Alison Harrigan, Sector Leader, Travel Hospitality & Leisure, Korn Ferry, interviewed by Lan Elliott

Alison shares the importance of mentoring others, including people from a different demographic – not just because mentors benefit and learn from their mentees, but also because hiring leaders are requesting this.  She also discusses how to cultivate a network – and where the magic is.  Alison talks about recent trends in recruiting, what makes candidates stand out . . . and what makes hiring leaders stand out, plus the one area of personal development candidates are not focusing on enough.

Transcript

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Lan Elliott 0:01

Hello, and welcome to D E I Advisors, an Arizona nonprofit dedicated to empowering personal success. And today we have a wonderful guest advisor with us, Alison Harrigan, who is senior client partner at Korn Ferry. And if you don't know Korn Ferry, they are the largest global recruiting firm, and Alison covers hospitality, leisure, and travel for Korn Ferry. So welcome, Alison. Thank you. So glad to have you here. Alison and I have had the chance to work together on some searches in the past, so I'm really happy to have her here. And Alison, you are one of the youngest Korn Ferry senior client partners. So you've had incredible career up to this point already. Can you share some of the inflection points of your career and was there a particular factor that contributed to your success?

Alison Harrigan 0:51

Yeah. I think that there were three major decisions I made that really impacted my career overall. So the first one was choosing to go to hospitality school in the first place. And I think I was one of the rare high schoolers that had this. Intuition that I, I already loved travel. I loved hotels. I loved people. I really wanted to work in an industry that centered on people. And to me that was either gonna medical school or this wonderful industry of hospitality. And I chose hospitality and that was obviously an incredible experience. That was a launchpad for the rest of my career. When I was in hospitality school, my first internship was with the Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay, which is a property here near San Francisco. I was the assistant to the lead wedding planner for a summer. We worked on, I think, 70 weddings in three months. And I really fell in love with the Ritz Carlton brand and with luxury hospitality and the service standards and the tradition and the culture that Ritz Carlton brings. And so that influenced me to my second major decision, which was after I graduated to join the Ritz Carlton. I was recruited by a wonderful mentor of mine named John Herns to join the Ritz-Carlton Residential Division. And and, I still had such an admiration and love for the brand. And then after working for five years in Colorado with the Ritz-Carlton with in luxury real estate at large, I made the decision to join Korn Ferry, which is the third major inflection point. And and Korn Ferry, there was a mentor of mine in the mountains who suggested executive search, and he said, you are good at these kind of skills. Maybe you should look at this. Other career that would take advantage of those same types of skills. And that's how I found my way to executive search. I interviewed with multiple firms and, chose to go with Ferry, which is the largest talent advisory firm in the world. So I've with Ferry for the last not almost eight years exactly. I've had the honor and the opportunity to work on over 250 C-suite or executive level searches in the hospital, hospitality, travel and leisure industry in that time. And it's been a wonderful ride. I feel so honored to be able to do the work that I do every day and to work with the clients that I'm able to work with, like you.

Lan Elliott 3:09

Thank you. Thank you. You mentioned some of the skills that your mentor thought would contribute to being successful in executive search. Can you share what those were?

