The difference between Headhunters and Recruiters
For anyone working in the staffing industry whether they are a corporate recruiter, 3rd party recruiter, work contingency, retained or some other variant they always have a love/“unlove” relationship with candidates depending upon how they represent themselves (and us) throughout the recruiting and placement process, but here is the big difference between a Professional Recruiter and a Headhunter.
“Headhunters” get upset when candidates don’t “do” what they want (i.e. get the interview, get the offer, accept the offer…). “Professional Recruiters” don’t get upset when people don’t’ “do” what they want because they understand its not about what they want but what the Client Company and the Client Candidate wants that matters. Professional Recruiters are about understanding the needs of those two customers and delivering on them. When they do, everything comes together as a natural course of events. When they don’t Professional Recruiters understand this early in this process and put things to bed early in the process before any bad feelings are generated.
So know that when you get that feeling (and you will), and you realize the placement is going south…make it go south fast. Pull it from the Candidate/Company and move on to the next (and potentially “the”) candidate and fill the opening. Anything else is a waste of everyone’s time.
TheVoiceOfIT
in How to Work with Headhunters, Job Search Skills
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2 Comments
Reader Comments (2)
It is a shame on my part that my first comment is a negative one. Bad form on my part.
The way I read your thoughts above is that a "Headhunter" does not care much about the client or candidate and is only looking for a fee. (maybe I am being overly sensitive.)
That is where I disagree. Many in our profession regardless of they call themselves are in that mode and that is where our industry gets the bad name.
In my 10+ years of being a "Headhunter" "Professional Recruiter" "Trusted Ally" of my clients and candidates their best interests have always come before mine.
Over the years I have walked away from many deals that were not a good fit for one side or the other.
The interesting thing is that it seems something "better" always works out for the candidate, client, and ultimately me.
Maybe that is karma, the “Golden Rule”, or some other force but it is the right thing to do. It looks like we agree on business practices but maybe not on titles.
Thanks for the comment and let me just say that you and I agree that good recruiters work the same way. Unfortunately in my part of the country (Southeast - specifically NC) "headhunter" is a dirty word, so we don't tend to use it in referencing our work. Additionally, our website is really focused more on providing information to our candidates so it was more of an attempt to educate them on what they should look for in working with a recruiter no matter what they're called.