Press and Media

Stephen Viscusi — America's Workplace Guru

For over three decades, Stephen Viscusi has been one of the most trusted and quoted voices on workplace issues in America. As CEO and founder of The Viscusi Group — one of the leading executive search firms in the interior furnishings industry — Viscusi brings real-world recruiting experience and a no-nonsense perspective to every conversation about jobs, careers, and the evolving workforce.

Viscusi is a New York Times bestselling author of two books: On the Job: How to Make It in the Real World of Work (Random House) and Bulletproof Your Job: 4 Simple Strategies to Ride Out the Rough Times and Come Out on Top at Work (HarperCollins), which has been published in eighteen languages. He also writes the widely read "Stephen Says" column in Business of Furniture (BoF), where he answers real questions from professionals navigating the interiors industry every week.

A Career Built on the Front Lines of Hiring

What sets Viscusi apart from other workplace commentators is that he is not an academic, a consultant, or a journalist covering the topic from the outside. He is a working recruiter who has spent his entire career matching talent with opportunity in one of the most relationship-driven industries in the world. He started at Haworth, learned the business from the ground up, and launched The Viscusi Group in 1985 as a boutique, retainer-based search practice dedicated to the interior furnishings sector.

Since then, he has placed hundreds of professionals — from salespeople and project managers at contract furniture dealerships to C-suite executives at major manufacturers and luxury residential brands. That firsthand experience is what gives his advice its edge. When Viscusi talks about what hiring managers are looking for, what candidates are doing wrong in interviews, or how compensation is shifting across the industry, he is drawing from searches he has conducted that week — not from surveys or secondhand data.

A National Media Presence

Viscusi's ability to make complex workplace topics accessible and entertaining has made him a favorite of television producers and news editors for decades. He has appeared regularly on NBC/Universal's Steve Harvey Show as the program's in-house workplace expert, and his television credits include segments on Good Morning America, Inside Edition, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, CNBC, NPR, and the Tyra Banks Show. ABC's Charles Gibson gave him the title that has stuck ever since — "America's Workplace Guru."

His media commentary covers the full spectrum of workplace issues: salary negotiation, interview strategy, office politics, professional etiquette, the impact of social media on careers, age bias in hiring, leadership transitions, and the unwritten rules that determine who gets ahead and who gets left behind. Viscusi's signature style is direct, opinionated, and grounded in the realities of how hiring actually works — which is why audiences and readers keep coming back.

The "Stephen Says" Column

Every week in Business of Furniture, Viscusi publishes his "Stephen Says" column — a Q&A format where he answers real questions submitted by professionals working in the contract furniture and interiors industry. The topics range from how to handle a difficult boss and when to leave a job to how compensation packages are structured at different types of companies and what the job market looks like in specific segments of the industry.

The column has become one of the most-read features in the trade publication because it offers something rare: honest, unfiltered advice from someone who has no reason to sugarcoat the truth. Viscusi tells readers what they need to hear, not what they want to hear — and that candor has earned him a loyal following among the salespeople, designers, project managers, and executives who make up the interiors workforce.

Bestselling Author

Viscusi's first book, On the Job: How to Make It in the Real World of Work, was published by Three Rivers Press, a division of Random House, and became a go-to guide for young professionals navigating the first years of their careers. Drawing from thousands of interviews and his experience advising job seekers through his radio audience, Viscusi distilled the practical lessons that school never teaches — how to read office politics, how to make yourself indispensable, and how to avoid the mistakes that derail promising careers early.

His second book, Bulletproof Your Job, was published by HarperCollins and became a New York Times bestseller at a time when millions of Americans were worried about losing their jobs during the economic downturn. The book offered four clear strategies for protecting your career during uncertain times and has since been published in eighteen languages worldwide, including Spanish and Chinese. Its core message — that job security is something you build through deliberate action, not something your employer owes you — remains as relevant today as the day it was written.

Speaking and Appearances

Viscusi is a sought-after keynote speaker and has addressed audiences at industry conferences, corporate events, and trade shows across the country. His speaking topics include executive hiring strategy, compensation trends in the interiors industry, how to build and retain high-performing teams, workplace culture in a post-pandemic world, and the future of recruiting. He brings the same energy and directness to the stage that he brings to television — practical, entertaining, and grounded in real experience.

To book Stephen for a media appearance, keynote, or speaking engagement, contact him at stephen@viscusigroup.com or call (212) 979-5700 ext. 101.