Alison Harrigan 3:19

Yeah. And I think it was such an important lesson because what that mentor was able to see was, Hey, you are good at, and some of the things you said was, thinking through a problem in all levels of complexity. Not just stopping at what the actual problem was itself, but saying, why is it that you need this? Or Why is it that you want this? He saw that I was I was good at listening and influencing others. I think he saw that I had a passion for the hospitality industry. And he was able to make that he himself was an executive that had been recruited in the past. He understood the executive search field. But the overall lesson, I think was that just because you haven't done the job before doesn't mean that you can't do it in the future. And that if you can look at some of these transferable skill sets, and we call that sometimes skill-based hiring, you can, you can find a new career, a new avenue that actually doesn't feel that different from what you were doing before because it takes advantage of the same skills that. You mentioned you asked like the things that have contributed to success, and I don't know if I've been successful, but I think a couple things have helped me, and one of them is never forgetting kind of the service mentality that is embedded in you when you work for a company like Ritz-Carlton. And there's so many of the, I still have my. Credo card, which I don't know, what this from but it's a card that, when you're a Ritz Carlton employee, you carry around in your pocket with the Ritz Carlton values. And so many of those values can apply to anything. Anticipating and fulfilling the express and unexpressed wishes and needs of guests. Or the genuine care and comfort of guests. All of those are things that I still apply every day and I think have really helped me. And then I think the second thing that I think about every day is this quote that I read that was that said something like, a person's success in life as measured by the amount of difficult conversations they're willing to have. Or like a person, success being measured by the amount of difficult conversations they're willing to have. And I think that comes in a couple of like different ways for me. One is obviously, we, every day we're telling people difficult news, they didn't get the job, or, going a different direction or they're not gonna get the offer that they want. Or, the other way that comes into play is again, really going back to. Getting to the root of the problem. And I know you mentioned this too, in, in your podcast interview with David Kong, but really thinking through up a problem overall. And when our clients come to us and they say something like, we wanna hire a CFO and we'd like it to be a female. Not just saying, okay, check one female CFO coming right up and really saying why is it that you feel that you need a female for this role? Do you think that there's a diversity issue in your company? What do you think a female would bring to this role? What other skills does this person need in this role? And really going deeper to explore the entire company's dynamics instead of just stopping at that one problem. So the service mentality, having difficult conversations. I think those are two things that have really guided me. Throughout the last throughout my career.

Lan Elliott 6:19

That's really wonderful. And I love the Ritz Carlton credo, which I think a lot of people in the industry will know, but it always resonated with me, ladies and gentlemen, certainly. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And I love that. And I actually just a quote the other day about listening, and it was that listening isn't about listening to formulate an answer. It's listening to hear the things that. Aren't being said. So I thought that was a really interesting way of talking about it. But listening is such an in interesting skill that I think not many people talk about it. Some people have definitely talked about it on this podcast as being an advantage. So thank

Alison Harrigan 6:55

you. Yes, 100%. And maybe you'll talk about that a little bit later, but I think that ties into self-awareness and empathy and a lot of other things. And listening is at the root of all of that.

Lan Elliott 7:05

Absolutely. I wanted to move over to talking about developing a network, because the hospitality industry is really a relationship industry. A lot of people actually stay in the industry, which is a bit different than other industries I've seen, so they tend to stay here once they find it their whole career. You and I found it early in school. We knew we wanted to do that before college, but a strong network is really important for what you do. How have you built your network and how do you do it in a way that suits your personality?

Alison Harrigan 7:36

Yeah. There's a couple things I would say about networking, both from my own experience and from observing, how candidates move through these searches at the senior executive level. One is I would really stress the importance of networking within your own company. I've, on this podcast, I've heard so many people say, I'm an introvert. I hate walking into that room of people that I don't know. And trust me, I think that there's very few people who really enjoy that experience of walking into a room of people they've never met before and having to introduce themselves. So a really great way to start networking is within your own organization. And unless you work with a company of five people, There's an, there's a way to f to first meet new people within your own company. I think the second thing to think of, and I this came to mind when people were talking about kind of the stress that comes with that network, the Alice or the NYU networking reception is that, cultivating your network takes a lot of time and you have to plant that seed. You have to water it, it has to grow. What, when you walk into that networking reception, you're really just planting the initial seed and you shouldn't put so much pressure on yourself or expectation to have this earth shattering interaction at that one reception. That's just the seed planning. What really the magic is in the follow up and the multiple conversations. I think you said, You don't, A relationship is formed after meeting in person twice, and I think that's huge. No one's nothing. Earth shattering is gonna come from that, or very rarely. I think we talked about one exception. It's gonna come from that first initial interaction. But the magic happens in that follow up overall. And then I think the third thing I would say is that networking is absolutely taking all shapes and sizes now. It's no longer the golf, the yacht club. The cigar bar afterwards. I think there are other ways that it's happening and that you can happen for you. A huge thing actually even to me is LinkedIn, I think it is Impactful to see the way that people interact with each other, with their colleagues celebrating their colleagues' successes, commenting on each other's posts on LinkedIn. And it's a whole different way to view how different interactions are happening. I think we've all had the experience where we see someone comment on a post and we're like, oh, I didn't even know that person knew that person. And I think it's just a really accessible way for a lot of people to. To network.

