RECRUITING TO RETAIN

A CEO emphasizes the value of having a quality employee recruitment process in this debut nonfiction book.

While leadership came naturally to Wright, he notes in his book’s preface that he “always wanted to be ‘the recruiter.’” From convincing classmates to join a new playground game he’d created in elementary school to gathering top talent as a student athlete at the University of Illinois, the author has always had a knack for identifying, enlisting, and developing prospects for his cause. Now the CEO and managing partner of Northwestern Mutual Goodwin—one of the nation’s largest financial security firms—Wright shares his successful strategy for attracting and retaining quality employees in this work. His process begins by identifying recruits who are good matches for his industry and specific business culture. (The author asserts that unnecessary turnover “serves clients poorly and hurts the industry’s reputation.”) Wright offers practical advice about screening, onboarding, and mentoring employees, giving readers access to his company’s extensive hiring process, which ensures that recruits have an in-depth understanding of his firm before they’re hired (the text lists hiring questionnaires used by the company). The author focuses on the importance of “building the diversity of our ranks,” refuting the stereotype that “white men from wealthy families are our strongest candidates” and highlighting the contributions of the more than two dozen Black advisers within his firm. While Wright’s decades of experience as a senior executive drive the narrative (which leans heavily on examples from the financial services and insurance industries), his book is relevant to recruiters in all fields. Wright displays an engaging prose style and draws upon his academic background in communications and psychology to give his arguments weight. He’s personable on the page, relating relevant anecdotes from his time as a standout wide receiver in college and from the brief professional football career of his father, John Wright, who played for the Atlanta Falcons and Detroit Lions in the late 1960s. The text is supplemented by an assortment of photographs, charts, and other visual aids.

A personable and practical guidebook to recruiting top talent.