Headhunters: Who are these people?
Headhunters. Who are these people? A headhunter is a third party
agent employed by their clients to scout the right talent for some position(s)
that they want to fill up. In the working world, headhunters are also known as
Executive Search Consultants, or to a lesser extent, Recruitment Consultants.
Why these companies have to employ a headhunter or
executive search firm to find employee
for them? Are they too lazy to advertise and screen candidates?
No, it does not work that way. When we talk about headhunting,
we're talking about a position of such a high importance to the organization and
the right candidate is not readily available in the job market. This position
could be new CEO of a public listed company, an IT Specialist, a HR system
implementer and so on. The important thing is, the position plays a very
significant roles in determining the future of the company.
The company will engage a headhunter to find a high-performing
employees in another organization to join them. These people are already well
compensated, and are key figures to the company they're working with. In fact,
normally, headhunters will look for people who are not looking for jobs, as
they're already in a comfort zone. As a result, the company who wish to employ
these people have to offer a bigger compensation package to attract them.
Headhunters deploy a series of search strategies before locating
the possible candidate for the assignment they're working for.
They're a handful of headhunters which is well-known for their
big assignments across the world. Amongst them are:
1. Korn Ferry International
2. Management Recruitment International (MRI)
3. Egon Zehnder International
And as the position that they work is of such importance, the
successful assignment will result in a big money transaction.
How much they make? That depends, but normally they
charge between 18% to 30% of the total annual package accepted by the candidate.