Lan Elliott 9:51

Yeah. And it's been a great way, I really engaged more with LinkedIn. LinkedIn once we started doing d e i advisors, but to support people and lift other people up. It's just been such a wonderful medium to do that. I'm curious if recruiters will go and look and see what people's posts are.

Alison Harrigan 10:09

Of course. Yep. Absolutely. And I wanna see that you are posting other, like supporting other people saying, hooray about the new job, or, Great awesome news on the New Deal, or I think that's fantastic. Now it's not a, it's not a ding against you if you're not active on LinkedIn, but but I think it's really wonderful to see and it's a sign that you are influential and involved and in the community.

Lan Elliott 10:30

Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, that's great way to put it. So along those lines, one of the things that you are finding now you had mentioned that's important to your clients is whether candidates have mentees, if they're bringing other people along. Can you share more about that? Is that interest recent in hiring leaders? And if so, why?

Alison Harrigan 10:51

It's such a, it's such an interesting trend and I think a lot of it comes out of the last few years where retention has an engagement, has really become a massive. Issue, or at least topic for a lot of our clients, and they're really thinking about how they best retain talent. And so what that ends up affecting is them when they're thinking about hiring a new leader, especially someone who's gonna be playing a really prominent high profile role in the organization. What is the proof that person has been able to build followership build, be a leader, build employee engagement? And how is that person beyond just management, leadership, been a mentor to others? So we're seeing clients, a couple things. A ask for references of people that either maybe you've mentored or just of your direct reports. And the second thing, we've even, we've seen clients a couple times, and I love this question is saying, who have you mentored that doesn't look like you? And and I think that's a great, I think it's a question that stops a lot of people in their tracks and I wouldn't say it's every client that's asking that question in an interview, but it's very provoking when you think about it. Especially, yeah. I think. That's huge right now is the importance of being a mentor to others.

Lan Elliott 12:04

Yeah, I remember when I interviewed Stephanie Leonard and she mentioned one of the key skills she looks for is if her leaders are bringing other people along and helping to develop other people on their team. That was a really key skill. So I think it was really interesting that you mentioned. That this is something that other people are asking about, especially people who don't look like you. Because yeah that's something different that we haven't really focused on very much in the industry until recently.

Alison Harrigan 12:31

Not everyone can change, their demographic or what they look like. But what they can do is support others that aren't, that don't look like them. And so I think if they're, sometimes we've gotten reference lists back from candidates. They have 10 references, board members, direct reports supervisors, and they're all the same. Demographic. Yeah. And that's a red flag to everyone involved. And so I think it's, thinking about that reference list and thinking who in your network maybe doesn't look exactly like you? Is important. Yeah. And

Lan Elliott 13:05

I think another piece to that is the part of, especially if you're a woman or from an underrepresented group, the leaders that you might want to have as mentors may not look like you. So I spend a lot of time trying to find mentors that look like me, but there are a lot of wonderful mentors that are out there, been mentors to me that don't look like me. So I think just expanding that your aperture, if you're seeking someone as well, I think is. Creates more opportunities. Absolutely. Along the lines of recent trends, can you share maybe some of the trends that you're seeing? I know that David interviewed Rodica, who you work with closely, and she shared a lot of great. Information about what's happening in the search process, but I love getting another point of view, a millennial recruiter's point of view. If you'll, so I'd love to hear from your perspective, what are some of the observations and key trends you're seeing right now?

