Davidson, dark-haired and in his early forties, radiates enthusiasm. The recruitment business is in his genes his father is still an executive with Manpower. He talks briskly, aggressively, confidently.
The briefing from Ken Livingstone was, Find the best. By the end we knew we had looked at everybody in transport around the world. We had an amazing short list and we knew that there just wasnt anybody else of that calibre. His name just kept cropping up. One Sunday afternoon I rang him up from my study at home. We had a long conversation. He was intrigued. I managed to persuade him to have a conversation with Ken that was key. At the end of that conversation Ken was really impressed and Kiley was impressed. He sent in his cv.
He couldnt make the interview, but he did a video conference interview with me. He couldnt fly over for the interview panel either, so this was a sign of great pragmatism the whole panel trooped down to the press room at Kens HQ. We did the final interview by video conference there. A typical public-sector or even private-sector panel wouldnt have taken that approach, it would have taken the view that if Kiley couldnt make the final interview, that was just tough luck.
That weekend we got Bob Kiley and his wife to fly over to London. Two days after that Bob and Ken struck a deal.
Davidson tells the tale with relish. He is at the heart of what amounts to something close to a revolution in human resources. He believes in constantly challenging conventional mind-sets and techniques; he is always ready to break down traditional lines of demarcation in a battle to fit the right person to the right job. He is ready to look overseas, in the public sector, the private sector or the voluntary sector. I want to make things difficult for my clients. I want to show them the talent that is there, he says.
He reels off a list of recent appointments to demonstrate what he means. The new deputy chief executive at the London Borough of Lambeth, Rob Leake, is ex-BAA. The new director of organisation and culture change at Lambeth is ex-NatWest. The HR director at Liverpool is ex-Barclays. At Telford & Wrekin Council the new head of economic development is a New Zealander. Richard Broadbent, the permanent secretary at Customs & Excise, is ex-private sector. All these are PwC appointments. And, he adds, if weve got a Swede running the national football team, and a Kiwi running British Airways, why shouldnt the public sector look abroad as well? Or if Birmingham aspires to be a world-class city shouldnt it be looking further afield for the best candidate for its chief executive? Whether candidates happen to be in the public sector, the private sector, or from overseas doesnt and shouldnt matter, he believes.
Increasingly we should have briefings for jobs that do not exclude different cultures, Davidson stresses. Look at what my clients want: proven leadership ability, proven management of change experience, the ability to understand how to change behaviour and attitudes, people who understand its about delivering through other people, can understand complexity, and finally people who actually have delivered and can deliver. Those are the core things.
Davidson readily admits that a large part of his job is about overcoming prejudice. You find civil servants who say, That individual from the private sector wont be able to understand the political dimension and doesnt have the public-sector ethos. In local government they say about civil servants, They have never run anything, just done policy. In the private sector they will accuse civil servants of not understanding the commercial imperatives. In Wales they say, Youre not Welsh and in Scotland they say, Youre not Scots.
There are two kinds of practical obstacles when luring candidates from the private into the public sector, Davidson says. Many candidates dont understand the public recruitment process and dont try to understand it. And many employers stick to the traditional recruitment culture and end up blocking candidates from outside. If we educate candidates to apply more shrewdly, and educate clients to handle the process more intelligently, there is a much better chance of getting the two to meet.
He says that private-sector candidates find it hard to get to grips with the more detailed and meticulous public-sector hiring arrangements. Davidson cites a recent appointment where half the candidates from the private sector didnt take the trouble to ask for a briefing pack despite it being offered to them either in hard copy or downloaded. The problem is that in the private sector you very rarely get these packs. Applicants put in just a brief letter and a cv. Sometimes they are asked to fill in a form. Some candidates cant be bothered so they end up not applying. Thats just dumb.
Then theres the interview. Typically youll find that candidates from the private sector have done very little research about the organisation they are joining and that shows up badly. When I ask them why not they say that theyll do the research when they get short-listed but thats too late. And some private sector candidates can be patronising, Davidson adds, taking the attitude that they know best. There is nothing more likely to irritate potential employers. I have often found that private-sector candidates underestimate the calibre of the public sector.
But Davidson accepts that public-sector employers are capable of making mistakes as well. Sometimes these briefing packs are dreadful and so sloppy that nobody would want to work for an organisation that produces such rubbish.
