Headhunters: A Hiring Authority’s Best Friend?

Everyone is hired for what they’ve done, but fired for who they are.

In a nutshell, this is why my clients pay me to find them top talent.   

Last week I wrote about how an executive recruiter can be the best friend of a candidate. 

This week I will address this same question from a hiring authority’s perspective. Here are seven reasons why hiring authorities should seriously consider engaging an executive recruiter to build their talent roster.

Hiring Authorities:

Targeted Recruiting: When an employer has targeted an individual from a competing firm that they have a relationship with, you had better hire a recruiter to do this in secrecy, otherwise, you can bet they will poach from you as well.  No need to start a recruiting war with a competitor.  A good recruiter can do the deed discreetly without your firm’s name ever being disclosed.

Diversity: I am not talking about DEI here. I am talking about supplementing your workforce with individuals who bring a diversity of experience, skills, understanding, education, culture, and other traits that provide that added layer of perspective necessary to take your firm to the next level. 

A recruiter can expertly sift through his/her network on a discreet basis to identify, assess, and recruit the kind of diversity you require to balance out your team and provide for a greater cultural and organizational perspective.

Replacing a senior executive: When replacing a non-performing employee, one has to be careful not to create drama and dissension within the organization during the process of bringing in their replacement. A discreet recruiter can do this without the individual knowing he/she is being replaced.

Your HR department would have a difficult time finding a replacement for this person while the individual is still working without the rumor mill kicking in.

A Newly Created Position: Many times, a firm will decide to branch out into a new product or geographic area requiring a new experience and skill set. HR may not have the subject matter expertise to even come up with the position requirements. For example, this could be a P&C independent insurance agency expanding into employee benefits or life insurance. A recruiter who specializes in insurance will know all lines including commercial lines, personal lines, private client, life insurance, and employee benefits.

Traditional methods simply no longer work. Many HR departments are still using out-of-date job search boards and filtering software to search for active candidates.

Executive recruiting firms specialize in sourcing passive candidates which is much more time and resource-intensive. A passive candidate is someone who is not listed on a job board and who is relatively happy in their current firm.

The recruiting process for passive candidates is much more intrusive and time-consuming. Top talent are almost always passive candidates.

HR departments are typically comprised of compliance and on-boarding staff, not recruiting specialists able to discreetly and intrusively target passive candidates.

Urgency: Many times, a key executive will depart leaving a huge talent gap at a key position. Time is of the essence. There simply is no time to post the position on LinkedIn or a job board. 

An executive search firm with a laser-focused industry (insurance) specialty can immediately reach out to a specific pool of candidates who meet the specific requirements.  We take on these urgent searches on all the time.

We just completed a search within 30 days that a major insurance carrier had spent one year internally trying to complete. The loss in sales over this past year was catastrophic.

The 80/20 Rule: Smart firms will allocate financial resources to search firms to stack top talent in key positions because they know that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Search firms find that 20%.

These are just some of the things to consider next time you find yourself torn between finding top talent yourself or engaging an executive search firm specializing in your industry. 

Talent is the ultimate difference-maker in today’s competitive landscape.

Have a great weekend,

Rob