Alison Harrigan 14:01

Yeah, and I think RA's interview was I think it was like December or January where we were just coming out of this very employee focused market. Some of that has shifted to be a little bit more, employer focused. But a lot of the behaviors of candidates from, really largely 2022, a little bit of the end of 2021, where we saw such a frenzy in the market, a lot of those behaviors have stayed. So one of those is that, We see candidates more than ever wanting to do an extreme amount of diligence on the companies that are hiring them. And we see some of our clients or the companies being wow, that's a lot of information that this person is asking for. But really I think it's great. I think it's the candidates are diligencing their future employers, just the way that any, private equity firm or investor would diligence a company or an asset. And I think that should be expected and It's fantastic and we're, recruiters as Radius as our formidable competitors are all here to help facilitate that process. I think one of the things that we've seen, as we look at the relocation or location general has been a huge topic of discussion in most of our searches. We've done about 76 searches since really exactly three years ago when we say around the start of the pandemic. And for 50 of those 76 searches, Location has been a huge. Factor in the ultimate decision. And by that the person being able to relocate or meet the demand, the requirements for relocation for the role. And I think with that, the takeaway from that is you, there are, you can significantly accelerate your career if you might be willing to relocate, especially to a place that might be a little bit less desirable. Although relocation in general right now is just. It's difficult. And I think that it's, there's obviously, we are narrowing it down to the best and most qualified candidates, but that is still a topic at the end of the day, and most of our clients for their senior teams are looking for their candidates to relocate. From a millennial perspective, I think, I live here in San Francisco. A lot of my friends work in tech. Job changes every few years can be common. I think hospitality is a little bit more conventional than other industries in the fact that they really wanna, most of our clients are looking at resumes and there's a red flag that goes up. If the candidate has had multiple jobs where they've been in that job for less than three to four years and so I would say that, we're moving in a different direction. We're moving more towards acceptance and maybe shorter stints, but overall at large, it still presents as a red flag. When I started at Korn Ferry as an associate, the prevailing wisdom at the time was that you couldn't present a candidate to a client. If they had two jobs of less than one year or less than two years each two jobs, less than two years each. That's changing across the board. But I think hospitality is still a little bit conventional. You need to be there three to four years to have an impact. I think I think that some of the very, very kind of niche trends that we're seeing, we haven't, the, there's been a a significant lack of executive development investment. Acquisitions roles for the last eight months, I would say reflective of the, slower transaction market overall right now. So anything that's transaction related, we've seen less of those roles in the last seven months than we have. Generally in that same time period.

Lan Elliott 17:19

And then I suspect when the capital markets open up and you can get debt, there'll be probably a frenzy of people getting back into deals and then looking for transaction executives at that point. 100.

Alison Harrigan 17:29

Yeah, exactly. I think so too. Yeah.

Lan Elliott 17:32

So let's talk a little bit about, you had mentioned that candidates are now asking for a lot of information about companies. What makes a hiring leader stand out or a company stand out? Everyone's looking for great talent right now from the perspective of a hiring leader. What advantages. Would an interviewer be looking for what key attributes

Alison Harrigan 17:56

would? Yeah, so I, I can kinda take the context of what feedback I get from candidates after the interview process that maybe makes them not wanna continue in a process or make them cool off on a job that's exciting to them to begin with. The biggest one is present. I can't tell you how many times candidates had come back and said, it looked like the interviewer was multitasking, or he picked up his phone two or three times while he was, he or she was interviewing me. And that's obviously not a fantastic experience. And then it doesn't even need to be the main hiring manager. If it's anyone in the interview process that kind of presents as uninterested or not present that's a problem. I think it's probably in that situation, if you're dealing with an urgent matter, it's a tough day. It's almost better to just announce that at the beginning of the call and to have the interviewee really perceive that you're uninterested in them. So I think that's a huge some feedback that we often get from candidates about hiring leaders. I think that one of the ways that hiring leaders in general have been able to really cultivate a diverse slate of talent too is returning to that skills-based hiring approach that we talked about at the beginning, which is, looking at if you are trying to hire for a role, you don't have the diversity that you're looking for, you wanna create a more diverse slate, or even you just wanna find new talent. So look at what the most critical skills are in the role and think deeply about what other. Positions or roles you can find those critical skills within. And I think that's a great method to find better talent no matter what. It's a great way to bring talent from other industries into hospitality. It's a great way to diversify the slate overall. And then I think the third is just to be open to that diligence thing that I mentioned earlier is that don't be alarmed by it. Don't be alarmed if candidates are referencing you. As the hiring leader that's their they're being smart about their decision making.

