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Has anyone here worked with and been successful in finding a good job with a headhunter? I got the number of one from a friend today. She said he got her in for an interview, negotiated a higher salary and the company paid him a percentage of her yearly salary for finding her (so no cost to her), so the bigger her salary the more he made. Do you think employers would find being "represented" as a plus or minus? I need opinions before I make the call. My friend is swearing he'll do as good of a job for me as he has for her.
Here's an article from Time Out Chicago that features people who have used various types of career assistance (recruiter/headhunter, life coach, career coach, resume writer) that you might find helpful.
Jobs 2010 | Career jumpstart with a recruiter - Time Out Chicago (http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/careers/88096/jobs-2010-career-jumpstart-with-a-recruiter - broken link)
I don't know much about headhunters, but I think the concept of having someone else negotiate your salary might be annoying for your prospective employer, especially since that person negotiating is doing it essentially for their own benefit. However, if you think the added career assistance will help, go for it.
Here's an article from Time Out Chicago that features people who have used various types of career assistance (recruiter/headhunter, life coach, career coach, resume writer) that you might find helpful.
Jobs 2010 | Career jumpstart with a recruiter - Time Out Chicago (http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/careers/88096/jobs-2010-career-jumpstart-with-a-recruiter - broken link)
I don't know much about headhunters, but I think the concept of having someone else negotiate your salary might be annoying for your prospective employer, especially since that person negotiating is essentially doing it for their own benefit. However, if you think the added career assistance will help, go for it.
I have used the career coach and resume writer. I used a recruiter but I don't think he knew what he was doing... And annoying the potential employer is what I am worried about. But, I've also heard that a good headhunter can get your resume read faster and get you an interview, rather than your resume sitting in a computer with all the others. So there's good and bad. Just not sure.
I have used the career coach and resume writer. I used a recruiter but I don't think he knew what he was doing... And annoying the potential employer is what I am worried about. But, I've also heard that a good headhunter can get your resume read faster and get you an interview, rather than your resume sitting in a computer with all the others. So there's good and bad. Just not sure.
Personally I think you are putting too much in to the "annoying the employer" aspect. Companies generally either direct hire or they go through some kind of middle man. They won't even see you if they aren't willing to go through a middle man so I don't think they will be annoyed.
Personally I think you are putting too much in to the "annoying the employer" aspect. Companies generally either direct hire or they go through some kind of middle man. They won't even see you if they aren't willing to go through a middle man so I don't think they will be annoyed.
True. he did get her a job with a national company that isn't easy to get into. Maybe it is better to use his connections as well. At this point it wouldn't hurt to try, obviously I'm not doing something right. So time to try something different.
Reverse question: What are recommended ways to identify and use a headhunter? If you were looking for a job, how would you pick a headhunter out of the thousands out there?
Is a head hunter the same thing as a recruiter?
I see lots of recruiters on Linked In.
Also, how can a headhunter help someone get a job with a big company if the applicant has already applied on that company's website? Do headhunters have "in"s with people in big companies? Do big companies work with headhunters? Or, it seems like, the big companies have their own process to identify candidates who apply for interviews (key words, etc).
Has anyone here worked with and been successful in finding a good job with a headhunter? I got the number of one from a friend today. She said he got her in for an interview, negotiated a higher salary and the company paid him a percentage of her yearly salary for finding her (so no cost to her), so the bigger her salary the more he made. Do you think employers would find being "represented" as a plus or minus? I need opinions before I make the call. My friend is swearing he'll do as good of a job for me as he has for her.
So-- make no mistake the headhunter is not there to find you a job.
That sounds blunt and harsh but it is true.
The headhunter will work with you-- and the partnership can be very profitable to you-- if and only if the headhunter has a position that they think you would be qualified for.
The headhunter works for the client, client being the employer, not you.
Here's an article from Time Out Chicago that features people who have used various types of career assistance (recruiter/headhunter, life coach, career coach, resume writer) that you might find helpful.
Jobs 2010 | Career jumpstart with a recruiter - Time Out Chicago (http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/careers/88096/jobs-2010-career-jumpstart-with-a-recruiter - broken link)
I don't know much about headhunters, but I think the concept of having someone else negotiate your salary might be annoying for your prospective employer, especially since that person negotiating is doing it essentially for their own benefit. However, if you think the added career assistance will help, go for it.
It is not annoying to an employer. They hire headhunters for certain reasons.
They have jobs that are hard to fill, they need a more particular skillset that their own HR departments are not subject matter experts in, they are a start up and need some additional help, they want someone to vet through the types of candidates first before interviewing.
Negotiation is negotiation whether it comes from the headhunter or it comes from you. Employers and recruiters (internal or external expect it).
The headhunter generally speaking has a vested interests in the following ways (drawing on my previous experience as a headhunter for perm placements in the telecom/datacom industry a decade ago).
1. The headhunter knows the true target salary range. They know the salary grade and band and all of that, but they really know what the client will pay for a certain level of experience.
2. A good headhunter knows what his/her top candidates will require in terms of salary to accept an offer.
3. The headhunter gets paid a percentage of the compensation of the successful hire so it is ONLY in their best interest to really get both parties to the appropriate level that they absolutely need in order to make the match. If the employer is willing to pay up to 50k and the the candidate wants only 53k and the candidate is TRULY the top-- the recruiter will be able to negotiate that and will also know frankly if the employer is going to absolutely refuse it.
4. The headhunter knows (a good one) the type of person that will do well with the organization-- this is to your benefit too as the candidate. The headhunter can be pretty blunt about.. well.. the lead guy is a hot head or sounds like one but in reality he is very protective of his employees, blah blah blah.
I would never not work with a headhunter-- they are a tool in the job search bag. I have been one, I have worked with a few as an employer, and I have worked with a few as a candidate. There are some really good ones there are some really bad ones.
I will also say as a headhunter it was only in my best interest to be completely honest with both parties (employer and candidate). In order to keep my commission I had to have someone stay at an employer for 6 months. If they were not there that long I would have to pay back my commission. For the record in my years of headhunting, I have only had to pay back one commission-- and I really didn't have to-- my candidate passed away during a horrible car crash. My company took the commission and donated it to the candidate's children and the company matched the commission as well to put in the children's trust (both the husband and wife died in the car accident-- it was horrible).
I also never got the commission for one of my hires-- the guy freaked out after moving to the job and going to work for one day. He decided he didn't want to move away from home (this never occurred to me or the employer because he had been in the military moving around for 10 years). He just didn't show up again to work. No one could reach him and I finally called his parents worried that he had gone missing (the employer also tried for his parents which were the emergency contacts). Finally a couple weeks later I got a call from the father saying the son didn't like the idea of moving away from home and was too embarrassed to tell the employer or myself. The company had never paid for the commission so I never had to pay it back-- I ended up finding a successful placement so no harm no foul.
The point is that-- it can be financially beneficial for the candidate to work with a headhunter/recruiter, but the candidate should never think or believe that the recruiter is there for him. It can be a nice match and it may work out that the recruiter is there to help them (and they are IF you are the perfect candidate), but the recruiter is really working for the client to find the perfect candidate-- so if you are not, then chances of the recruiter really working with you on that one job is slim. The recruiter may very well keep in contact with you if your skillset is one that they know they may have future openings for and there are times when you will be a perfect candidate for another job-- I have placed in the past several people that I have kept in contact with a year or two before I finally had a position. Of course I like to think I was a principled and good recruiter-- there are some that are not like this-- and there are others who were even better than I ever was.
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