Are you planning to hire any key employees in 2015? If so, ask yourself an important question: "Why would top performers want to work here?" You may know the answers - industry-leading products, great place to work, opportunities for career growth - but will prospective candidates know much about your company? Many companies have an employer branding strategy where they establish specific tactics for telling their story through their advertising, website, blogs, and other social media outlets.

The end of 2014 marks a significant milestone for Gilman Partners. After nearly 30 years with us, Jan Seymour will retire. During her time at Gilman Partners and our predecessor firms, she's played many roles including team leader, grammarian, and den mother. She's also our linguistic specialist and is able to say hello and goodbye in 97 languages.

I'm an optimist by nature and from an executive search and recruitment perspective, something has changed in recent months that could portend positive and significant growth in coming months. As a retained executive search and recruiting firm, our company often gets a somewhat early view of future economic conditions. For the first several years after the recession, our clients were cautious. Their results were improved and they had returned to profitability; however, there was not much growth and most executives were not especially optimistic about the near-term future.

In recent years, the uncertain economy forced companies to limit hiring and also caused executives and managers to stay in place at their current employers. Now, the improving economic conditions combined with continuing globalization has caused the war for management talent to heat up. Top talent in engineering, finance, and sales has consistently been in demand, but now that the economy has improved, we have seen the trend accelerate and expand to other areas as well.

Over the last year, we've seen an ever increasing number of clients recognize they are at risk as key members of their management teams retire or otherwise leave. The difficult economic conditions of recent years caused many companies to focus on more immediate needs, and planning for future leadership changes was pushed to a back burner.

Welcome to Gilman Partners! As of May 1, we will officially change our name to reflect a number of exciting developments at the firm.

There is clear evidence now in the Greater Cincinnati market that the level of employment activity for executive talent has definitely picked up. Good economic news to be sure, but some employers have been missing out on hiring the candidates they prefer. It is much more common, recently, for strong individuals to be exploring several active job opportunities simultaneously, and often to have multiple job offers in hand.

We're excited to introduce our new website today! Visit www.baldwingilman.com to meet our team of 17 search professionals, learn about our unique behavioral assessment tool, and find out why so many companies are choosing Baldwin Gilman to lead their most challenging and critical searches.

The recession is officially over. As we begin the New Year, cautious optimism appears to be the prevailing sentiment among business leaders and key managers. 2014 should be a year for growth and increased profitability. One key factor for success will be the retention and engagement of your top performers.

As the economy improves, and companies increase their hiring activity, now is a good time to review your recruiting process. Most companies focus on identifying strong candidates and then assessing them through the interview process. While these are critical elements of the process, don't forget that the best candidates will also be evaluating the company and the opportunity and may have hard questions for you. The most desirable candidates are becoming more receptive to exploring new career opportunities.