The 21 Best Reasons to Work With a Headhunter (Part 2)

If you are the Hiring Authority….

4: Client Confidentiality. There are a lot of good reasons not to broadcast that you are trying to fill a key position. The obvious one is that you have someone in the position who you need to replace, but you do not want this person to know about it. But there are other less obvious situations. For example, you are promoting or transferring someone. They know about it and are excited about the advancement opportunity. But you do not want to stir up your organization (or the competition) by going to the market with a publicized search. Another example is the organization in “transition”. I’m being polite. What I could say is that your organization has had a hard time “getting it right” and you’ve gone through a lot of management changes. There is a point at which candidates just won’t even consider responding to an ad from “that company” because they are always looking for people. If you don’t want to become “that company” consider keeping some of your searches confidential.

5: Targeted search. If you know exactly what you want there are a lot of advantages to using a search firm. Your personal network will always be option number one. But if that does not yield the right candidate, using a search firm to drill into specific competitors for specific talent is the next best option.


6: Expertise. A well-connected search firm that specializes in an industry or functional discipline will deliver more highly qualified candidates than you will get from running ads or networking.
The operative words being “highly qualified”. You can find a lot of candidates and fill jobs without using a search firm. No question, most jobs do get filled without using a search firm. And most of the time it doesn’t matter that much so why pay a bunch of money to a search firm? (Bet you never expected to hear that from a headhunter). But when it does matter and you need to see the best in order to hire the best (even if the best one ultimately does not come from the search firm), then you owe to yourself to use a search firm.


7: Bottom Line Impact. What’s the difference between an “8” and a “10”? Well, it depends on the position. How much does it matter? If it is a moderately high impact position it is easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. If it is a significantly high impact position, then it’s in the millions. Think about your business and the impact your best people have on the bottom line. Why would you not make every effort to hire the best people?

Next Week: Part 3