How Headhunters Work: What you Need to Know About Recruitment Specialists

Crawford Thomas Recruiting Blog

shutterstock_325231133Headhunters: they’re some of the most effective recruitment tools a company can use and also some of the least understood. When people think of headhunters, images of sneaky kidnappers, ready to grab talent from an unsuspecting company, often come to mind. Fortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In reality, headhunters are an effective tool for finding qualified candidates and welcoming them into your company. Here’s everything you need to know about how headhunters do what they do to produce great results:

How Headhunters Work

In order for a headhunter to go to work, an HR manager needs to initiate the process. An HR manager provides a description of the type of candidate needed and the position that needs to be filled. This description often includes both soft and hard skills and offers some details about the type of personality needed.

A headhunter then reviews the job description and sets out to find a candidate that would be a great match for the company. The reason that headhunters are so effective is that, unlike a company that simply interviews all candidates that could be qualified, a headhunter is only interested in someone whose skills, experience, and personality match the job description exactly. In this way, headhunters save a company time, money and resources during the hiring process.

Rejection is Part of the Process

Again, a headhunter’s job is to streamline the hiring process for the company in question. This means that they sift rapidly through candidates to locate only the most talented and most qualified. Headhunters collect and evaluate qualified resumes and generally reject long-shot options or options that would take a great deal of training or education.

It is through this process of rejection that a headhunter provides value to the company he or she is contracted with.

What Headhunters Are Great At

As effective as headhunters can be to streamline the hiring and recruitment process, they’re not the right fit for every situation. Companies rarely use headhunters to fill junior positions, for example, or to assist employees who want to make a career change. Instead, headhunters are effective for companies that have high-level positions to fill and need incredibly qualified candidates in a short period of time. This makes them an in-demand tool for competitive industries like law, finance, medicine, and tech.

The Case for Headhunters

While using a headhunter may not be a wise option for all companies, it can be a fantastic tool for companies who want to find targeted candidates with spot-on skills and experience. In addition to producing highly qualified talent, a headhunter can also reduce the cost and resources associated with the interviewing and hiring process. Because of this, the use of headhunters has become incredibly popular in industries where timeliness and quality matter. To learn more about how headhunters work or to inquire about our services, contact Crawford Thomas today.

Crawford Thomas RecruitingHow Headhunters Work: What you Need to Know About Recruitment Specialists