Work With a Headhunter
Headhunters can be extremely valuable in helping you transition into a new job. Also called corporate or executive recruiters, headhunters are third-party contractors that hire candidates for open positions before they're advertised to the public. When companies are looking to fill higher-level positions, they'll typically contract the task out to a headhunter to find a small group of excellent candidates. If you want an inside track to good jobs, working with a headhunter is a great choice. You can learn to find one to work with and how to work effectively to avoid common mistakes in the process.
Contents
Steps
Finding a Headhunter
- Understand what a headhunter does. Headhunters are not career counselors, job advisors, or life coaches. Their job is not to “find you a job,” it’s to recruit the best and brightest talent for on behalf of companies looking to fill open positions.
- Headhunters are third-party recruiters, hired by companies, working on commission, meaning that there’s little incentive in trying to hook up candidates with jobs they’re unlikely to get. The headhunter’s client is the company that’s hiring, not the job-seeker, meaning that it’s not in the headhunter’s job description to find jobs for everyone who comes in asking.
- Pick a headhunter in your field. Headhunters commonly work in healthcare, information technology, science and technology, finance, and medicine. Often, you won't have to find a headhunter, but an executive recruiter will get in touch with you, if you're an attractive-enough candidate for an open job. Headhunters can be found online and advertised in most job-finding resources.
- To give yourself the best chance of getting in touch with a recruiter, try to stay as connected to business networking as possible. Start a LinkedIn page and keep in touch with business contacts as much as possible.
- Prepare a specialized resume. Before you visit with a headhunter or write a letter of introduction, it’s critical that you have prepared a detailed, professional, and specialized resume to consolidate your experience, references, and job descriptions. Again, it needs to be specialized, which means that it needs to be related skills, not part-time jobs or outdated study-abroad experiences.
- Recruiters don't help you write resumes, so you'll need to have one ready. Again, it's your job to make it easy for the headhunter to match you with the right job openings, it's not the headhunter's job to guide you through the process. You should be ready to sell yourself the moment you get in touch with a headhunter.
- Write a letter of introduction. Write a brief letter to the prospective headhunters stating what you are looking for and where you're looking. State in your closing that you would be happy to provide your resume should the recruiter feel your skill set matches their current needs.
- Generally, headhunters won't keep resumes on file for the future, even if you're an attractive candidate. Again, it's not their job to worry about getting people jobs, they're worried about filling positions. If you get no response, don't' take it as a sign that you're not right. Wait an appropriate length of time and try again in the future.
- Keep it brief. With no more than a half a page, it may be appropriate to provide bullet points give a brief summary of your experience. Most headhunters won't spend much, if any, time looking over letters, so get to the point and keep it extremely brief. Front-load with the most important information.
- Call the recruiter directly. It's sometimes the most effective way of getting a quick answer about whether or not you might be an appropriate fit to consider for recent openings if you just call directly. Even if the answer is no, you won't have to wait around wondering and hoping for an answer. You'll just know.
Working Together
- Be as honest as possible. Remember: headhunters can’t give you a job, which means it’s not your job to go about the business of impressing them. It’s your job to go about the business of proving that you fit the bill for the opening. You need to be upfront and frank with a headhunter when it comes to compensation requirements, your experience level, and the other qualifications for the job. There’s little sense in wasting time with opportunities you’re inappropriate for.
- It is important to be well put-together for meetings with headhunters, since you're going to be representing them as much as you'll be representing yourself at the interview. If you look disheveled and like a poor candidate, the company will be less likely to go through that headhunter again.
- Boil down your elevator pitch. The headhunter’s goal is to match people and companies, and you have to have information to do that, but it needs to be summarized and condensed into a manageable and tiny chunk for the headhunter. This includes a good resume, a short blurb, and additional background information from a phone or in-person interview. Recruiters then have a better idea if you fit that client's culture as well as technical requirements. And sometimes the information that you give the recruiter may open up another position that will be an even better fit.
- Don’t expect recruiters to pour over your resume, or even be familiar with it. The average resume gets approximately 5-10 seconds of glance time.
- Ask for inside information. Get your headhunter to give you as much information as possible before an interview regarding the company and the people you're interviewing with. Ask your headhunter to confirm how other candidates who have interviewed for the same job you are interviewing for have failed so that you avoid making the same mistakes. If the headhunter has worked with this company before, there may be some helpful information out there.
