's a market filled with a core of very large players that comprise a large portion of this total. For instance, the "20 Largest Global Firms," as defined by Executive Recruiter News, represent nearly $4 billion of the total and have grown, as a group, at a staggering rate since 1990. Even with the post-dotcom downturn (one that hit the executive search industry hard in 2001) factored in, growth has been strong, and the recovery since has been impressive.

Information like this makes Kennedy Information's research into executive search industry useful to any Human Resources department. Accurate market intelligence greatly enhances the decision-making process in business. A savvy understanding of the executive search firm marketplace is no different.