Sometimes the job specifications are very poorly written, he continues. There may be 30 or 40 criteria which they require candidates to address. Some may duplicate one another, while others may be flatly contradictory. He cites one recent job advertisement which invited applications from the best people from whatever sector while at the same time the briefing pack specified that the person should have a deep and thorough understanding of the job being advertised.
Davidson also warns of the pitfalls surrounding the panel interviews much favoured for public-sector jobs. He says that the size of the panel can be very large indeed, with up to 20 members as well as assorted hangers-on. If you are not forewarned of that you could get very confused, says Davidson.
There are other, unexpected, dangers. For instance, sometimes the applicant is asked to make a presentation, and for reasons of fairness the panel may feel that they should show no reaction. If this hasnt been explained to the candidate in advance, it can be very unnerving.
Another problem of these huge panel interviews is that the dates are pre-set and if a candidate cant make it the attitude may very well be simply, Tough. Davidson also warns that these large panels can create problems of confidentiality for applicants eager that their employers should not know what they are up to. He recalls being rung up on the train back to London by a journalist on a local newspaper, who had been fully briefed by a panel member within hours of the panel interview taking place.
Davidson believes, however, that there are faults in both directions. The trouble, he says, is that for years and years the public sector has been hammered. They have been told to look at the private sector for best practice. So they take a look, and come straight up against the cultural problem that a lot of people in the private sector send in what are subsequently deemed to be weak applications that fail to address the appointment criteria and come with weak cvs that fail to demonstrate why the applicant is motivated to take the job.
Hamish Davidson was born in Aberdeen, and read international relations at the University of Keele, before becoming an accountant with the firm that was then called Ernst & Young. After his accountancy training he worked briefly for an investment management company before joining head-hunters Jamieson Scott, led by Jo Cutmore, who had been head of search and selection at Arthur Young before leaving to set up her own business. Then I was approached to come here, says Davidson. I discovered about a year later that, in my reference letter, Jo had stated that on the basis of the way that Price Waterhouse had hired me they reserved the right to hire me back in the same way.
Davidson almost gives the impression of becoming sentimental as he describes how he met Alannah Hunt, then PWs head of search and selection, at her offices at No 1 London Bridge. I joined, he says, with a view to staying four years. And here I am in charge now, 14 years later.
Following the Price Waterhouse merger with Coopers & Lybrand the combined PwC has a team of 54 fee-earning staff. The UK search and selection team is by far the largest of the PwC search and selection teams globally.
Davidson says that PwC has a particular focus on what he calls recruiting in adversity finding management when a company is in trouble. We also have a very large and successful interim management business.
But one of the most striking features about PwC is the high proportion of work that the company does for the public sector. Davidson says that, in the UK, public-sector recruiting accounts for approximately two thirds of the work that the company does.
It is this work that puts him, and PwC, right at the heart of Tony Blairs drive to transform Britains public services. After the general election the prime minister promised to transform health, education and transport first by putting in extra money and second, but just as important, by bringing in new management techniques and attitudes from the private sector.
When I spoke to Davidson he had just completed the job of hiring the 10-strong team for the Office of Public Service Reform in the Cabinet Office. He had hired a dynamic mix of people from all walks of life. The head of the office, Wendy Thomson, (though not herself hired through PwC) is an exemplar of the kind of cross-cultural mix that Davidson rejoices in: she is Canadian.
Davidson believes the culture of public service is changing. Im sure that were going to see a slimmed down civil service and a greater mixed economy of delivery. If local government which is at the cutting edge of delivering local services is going to be an enabler of service delivery rather than just the facilitator of it then surely the same will happen to the public service as a whole. At the end of the day the critical thing is that the customer and end user should get the best possible service however or through whoever it is delivered. That must be the prime focus.
There is a transformation of the culture of both Britains public and private sectors, Davidson says. The two used to be completely different. Now we are moving much closer to America or France, where individuals move much more naturally between the two.
Donald Rumsfeld, the powerful US defence secretary who has emerged as such a major figure in the post-11 September war, and a man who has chaired three major corporations, is an example of the new global breed. In Britain they have been slower to emerge, and the transition has been marked more by failure than success. Lord Simon stood down as chairman of BP in order to enter government, but soon resigned, disenchanted with bureaucracy and the low standard of ministers. So it is not easy to break down boundaries in a way that Blair and Davidson is determined to do.
It is a scary, post-modern world with few certainties, where an individual may encompass several roles at once, and never stay in the same place for long. Davidson and PwC are at the heart of it.
