ALT-1 Tips for Finding the right Headhunter
"I have been head hunted!" How many times have you heard people utter that phrase, or read newspaper articles, which state that Mickey Mouse has been head hunted for the position of CEO at Disney (I exaggerate of course)?
What is a headhunter? It is not someone looking to separate your brain from your neck for research purposes. In fact it is the term used for a specialist type of recruitment person or organisation. The headhunter is usually approached by an organisation, commercial or financial, with a request to find a suitable person to either replace parts of their existing board management, for example the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), or other corporate personnel such as heads of departments. The headhunter then has to search the market place to find a replacement of a calibre and experience that will fit the role. Often they will have a stock of CV's that have been sent for people looking for new careers, from which they can also choose likely candidates. They have to review the activity and work history of those persons to ascertain their suitability. After a series of interviews, they will eventually reduce them to a short list that will be presented to the client.
So how do you find the most suitable headhunter to help you further you chosen career? One of the first things to consider is that headhunters generally specialise in certain fields and industries. Therefore, if your career were in banking it would not be appropriate to approach a headhunter who specialises in the retail industry. This means that you will need to undertake some research to narrow down the field to your particular interest.
Once you have short-listed the headhunters that are appropriate, it is not a case of just sending in your CV and waiting. You need to know that they are going to work for you. This means that you will need to reverse the interview process.
Make appointments to visit the people on your list and, before you go plan the questions that you are going to ask, which will include talking about the fees they charge, how large is their client base, how many times you can expect you CV to be placed in front of a suitable employer and many more. Make copious notes at these meetings so that you can use them for analysis purposes later.
Finally, when you have concluded all the interviews, you need to sit down and evaluate the results. From these, together with your own instinctive reaction to the people that you have met, you should then be in a position to be able to find the most appropriate headhunter to help develop your career.
