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We are eating a hearty lunch at a New York steakhouse. My lunch partner is expounding on what a great year he's having, how terrific business is, how rosy the future looks. We're not sipping champagne, but we might as well be. It's that kind of meal.

Did I somehow fall into The Matrix? Funny, last I checked, it was 2001-- the year of doom and gloom, layoffs and belt tightening, ground chuck instead of sirloin. The bad news continues to roll in like a series of tidal waves, and whether you're a venture capitalist or a sanitation engineer, your job insecurity has gone way, way up. No one has escaped the tsunami that broke last April, right?

Actually, there is one group that's doing okay, and my lunch date, Tom Neff, chairman in the United States for executive-search firm Spencer Stuart, is the premier representative of that class. He's a high-end headhunter whose business exploded with the birth of thousands of new companies and continues to grow as missed earnings and plunging stock prices mean that one chief executive after another gets the boot. "I'm busier than I have ever been," smiles Neff. "For candidates at the CEO level, I have not seen any downturn." Indeed, research done by Spencer Stuart shows that these days, the median tenure of CEOs in the largest 700 companies is 5 years, down from 7 in 1980.

An affable blue-blood type who golfs with Jack Welch and belongs to all the right clubs, Neff became a bit out of fashion in the foosball-focused dotcom days. Sure, he had plenty of searches to do, but they were primarily replacements for senior executives who had bolted for new-economy jobs. Many of the best and brightest weren't interested in anything but a small startup. Business was good for Neff, but it was a little bit like playing Whack-A-Mole: As soon as one slot was filled, three more opened up.

Now, however, Neff has just as many shoes to fill -- and many more excellent candidates begging to fill them. As virtually every company deals with a depressed stock price and a lowered demand for its products, the skills they require of their leaders are changing too. Neff recently pulled three candidates out of Philip Morris's Nabisco unit for CEO positions at Hershey Foods Corp., Campbell Soup Co., and the Gillette Co. He's charged with finding someone -- anyone? -- to take the top slot at Lucent Technologies. And while he's not personally handling the search to replace Tim Koogle at Yahoo! Inc., his colleague Jim Citrin is.

Sure, CEO tenure is shrinking, says Neff, but one thing -- the desire for excellent, motivating leadership -- is stronger than ever. "There's more turnover than ever," he says. "But not everyone will be welcomed back to traditional companies." Neff may be old-school, but what he says is somewhat chilling for young Internet CEOs who are hoping to make the transition to a bigger, older company. "Those people are not going to be CEO of anything right now unless they create a new Internet company on their own," he says. Instead, they should "enhance their experience base" with a lower-level job.

As someone who's been in the business for nearly 30 years, Neff has plenty of insight on what companies are asking for -- and what CEO candidates want -- in this crueler new world. Here's his take on the skills a good CEO needs to make it today.