The skinny on headhunters
Dear e-COACH,
Every month I get at least 4 calls from headhunters trying to entice me away from the senior level position I currently enjoy. Sometimes they are quite pushy. I find it annoying and distracting to receive these calls. I know everyone has to make a living but are there any ethics involved here? Is there some way to get these flesh peddlers to take me (and my staff) off their lists and stop calling? When we use agencies, is this what they're doing to find our candidates?
Dear Annoyed,
Having done a little flesh peddling myself over the years, I can tell you that you will never succeed in permanently getting off their "lists"… because in some cases there is no list. Here's how it works:
Let's say an Executive Search consultant is retained to find a VP Marketing for a client company. On a salary of $100,000 the fee could be $30,000. I think you'll agree that's a lot of money, even to find one great senior level candidate. The consultant's firm will probably be paid one third of the fee up front as a retainer. The hiring company, having been sold on the successful track record of the consultant's firm and having paid the retainer, will sit back and wait, with the expectation that the consultant will go off and work his magic to find great people. For $30,000 one tends to expect excellence.
The consultant, with his share of the first $10,000 in his bank account and having promised to deliver the perfect candidate, now faces the obligation of meeting those high expectations. He will conduct a search focused on the specifications for the position to ensure that the client's precise needs are met. What commences includes a lengthy process of compiling lists of potential contacts that may be interested in the position or who may know someone else fitting the criteria. At this stage, dozens of people are contacted and many referrals are followed up on.
The most ethical approach during one of these calls would be for the consultant to say "I am looking for a VP Marketing with XYZ skills - do you know of anyone who fits that description?" Remember, I said the most ethical, not the most common or the most effective. Search consultants are under a lot pressure to produce and there is another $20,000 at stake, so the approach can be much more aggressive.
Try to forgive them. A firm "no" usually works. If you are employed and have an excellent professional reputation or a unique and desirable set of skills, people who know of you will refer you to headhunters. For that reason you can never really got off the "list." You could choose to see these calls as a compliment!
If your company is using a Personnel Agency that is paid on contingency, they may be relying more on a candidate database than an extensive networking process. Since the client only pays if they hire the candidate, clients are not discouraged from looking for candidates through other sources. Without a financial commitment, the contingency type of agency can not afford to go through an extensive, directed networking process in the event that you find your candidate elsewhere. So, to answer your last question: If you're using an agency, no, they may not be making these types of calls.
May I conclude by making a suggestion? It might behoove you to be nice to headhunters - you never know when you may find yourself sitting across the interview table from one of them with your career in their hands. Four calls at 5 minutes each is only 20 minutes per month out of 9,000 available minutes. I don't know about you, but that is less than the amount of time I spend each month gazing pointlessly out the window, watering my plants, or deleting spam, so I don't see it as a big deal.
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