Candidate Services

Who Is A Headhunter?
(And what’s the difference between, a Recruiter, Staffing Manager and Headhunter?)

Corporate Recruiters are the people who work in a company’s HR department. They recruit only for their own company and are paid a salary. They are the ones that neither accept or respond to candidate phone calls, as they are understaffed and overwhelmed.

Staffing/Temp Agencies are employers themselves. They recruit and hire people, then assign these individuals to client companies. You go to work at the client company every day. The client pays the staffing/temp agency a fee from which the agency pays you, the worker, a salary and benefits. If you want to be employed directly by the company where you show up for work every day, then staffing/temp agencies are not for you.

Headhunters are independent. They are not the employees of any particular employer. They do not hire you. They will not find you a job. Their business is filling positions for their client companies.

While headhunters need good candidates to place, they are not usually interested in unsolicited calls from job hunters. Good headhunters target specific people they want to recruit, and they go after them. They will come to you if you are on their target list. That’s what they’re paid to do: to hunt and find the right candidates, not to filter candidates who come to them. (Contrast this to most corporate recruiters, who wait for applicants to respond to job ads.)

Contingency Headhunters are the standard. They operate like hired guns; the client pays for results. They are paid ONLY when they actually fill a position. They often times compete with other firms who are trying to fill the same jobs, unless they are in the unique position of “owning” a client. Contingency fees are ALWAYS paid by the client and the very best headhunters work on contingency. It keeps them hungry, sharp and industry keen.

Retained Headhunters are paid a fee whether they fill a position or not. Let me repeat that- retained headhunters are paid a fee whether they fill a position or not. The goal, of course, is to fill the job. But they will also interview and consider candidates that their client company introduces to them. It doesn’t matter whether the candidate comes from a company referral or even an actual internal candidate. How can that be?- because the retained headhunter gets paid regardless. Their recruitment process tends to be more formal and structured than that of contingency headhunters, because they have been paid upfront, therefore, they must appear as though they are earning their keep. An obvious result of this kind of “dog and pony show” is that the search may go for months and months and months.

So Let’s Recap- First and foremost, Corporate Recruiters nor Staffing Managers are Headhunters. (As a matter of fact, neither are Career Coaches or Career Marketers- no matter what they spin and tell you- all the while requiring payment from you!)

Secondly, it behooves you to ask up front if the job in question is retained or contingency. If it is retained then you know that the firm may not be truly motivated to place you. Also, they probably will not have the time to give you personalized attention. They simply need to fill their promised quota of candidate presentations in order to demonstrate they are earning their money. (Now you know why retained searches are rare and are usually done at the high-end executive level.)

Finally, when dealing with Contingency Headhunters, what matters most is who the headhunter is. Forget about the firm, how big or small they are, and where they are located. What matters is how good they are at their work and how motivated they are to work with you. So make sure you interview them while they are interviewing you- ask about their background, their last placement, the thing they love most and like least about their job, etc.

Remember- a true Headhunter’s job is not to find you a job. It is to fill their client’s position. But if they find you and the fit is there, the good ones will do everything in their consultative power to make certain both you and your potential new employer live happily ever after.
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Here are my Top Ten Things you shouldn't share while at work.

1. Medical History/Therapy: Hospitals and human resources departments are prohibited by law from giving out your medical information for a reason. People have a tendency to adjust their behavior when they find out you have or had a medical condition. And by all means, keep your visits with a therapist a private matter- if you don’t know why you should- ask your therapist.

2. Confidential Work Information: Hey, did you hear who's getting fired? YOU- because you couldn't keep private information to yourself.

3. Plans To Quit: When you're hunting for a new job, don't let co-workers know. Loose lips or devious motives can mean your secret search finds its way to the boss. Possible outcomes: You're let go before you're ready or you're quietly pushed out. And if you work in HR or as a Recruiter, you absolutely should know better than to post your resume unblinded. Duh!

4. Online Venting Sites: If you use your social networking profile or a blog to release frustration about your personal and work life, don't send your co-workers a link. And even if you don’t send a link, you would be surprised how many CEOs, managers and HR departments police those sights looking for disgruntled employees just like you. At layoff time, expect your name to be at the top of the list.

5. Matters Of The Heart: Your reputation will suffer if you come into the office in tears one day because you broke up with your significant other and then you dance down the hall the next week because you met the love of your life. Your love life isn't as interesting to anyone else as it is to you- REALLY- and people may be unable to separate your romantic life from your professional one.


6. Politics/Religion: You've seen how out of hand political/religion discussions can get- does anyone remember the Presidential Election of 2008? Do you really want to start that kind of drama at work?

7. Salary Information: Money's a weird topic in our culture. As eager as we are to find out what other people make, we're not as ready to divulge our earnings. Salary is typically associated with worth, and when your salary's known, it invites speculation of whether you're being over- or undercompensated. Why are you getting paid that much when another person with the same qualifications earns much less?

8. Your Privileged Life: Along the same lines of keeping salary information to yourself, your enviable influence with society's high rollers should also stay private. Although you have the good fortune to know powerful business leaders and social butterflies, bragging about how many doors they've opened for you will draw inevitable gossiping and question whether or not you have earned your job and position.

