#headhunting secrets - what do we do actually?

This is what I wrote in 2012 on my own facebook, still resonate a lot today. Short one but I prefer precise and concise articles these days. Next one I am going to publish is on the insights we gathered over a 9 months search on various insurance distribution assignments.

What do we do actually? What goes behind the scenes of headhunting?

You have to look at everything that comes before that identification to see the value of a good headhunter. A great headhunter creates the conditions for that magic luck to strike. They don’t talk to a lot of different people. They talk to everyone. They don’t want to know their clients or their company’s competitors. They want to know everything that’s happening at every company in their area. It’s a massive amount of work that requires constant rejection, failure, stress, and is compounded by the minutiae of job offers and the uncertainty of human emotion.

That’s why very few succeed in headhunting.

It’s not like there is anything special about that one placement. There is nothing about identifying a candidate and getting them a job offer that requires any particular kind of magic, or even a college degree for that matter. Unlike a beautiful painting, anyone or any headhunter/in-house recruiter can luck out and make a placement or two. But the background required for long-term recruiting success is much different. It involves the deep study of companies, products, markets, assessment, and professions coupled with a kind of brute force stamina to doggedly pursue the talents of other people. This is the process that forges the headhunter’s talent.

This talent, when functioning at its best, is almost impossible to find.