Lan Elliott 19:50

Makes sense. Dorothy Dowling said in her interview with David Kong, one of the things that she lives by is to choose your boss carefully.

Alison Harrigan 20:01

100. And I think, there's, one of the things I think about a lot is if you have two jobs that are equal and you're trying to decide to always pick the more ambitious boss, and there's a, it's a double edged sword. You don't wanna necessarily pick somebody who's. Who's so ambitious that they're not gonna have time to support and lead you. But more times than not, if you can work for somebody who's ambitious and maybe I'm being a little bit of self-reflective right now, they, and you work well with them, they're gonna bring you along with them. And that's, from my own experience, but that's also just from hearing people's career stories myself and saying, wow, there are a number of people out there that got to where they did because they. They stuck with somebody who who ha, who had big ambitions.

Lan Elliott 20:46

Yeah, absolutely. We've seen that a lot in the industry. So that, that's really great advice. Let's switch to the other side. What makes a candidate stand out to people who are looking to hire?

Alison Harrigan 20:57

Yeah I think all the things that we, that you're taught from day one, being prepared, reading the 10 k, if that's what it is being right about issues affecting the industry, knowing the background of the person that is interviewing you. All those things are When you're at a interviewing for a C-suite role or SCP level position, or a board position, those are table stakes. I think, and I hope I don't misuse this, but I think gin Lee in your interview called something the Korean word for kind of having this light in your eyes, or I was, I, I've heard the word before and I've also heard it used as like general self-awareness. And I think that is just huge. Empathy, situational awareness, emotional awareness. All of those things are, can be apparent in just a one hour, one-on-one interview. I think RA said in her interview, Reading the room, reading the zoom, making sure people are with you, making sure you're pausing to make sure people are still listening and that you're resonating. I think the number one piece of feedback that we get from interviewers about why they don't want to move a candidate forward is the person just we had 30 minutes slated for the interview, 45 minutes, and they talked the whole time. And yes, it, of course the, it's an interview. The candidate's supposed to talk a lot, but they didn't even pause to check if I was still following them. And that's a huge red flag. So I think that kind of like the NCI is interesting because it's a little bit about the situ situational awareness, emotional awareness, but also about, I think he mentioned just like the light the eye contact, the brightness in your eyes are integrity. And I think that's part of it too. The other thing that makes candidates stand out, and this is readily available in, this is a common kind of trait in hospitality, less so than other industries, is range. And I actually remember talking about this a little bit with when we were doing a lot of work with I H G, is that in hospitality more so than other industries. Many of the executive leaders need to have range in that they have to flip from one moment talking to. Hourly staff member, a housekeeper, a front desk person to an investor, to a foreign investor, and they ha and they have to go minute to minute back and forth, and they could be going straight outta their meeting with Blackstone into leading a housekeeping lineup. And having that ability to have that range, I think is, we see all the kind of, Celebrated leaders in our industry having that agile style. So I think that's really

Lan Elliott 23:12

important. Yeah, it's always wonderful when you see leaders who can connect with people at all different levels, right? They treat everybody the same with empathy and care, and that really comes across and it just builds this great amount of loyalty to

Alison Harrigan 23:27

those people. Absolutely. And people know people, not just the people you're interacting with, but the people around you notice when you can do that.

Lan Elliott 23:34

Absolutely. Let me ask you this, is there something that you don't see enough candidates focus on for their personal development but is really valued by people who are looking to hire right now?

Alison Harrigan 23:46

Yeah, I think I think that we see a lot of candidates get mired in, I'm a developer. I'm only gonna do development roles, or I'm an operator. I'm only gonna do operating roles. I'm a marketer, whatever it is. And we see this a lot in segments. I've own, I've worked at Ritz Carlton, our four seasons for 10 years. I wouldn't even dream of taking a job with, an upscale or midscale brand. And I think that flexibility, that lack of flexibility holds a lot of people back. And I think we would, if you look across the industry and some of the people that have ascended quickly in their careers, it's because they were willing to be a little bit flexible about their next move.

Lan Elliott 24:26

Yeah, ma makes sense. Greg Canei talked about it in his interview. He talked about the difference between being a rockstar in your area and being an all-star in a lot of areas.

