| Many people feel that headhunters are the
solution to their employment distress. Maybe.
If you have a high-demand skill and there is a shortage of people with your
skill, and your salary is below a certain threshold, certain headhunters may
be useful to you. But consider the following:
There are two kinds of headhunters, contingency and retained.
Contingency headhunters are paid only when
a hire is made with a candidate they have represented. They
represent both candidates and jobs, “running” candidates
from company to company (calling, faxing or emailing the candidate’s
qualifications) and headhunting candidates who have the skills
that match job orders they have received. They typically represent
sub-managers with salaries of $100,000 or less (this is very
approximate).
Retained headhunters are paid for their effort — typically
30% of first year's salary (we are less!) often paid a third
of the total fee to begin a search, a third at a progress point
(perhaps hiring manager interviews) and the last third before
(or sometimes when) a hire is made. Retained headhunters do
not represent candidates, only the jobs they have been paid
to fill. The jobs are typically $70,000/year to CEO and Board
of Director level. Most retained firms who fill $70,000/year
jobs do not fill CEO jobs, and visa versa, but they are both
retained and they both represent only jobs not candidates.
Wentworth Recruiting is retained, charging
hourly, hourly with a cap, fixed dollar price or a fixed percentage
of salary. We only represent jobs, not candidates. We help
our clients fill $50,000/year jobs up to $300,000/year jobs.
Our service is typically better than our competitors’ and
our fees are typically lower and more flexible.
So you are out of work, or soon will be,
and you need a new job. It would seem reasonable to find a
contingency headhunter to present your qualifications to prospective
employers.
But...
Contingency headhunters do not as a group
have a very good reputation. If your salary is above a certain
level, you actually set your chances back by being represented
by a contingency headhunter. Savvy employers will ask, “What's
wrong with this person? Why is he/she allowing this character
to represent him/her?”
If your salary is low enough that contingency
headhunters traditionally represent people at your level, you
still have a problem: there is a bounty on your head. Contingency
shops charge 15-30% of your first year's salary for the privilege
of hiring you. If the employer is considering someone who is
approximately comparably qualified, and who does not have an
agency fee attached to them, the other person had a significant
edge.
Unless you really reign them in, contingency
headhunters send your resume all over town to maximize the
chances of their getting a fee. Most states have a law that
says that if a headhunter presents a candidate to a company,
whether invited to by the company or not, the company owes
the headhunter a fee if they hire that person. So now many
employers are obliged to pay the bounty that is on your candidacy,
even if you contact them directly. The headhunter beat you
to it; they are owed a fee.
All of this is made worse when the labor
market is soft and employers have lots of choices about whom
to hire. If you are a scarce commodity , supply and demand
suggests that you will have a better chance of someone paying
a premium price for you. If you are not, chances are that you
will sit on the sidelines for a while.
If you are a senior person, you are used
to people treating you well. So when you call a retained executive
search firm, you expect the same.
Imagine your surprise when they just tell
you to fill out their web application device or to email your
resume.
It's harsh, but you are just a commodity
to executive search firms.
Candidates are not that hard to find and
retained firms have databases full of people just like you.
They want business, hard currency to pay the bills, not candidates.
It is important to be in executive search
firm's databases, but equally important not to have expectations
of their wanting to chat with you over a leisurely lunch.
You can reverse this by cultivating relationships
with a couple of executive search practitioners while you are
working. You can hire them to do searches for you. You can
feed them industry gossip that will help them find business
or candidates. You can refer candidates when they ask you for
help (don’t just call them up with your out–of–work
golfing buddy. Tell them you’d be glad to refer candidates
and then wait for a call.) If you have established a relationship
while you are working, those particular headhunters will be
open to chatting with you when you need them for your own job
search.
First, hit your back button and go to the
jobs we are working on for our clients.
Second, go to this url: www.superjobsearch.com.
Click the picture of the book.
Buy the book. Do what the book tells you
to do. This is the best book you can buy about how to get a
job.
If you do what is says, you be employed/re-employed faster than if you do not.
Click this button for some useful services.
If, after all of that...
You still feel the need to talk to a headhunter,
call me. I’ll talk to you.
John Wentworth
310/732.2301 |