9. Gossip: One of the big reasons you want to keep important information to yourself is to avoid the gossip it can spur. And don't play the gossip game either. Spreading rumors or information that you'd want kept secret isn't going to help your career.

10. Your Chris Rock Routine: In an episode of "The Office," Michael Scott gets in trouble for repeating- verbatim- a Chris Rock stand-up routine full of racially charged jokes and cursings. FYI- Chris Rock gets paid to be edgy, daring and even offensive. You really can get fired for it.
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MBA’S??

Q: I have received a couple of telephone calls from recruiters over the last month. While I am not currently looking to change jobs both opportunities looked intriguing enough to pursue. We had brief conversations where they outlined the position and asked me some screening type questions. Everything seemed to be clicking until they asked me if I had an MBA. I do not have one. In both cases the recruiters were polite but brought the conversation to an end because their clients required an MBA.

Since I am not looking I am not terribly disappointed but I am wondering in the future if not having an MBA will affect my chances when I do change companies.

A: I have discussed the subject of college degrees in some brevity in the past. This column will focus on MBA’s and their impact on a job search.

I want to start with a couple stories. A number of years back I had a Fortune 50 client that I did a good amount of work for. They were very big on MBA’s, especially at the more senior levels. One time I was doing a search for a director of product marketing (This was a senior director type position with a lot of responsibility, including a large revenue stream for their set of products.). I identified an exceptional candidate who came recommended from a number of sources. He interviewed with two divisional presidents and a number of VP’s. They all loved this gentleman, his experience and abilities. The only issue was he did not have an MBA. He also did not have an undergrad. They hired him without hesitation. The same company, another senior hiring authority in sales, asked me to find a sales director with an MBA. In sales most would think this isn’t really that critical. You would want someone with a proven track record. But there was no bending.

The bottom line is this is all a bit of a crapshoot.

Briefly let me review the creation of the job description. Most good job descriptions will have a list of desired experience and skills. Many times this list would require 2-3 people to fill it. Generally this list can be boiled down to 3-5 must haves. In other words don’t bother if you don’t have these certain credentials. A good recruiter will be searching off this shortened list. Now let’s review the MBA scenario from three perspectives.

Recruiter: As I mentioned a good recruiter has reduced this list to 3-5 must haves. They typically are not going to make exceptions to this list. First of all they know their client well enough to understand what will and won’t be acceptable. So they have already tweaked the list to incorporate that. Next the company might make an exception if they are hiring directly. But they are paying the recruiter thousands to find a pretty close match to what they want. That is the recruiter’s job. So if a recruiter has an MBA as one of the requirements (without a desired behind it) then that is what they want.

Human Resources: Human resources is similar in certain ways to the recruiter. The hiring manager has provided them a laundry list. The good ones will also have narrowed down this list to the must haves. The one advantage they have is they typically know the hiring managers pretty well and know what that manager will overlook. But remember the HR person’s job is screening and reduction, not typically the hiring decision. Also as another fellow coach said in a recent column another one of their unstated goals is to get the hiring manager off their backs. Bottom line if they are also requiring an MBA chances are there is no wavering.

Hiring Manager: This is the person with the most pain, hopefully. Typically they are already “bleeding” and need to fill the position. Someone has left with 2 weeks notice so they have not had a chance to prepare. Most of the time if they see a great candidate that fits everything else they are not going to be burdened by the MBA requirement. After all it is typically theirs anyway. See my example above. Now there will be a few where the MBA is more important than anything else, by far. These people, in my opinion, are being very myopic.

So where does this leave you? It just confirms what you have already heard from the knowledgeable sources. You need to get in front of the hiring manager. That is your best percentages and they are the ones, again, with the pain.

Obviously this is not black and white and can be impacted by different things such as:
· Labor supply. The greater the supply the tighter the requirements can be.
· Pay. An MBA will typically get a few more $$. If the pay is on the lower end of the range it is going to be harder for them to get an MBA.
· MBA School. There are 10-20 top MBA programs, Wharton, U of M, U of Chicago, Kellogg, etc that sometimes make hiring authorities go gaga. Nothing else matters except the candidate has that credential. All other MBA’s are pretty much equal in value.
· Two or more equally outstanding candidates. Many times an MBA can be a tiebreaker.
· The myopic view of a hiring authority. Covered above.
· Size of company. The smaller they are typically the less interested they are in MBAs.

I wouldn’t let all of this concern you. As I have said many times before, “It is what it is”. For every company that is insistent on an MBA there are 10 that aren’t. If you let it concern you or be a hindrance it will. If you don’t then you will have a much greater amount of success. If you come up against an MBA requirement do your best to overcome it and if you can’t, move on. An MBA has nothing, generally, to do with your skills and accomplishments. It is their loss.

I want to close by saying I have no desire to demean or discount MBAs or other graduate degrees. I think it is great that people have pursued them and have them. But there are many that don’t and I just do not want that to be a discouragement to them.

Here’s Wishing You Terrific Hunting,

Bill

Bill Gaffney has 17 years experience as an executive recruiter, and a career coach. Bill can be reached at 937-567-5267 or wmgaffney@prodigy.net. He doesn’t have an MBA but seems to do alright. For questions to be considered for this column please e-mail askamaxa@yahoo.com. -

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