A few weeks back, I sat in the last row at the haughty Princeton Club in NYC with Dennis Smith taking in Kennedy's 2008 Executive Search Summit where he was a speaker. The ESS is very much traditional blue blood retained search so talking about the ubiquitous Web 2.0 tools - as Dennis did...twice - were met with a little consternation, more than a few harumphs, and quite a few vacuous stares. Seemed like a tech-gen gap to me.

In getting to a backlog of emails, I read a CFO.com article (this and Financial Times needs to be read by every recruiter) that reminded me of the fear - and perhaps loathing - that older executives (including the blue-blood search firms) experience when talking two point oh (as in oh noooooooooo):

Finance people seemed to be the biggest skeptics. According to the report, CFOs lag behind in support of Web 2.0 initiatives. They are less likely than other executives to view Web 2.0 as transformative, less likely to think it will affect all parts of the business, and less likely to say it will change the company's business model. They are also less optimistic than their C-level peers about Web 2.0's potential to increase revenue and margins.

Of course there are the naysayers; these comments from the article are typical of the harumphers:

My respect for search firms was already low, but after this article it has declined at a rate comparable to that of the stock markets. The revelation that people are selected based on whether they appear on LinkedIn or not must be a new all time low in terms of selection method, only beaten by the previous fad of using Zodiac matching.

The person interviewed proposes using Facebook and Twitter to collaborate. Have people got no notion at all of risk and confidentiality? What business are these people in? In my career as CFO I do not think I have ever treated a matter which was of such simplicity that it could be solved exchanging twitter 100 character messages. If I ever find myself spending time on such items, it is time for a refresh on management and leadership basics.

As a recruiter using whatever tools are available to brand and collect, have you taken the initiative to train executives in your company on how to use these tools to their advantage? If you want to elevate the status of recruiting, what are you waiting for??? Or are you scared to speak to your executives?