Headhunters 101: How Companies Can Use Headhunters Find Better Recruits

Crawford Thomas Recruiting Blog

For companies who want to find the best candidates across a myriad of industries, a headhunter is the ideal tool. Thanks to their extensive skills and expertise, headhunters can help companies find and hire the best candidates in the market. However, many companies don’t have a headhunter in their ranks and have dozens of questions about how to recruit one. These tips are deisgned to help companies find qualified headhunters and get to work.

  • Look for a niche-specific headhunter. Many headhunters only work in specific industries, like HR, finance, engineering or tech. In order to locate the most effective headhunter and to ensure that the headhunter is capable of bringing in qualified candidates, companies should look for a recruiter who specializes in that company’s industry or market.
  • Insist upon communication. There is a distinct difference between a good headhunter and a bad headhunter. Bad headhunters manage dozens of clients without truly knowing each client’s unique skills, preferences and abilities. Good headhunters, on the other hand, are familiar with every aspect of their client’s job search, which means they are better qualified to submit resumes accordingly and help clients find great work. In order to build a successful relationship with a headhunter, it’s important for companies to adequately vet the headhunter and to ensure that he or she has extensive knowledge of his or her clients.
  • Look for a headhunter with an impressive track record. Just the same way companies need to exhibit good hiring practices with recruits, they also need to exhibit good hiring practices when searching for a headhunter. By diving into the headhunter’s background and ensuring that the individual has a long history of headhunting and has boasted many successful placements, companies can ensure that they are working with a skilled professional who offers demonstrated benefits.
  • Work with a qualified headhunting company. While individual headhunters can be a bit rogue, headhunters that work for large headhunting companies or firms are held to a certain standard of excellence and are much more likely to find qualified candidates than individual headhunters. For this reason, it’s wise for companies who want to recruit a headhunter to work with reputable headhunting firms. Headhunting firms generally have a large database of candidates and a long track record of successful company interactions.
  • Seek out headhunters with scaling capabilities. In today’s volatile hiring environment, it can be difficult to project what your hiring needs will be in a week, month or year. For this reason, companies can benefit from seeking out headhunters that have the ability to scale their efforts to meet a company’s moment-to-moment hiring needs.

Today’s business environment is high in jobs and low in qualified applicants, which is a difficult climate for companies in need of recruits. This is made especially difficult by the fact that highly qualified applicants seldom post “job wanted” ads or list their resumes on recruitment boards. This is where a qualified headhunter comes in. By seeking out the best recruits in the industry, a headhunter can help companies find quality employees, reduce training costs and keep turnover to a minimum.

To learn more about the benefits of headhunting, visit Crawford Thomas today.

Crawford Thomas RecruitingHeadhunters 101: How Companies Can Use Headhunters Find Better Recruits