In today’s day and age, there are multiple ways where one company can look for executive positions. One sure way is to employ the services of an executive headhunters. Executive headhunters provide vast connections to qualified applicants that can be paired with experience that companies will need to for executive positions.
Small medium enterprises are always in need of new ways to expand their business. Great minds and great leaders will be their arsenal towards a better venture. However, SMEs are always having trouble finding ways to hire executive positions at a fast rate. Furthermore, SMEs do not have enough people in their HR department to conduct a thorough search for potential and qualified people for their executive positions. That is why, executive headhunters are employed.
What is an executive headhunter? They provide executive recruitment services to different companies that are in need of executive employees that will fit their criteria and fix their problems. They function as a high level recruiter since they only look for people that are fit to fill high level positions that are in charge of making critical decisions for the company. Executive headhunters also provides a vast connections for the company. That is why most executive search agencies have retainer fees so that companies will have a greater chance of getting the pick of the litter as they say.
One question that pops in to most people is, ‘how do headhunters make money’. The correct answer is, it depends. Most of the time, headhunters or executive headhunters will get paid if they are successful in providing or placing their candidates to jobs. However, some companies may opt to have a regular salaries for their headhunters to have an unbiased look at all of their candidates.
With the advent of technology, executive headhunters gather their network by using their personal connections within companies and other professionals. That is why most headhunters have a vast array of connections from different industries so that they can perform their jobs at a much faster rate. Another way is having executive headhunters work with the companies that employed them to create creative job descriptions that will capture qualified individuals for the job as well as creating a great compensation package that can rival other companies.
But why are there executive headhunters? Why is there a need in today’s business environment. Why is there a market for them? But the very simple answer is convenience. Convenience for the companies that wants to hire C-position jobs in their company. The niche is exploited by great HR recruiters that has great networks of highly skilled and experienced individuals.
Moving forward, employing executive headhunters has its pros and cons. Since every great thing always have two sides. Employing headhunters will pose both opportunities and threats for the company. Below are just a few of the pros and cons:
Let us start first with the pros:
- Candidate loyalty
- Having a great connection to headhunters can form a great deal of loyalty to its company. Especially those companies that have a positive and healthy relationship with their headhunter, those headhunters will more likely put their networks to their company.
- Guaranteed Employees
- Since headhunters are basically high level HR recruiters, they will most likely already have people on standby for companies to hire immediately. Having a fast employment process for executive positions can greatly affect companies that are in need of fresh ideas to make their companies more competitive from the rest.
- Cost-Effectiveness
- Having other firms look for your employees will most likely decrease your costs since they will be the one incurring the cost of actually posting the job listing, receiving their resumes and having them interviewed. Also, decreasing a company’s recruiting cost can be added to their potential compensation package and will also help the headhunters to gather their networks easily since a high paying job will always get the highest applicants.
- Global networks
- Employing and possibly retaining headhunter can be a great way to have a global network for a company. This can be a great advantage for SMEs especially if they are looking to internationalize their operations. Grabbing globally competitive individuals from headhunters can be a sure fire way to increase a company’s overall competitiveness.
Moving on to the cons of having headhunters.
- Higher fees
- Even though employing headhunters is cost-effective, in the long run, if the company is no longer looking for executive individuals, paying a high retainer fee may be costly for the company. The company will have to always keep on paying either a monthly or annual fee to headhunters.
- Non ownership
- Headhunters in nature are external. Companies cannot really freely choose the people that will be entering their company. Since headhunters will dictate the people that will come in the company, company owners may have hesitation on controlling them and will have a transitional period that may affect the company’s culture and overall relationship.
Overall, having a headhunter has its advantages and disadvantages. Recommendation from headhunters will likely be a make or break for a company. Since employing headhunters, there is a certain trust that will come in to play. Headhunters will be giving a totally stranger for the company and will have an awkward phase for the company. However, the other sode of the coin, headhunters has a level of pressure to provide a highly qualified person to come in to the company that is currently employing them. In addition, having a great deal of pressure like that will most likely give the headhunter a better decision making skills that can be beneficial for the company.
For the company’s part, an overall benefit will always outway the cons of employing headhunters. Headhunters are an integral part of today’s business environment. With a highly competitive industry, employing headhunters will always be a great benefit to get ahead of the curve. Also, headhunters will always be a viable plan for solutions that requires a new fresh manager for the company that can be a crucial way to give the company the edge they need to be a highly competitive company locally and as well as internationally.
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Executive Search and Headhunting Agency in the Philippines. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://kittelsoncarpo.com/executive-search/
Kenton, W. (2019, July 28). What Is a Headhunter? Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/headhunter.asp
Owens, M. (2019, February 11). Advantages & Disadvantages of Executive Recruiters. Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/info-8197438-advantages-disadvantages-executive-recruiters.html
Power, R. (2014, November 12). How Executive Search Firms Work. Retrieved from https://www.inc.com/rhett-power/how-executive-search-firms-work.html
