Career Change: are Head Hunters a legend?
Haed Hunter: a means to change work? We could call it back to basics.
From Hoepli, the head hunter:
In business parlance this is someone whose profession entails looking for highly qualified staff for their own company or on behalf of third parties, for the purpose of increasing one’s own workforce or taking away the best employees from competitors.
Or, from Wikipedia:
The term Head Hunter refers to the Executive Search process in the labour market and more precisely to the context of Human Resources.
In particular this word is of interest to managers who want to change jobs as this type of activity involves a direct research and selection of staff with the aim of finding the most suitable managers for specific positions within a company.
The Executive Search can be carried out directly by a company or by external companies, comprising professionals from the sector, who are known as head hunters. Companies normally ask a consulting firm for help in order to save time and work in identifying and assessing candidates.
This service is therefore paid for by the company and not by the candidate. Candidates are assessed and presented to clients on the basis of a precise professional profile that is established by the company offering its services and the company that is looking for the staff. Candidates do not normally contact the consulting firm directly, as it is usually the consultant that contacts them to offer them a position. The role of the consultant is thus of significant importance and requires a specific know-how and a great deal of effort to find the suitable professionals.
The methods that are normally used to identify potential candidates include: a telephone call following recommendations by people in the sector or other candidates that are not interested in the selection at that time; the use of networks, with a continual updating of the network of contacts.
Even though it is usually the Head Hunter that finds candidates, in some cases people looking for work want to contact these companies, and it is possible to do this by email, letter and some cases even by fax. Answering ads that are published on the internet or offering their candidacy spontaneously to the companies that operate in this sector can become two complementary activities for people who want to change jobs.
It is worth considering that not all employment opportunities are published in newspapers or on the internet – indeed only 30-40% of the total employment opportunities are. People who choose to spontaneously contact companies may have access to greater employment opportunities. In consideration of these aspects, we believe that it can be an advantage to spontaneously apply to companies and head hunters.
… I chose to provide these definitions written by others.
We can see that Head Hunters:
Work on fairly senior positions: not white collar workers or assistant managers but not the CEO of ENEL either.
Their focus is on the company not on the workers despite their seniority.
They trust direct research and their contacts.
Sometimes it won’t make sense for people to seek out a head hunter, in light of the above.
You should note that nowadays most head hunters work with international companies (that made it through the crisis and are still operating). So through Google you can find out who these intermediary companies are and the name of the professionals that deal with individual sectors. It’s obviously even better if you can contact them through a personal contact (e.g. a friend of a friend) or a business contact (e.g. speaker at a conference), especially if you’re aiming to restore an acquaintanceship from the past or create a new contact over time.
It’s going to be difficult to see results in the short term through head hunters.
There is also a form of prejudice towards head hunters from people who are looking for a job because they are currently out of work, precisely because they fail to understand that head hunters look for people on behalf of companies rather than find work for people who are looking.
So this can make for an awkward stand-off if, on the one hand, a person has an expectation they will be helped in their job search, while, on the other, the head hunter has no interest in pursuing the matter.
Companies use internal Executive Search staff or consultants or external Executive Search companies after having used other channels (especially personal and business contacts) and, especially, if they want to poach someone from a competitor, as they can’t do this directly.
Moreover Head Hunters cost money – quite a lot of money! And there are various studies and articles that criticise their effectiveness.
On top of that, in my opinion - which stems from my own personal experiences and that of various other people in Italy - companies use them for the search procedure, but they don’t always take their advice thus head hunters are not always able to have an impact on the company in terms of their choices.
I would recommend adopting a focused approach, perhaps through a contact and then developing the relationship over time instead of assuming they’ll look for a job for you. The old saying, “I’m in the hands of a head hunter!” no longer applies nowadays!
Just as with job ads, you shouldn’t rule head hunters out altogether, but use them as one of the potential means of looking for a job and approaching the market.