Alison Harrigan 24:37

Yes. Ex and Greg's a great example of that too. Yes. He's been able to do so many things throughout his career in different areas, and maybe other people would've said, no, I'm gonna stay in my land. I'm gonna focus, I'm gonna be a specialist. I love

Lan Elliott 24:52

that. Let me switch gears a little bit and talk about a recent study that came out. It's not so recent, it's 2016. Harvard Business Review published a study that was titled, if There's Only One Woman in Your Candidate Pool, there's Statistically no chance She'll be hired. And that study, I think you can figure out what the gist of that study was, but that study resonates. It's similar to some other studies we've seen real recently about how you need at least two women on a board to really have meaningful impact or two or more women on the hiring committee to, to really make significant change. Could you share some thoughts on this and. Having, for example, one woman or underrepresented person in a final candidate P pool, that's not enough in order for that person to get hired.

Alison Harrigan 25:46

Yeah. I think the bottom line of both of these studies is that, yeah, one, one is on a two might not be enough. More is better. Now that being said, if you are in a situation where you can't have, for whatever reason, there can't be more in the candidate pool or there can't be more in the hiring committee, hopefully that you don't get to that point. But if you do, Then it's, it helps to have an objective person in the group that can hold everyone accountable for the goals that you set out to achieve or for, to hold people accountable to not fall into these cognitive biases of. That you've mentioned. And if that's not possible to have this objective third party, whether it's a, a recruiter or somebody else that's sitting in that meeting, sometimes the C H R O or an HR leader can play that role. It helps to just have the awareness that these cognitive biases. Exist, and I'm so glad that, we, you and I spend so much time talking about that study. I hope that study the the second one and others like that continue to make the rounds because the more that you realize it's happening the more that somebody in the room can stop themselves and say, are we falling pre to this bias.

Lan Elliott 26:54

As I suspected, we are getting really close on time, so I could have kept talking with you and we had a long conversation before as we were prepping for this, but there's so much great information. Can you share one last piece of advice with us, Alison, and keeping in mind that the mission of d e I advisors is around empowering personal success, perhaps. One final bit of advice for women or underrepresented groups who have high career aspirations. How can they really maximize and make the most out of their career?

Alison Harrigan 27:28

Yeah. A couple things. I think the service mentality I think can serve anyone in their career. I think at the end of the day, the idea of fulfilling the express and unexpressed wishes and needs of guests or clients or counterparties or whatever, your employees, whatever it is, that comes back to empathy. Being able to put yourself in that person's shoes and saying, if I was that person, what would I need next? Whether it's the guest that's walking out, it's raining, and you having the umbrella ready for them when they walk outside, or whether it's an employee who you anticipate their needs by saying, let's talk about your career before they ever have to come to you and say, I wanna talk about what my next step is. I think that empathy and that, That, going back to the service mentality of these like fulfilling the, the the wants and needs of who you're working with and around is really important. I think the second thing I mentioned is to keep an open mind about your next role. To keep in mind, like to really think about, okay, I love doing these three things. I'm good at doing these three things. Where could I apply that to a similar role? And figuring out how to articulate that when you're in a job process is really important. And I've seen a lot of successful people be able to do that really well. And then I think at the end of the day, I think, Finding good mentors and being a mentor yourself is anyone can be a mentor. If, if you are just starting out your career, you can maybe be a mentor to those who are sale in college. If you're at the midpoint in your career, you can be a mentor to those. So I think, and there's so much to be learned from being a mentor to others. Just as being mentored yourself. So I think that's really important too.

Lan Elliott 28:55

That's really wonderful advice. Thank you. It's so rewarding, I think, to be a mentor and to help other people. And you're right, there's as much learning going both ways when you're mentoring someone. So thank you so much. That was really wonderful advice. Thank you, Alison for being on d e I advisors today and for our audience. I hope if you've enjoyed this interview with Alison, you will tune in to other interviews. You can find them on our website at d e i advisors.org, and a number of the wonderful interviews that we've actually referenced on the show today can be found there. So I hope you'll join us for future interviews and thank you so much, Alison. Thank you.