Ms Doreen Jaeger-Soong, Managing DirectorHughes-Castell makes the effort to understand a client’s strategic business plan in order to design optimal people solutions and to counsel clients during the process to ensure they hire the right people. Furthermore, Hughes-Castell seeks out candidates who are in tune with the clients’ markets and can integrate into the organization’s unique culture, build successful teams, and generate value for stakeholders.“We are in the people business; we define success by our placements’ longevity and career advancement,” says Doreen Jaeger-Soong, the Managing Director at Hughes-Castell, who has been the driving force behind the firm’s success over the years.
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We are in the people business; we define success by our placements’ longevity and career advancement
In the wake of the spiraling growth of internet and digitalization technologies in the Asian market, Hughes-Castell’s consultants are well-prepared to search and select the best-matched candidates, use both online and in-person (when possible) interviews to screen candidates, and leverage their social/ personal connections to access talent and the top potential candidates. With its more than 35-year history, Hughes-Castell is particularly suited to helping companies in filling leadership roles and board mandates. Hughes-Castell has access to senior and experienced candidates who are not on any social media platform and are not easily contacted by others.
In addition, with soft skills becoming increasingly crucial in executive recruiting, Hughes- Castell’s consultants are trained to use behavioral-based interviewing techniques to focus on how candidates with strong resumes have tackled real workplace situations and how they add value to their companies.
As an example, Hughes-Castell helped a global group in the luxury and mass-market consumer goods to restructure its legal function in Asia. The challenge was to move from a long-standing de-centralized structure to a centralized group structure. Each branch in every country had its legal team and head of legal, and it was going to be a very sensitive process to get the country legal heads to report to a new layer between them and the head office in the home country. Hughes-Castell’s deep database and experience in recruiting senior roles helped identify and secure the right candidate.
The selected candidate had been a partner in one of the top law firms, served as general counsel with one of the largest and most prestigious multinational companies for more than 12 years, and was bilingual in Chinese and English with all the requisite skills and experience. Hughes-Castell knew this candidate personally since their law firm days and was able to motivate and secure the candidate for this role successfully. While the person did not have any relevant industry experience, Hughes-Castell recognized that the intended role was not focused on operations but instead on group strategy and policy and that not having operational experience in a consumer industry was not a decisive factor.
With a strong understanding of candidates’ psychological needs and considerations, Hughes- Castell can provide strategic guidance to candidates and employers throughout the search, interview, and offer negotiation process. The firm appreciates the cultural nuances of the different locations they are recruiting in and the wants and needs of different generations of hiring managers/ candidates and is very much in tune with future-of-work trends and evolution.
With the high EQ of its consultants, and strong understanding of human psychology, Hughes-Castell is well-established to provide unparalleled ability to engage top-level legal talent in a broad spectrum of industries and commerce.