- Don’t expect a wealth of inside info. It’ll be your job to get ahead and figure out how best to sell yourself in the interview. The headhunter can only show you to the river, but can’t show you how to drink.
- Ask for honesty. Lots of headhunters want to provide a variety of candidates for jobs, even if they're unlikely to get it. That's because companies will think more favorably of the headhunter who provides lots of great candidates, compared to someone who provides just one perfect candidate.
- Stay organized. It's still your job to get the job you want. Again, headhunters aren't there to guide you through the process of applying or getting in touch with the company, figuring out what information you'll need to provide, or other materials. Some headhunters may offer some guidance, but you shouldn't expect it. Remember that it's your responsibility and stay focused on doing it alone. Treat any outside help you get as icing on the cake.
Avoiding Common Mistakes
- Don't expect a headhunter to do all the work. Their job is to fill the job with someone, not necessarily you. Use headhunters to supplement your job search.
- It’s also true that headhunters are generalists working in a field of specialists. The job of the headhunter is to match appropriate candidates with hiring parties, not to judge who makes the best candidate for the job. In other words, just because you’re an experienced research scientist, you shouldn’t expect that your headhunter will have any clue what you’re researching.
- Don’t send recruiters too much information. Swamping a recruiter with huge portfolios of your work, super-long intro letters, your college transcript, and supplementary recommendations from your previous employers is a bad idea. Remember, it's not the headhunter's job to give you a job, and the headhunter probably isn't all that familiar with your line of work in the first place. Talking to a headhunter is about credentials. Provide those, and save the rest of the stuff for your interview with the company you're hoping to work for.
- Don’t quit your job before getting in touch with a headhunter. Traditionally, headhunters will not work with unemployed recruits, but with gainfully employed and attractive candidates looking to make a change in their employment. You're a more attractive candidate if companies think they're stealing you away from somewhere, plus you'll also be able to position yourself for more leverage when it comes to pay. Stay employed, even if you're unhappy with your current position, while you're talking with headhunters.
- Don’t pester your headhunter. Only follow up with a headhunter that responds to queries in the positive. Don't write again the next week hoping for a response, unless you want to get blacklisted for life. Headhunters are super-busy people who don't have a bunch of time to mess around answering emails from people who don't fit the bill. Know when to be quiet.
- If you start working with a headhunter, it's also important to keep organized and focused, but don't blast off thirty emails a day to headhunters asking if they've found you anything yet. It's in their best interest to fill positions, meaning that you'll be the first person to know if you serve a role in the process. Be patient.
- Watch out for scams. People may contact you claiming to be a headhunter with a great job for you, but they won't give you details of the job, and ask a lot of questions about your work history, and other personal questions. These are scam artists. Some may indeed be headhunters, but they are only asking about your job history and the names of contacts in companies you have worked for to get their foot in the door as a head hunter for those companies. Others may be identity thieves.
- To avoid being scammed, insist on details of the job they are trying to fill. Ask where the company is located. Tell them that you already have a headhunter sending your resume to companies in that town, and in order to avoid duplicates insist they tell you the first letter of the name of the company. If you are familiar with the names of companies in that location, begin a guessing game with the person based on the letter they give you. If they refuse, stop all communications with them.
Tips
- Headhunters are specialized. Pick the appropriate one for your area of interest, like healthcare IT, science and technology, healthcare and medicine.
- Have an updated and professional looking resume ready before contacting a headhunter. Recruiters don't write resumes, so you'll need to have one ready.
- Ask friends or contacts to review your resume and ask them to suggest improvements.
- Don't expect a headhunter to get you a job. Their job is to fill the job with someone, not necessarily you. Use headhunters to supplement your job search.
- Legitimate recruiters do not "collect" resumes to fill out their databases - what good does that do? The goal is to match people and companies, and you have to have information to do that. This includes a good resume that does the candidate justice (not a 1 page blurb) and additional background information from a phone or in-person interview. Recruiters then have a better idea if you fit that client's culture as well as technical requirements. And sometimes the information that you give the recruiter may open up another position that will be an even better fit.
- Rather than insist on all the details of the job, ask for the recruiter's website to see if they are legitimate. Recruiters are not going to reveal the name of the client company the first time they talk to you since they need to protect themselves.
Warnings
- Never give personal information like social security numbers, banking info, mother's maiden name, names of family members, or even the names of employees or bosses from past jobs to anyone claiming to be a headhunter or offering a job. That information should only need to be given in person at the company after they have hired you.
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