Since they come from many fields and careers, they vary widely. Yet senior managements have certain qualities which differentiate them.
They are usually independent minded. They have their own client relationships and work in a one-to-one fashion with them. Subordinates take their direction from officers so a search is not a team effort of peers. The associates who move up in a search firm demonstrate the ability to develop their own business (new searches and clients) and to fill them (by themselves or by orchestrating others).
By virtue of the nature of the search business, headhunters are transaction oriented. Each new search is a start-up situation that puts their reputation on the line. Filling the job is expected by the client (they paid in advance for the service); failure is always possible (perhaps a final candidate can’t be found). Although relationships and repeat business develop, the recruiter rarely works with his many placements in an ongoing hand-in-glove fashion. When he finishes a search, he is on to the next one. Contact is loosely maintained with the executive placed. He may do an occasional search for that person, more often for his company, but the process makes him an outside consultant rather than a staff or team member.
Good headhunters are people who are able to cope with pressure, that is, juggling several ongoing searches simultaneously, trying to quickly find high-caliber candidates, and maintaining amicable business dealings with diverse clients who often want Mr. Right yesterday.
One headhunter left for a prearranged four day seminar just at the point when negotiations between his final candidate and a Japanese client were heating up. There was a need to be in frequent communication with both parties, but it was difficult. He was ensconced in a classroom from 7:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. with infrequent 10 minute breaks and one hour for lunch. To complicate matters, the only nearby telephone was deliberately placed on a wall in the lavatory to discourage calls. When he called his secretary to check up on messages, he was told about his client’s recent panic call and urgent need to speak with him, the candidate was having second thoughts. He spent the next 40 minutes standing at the wall telephone in the men’s room, speaking slowly to his client, listening attentively because of the client’s accent and limited English, and relaying back and forth between him and the candidate. All of this in the men’s room while “business as usual” went on around him. Talk about stress!
Headhunters do everything that you would expect in order to cope with pressure, from various forms of exercise (mostly white-collar oriented, tennis, squash, golf, and jogging) to smoking, drinking, and overeating.
One took a course that could have been dangerous. When this headhunter’s new secretary knocked on his closed door, no one answered. So she opened it (barely missing his head) and stepped into the office (barely missing his head). There he lay on the floor, flat on his back, in a trance, meditating.
They are gregarious and social minded individuals who enjoy working with quality people to find more quality people for their client companies. The headhunter’s profile is part consultant plus a dab of psychologist and a dash of salesman.
There is a competitive nature to a good headhunter. He is not always handed a search, but often competes with a few rival executive search companies to obtain the assignment. The recruiter may call on or be called in by the director of human resources or a senior line manager to discuss the company’s need. He would then display his knowledge in the area of their need, his credentials, his firm’s, and so forth.
They are persistent. As previously stated, it can take 50 to 100 or more telephone calls to executives to develop a few qualified and interested ones, and they’re not often reached on the first attempt. In its business development phase, obtaining a search is not unlike any marketing and sales effort. Headhunters mail letters or literature about themselves and their companies to prospects. It isn’t unreasonable for new consultants to make 100 calls and mail 100 letters (or more or both) before connecting with a company with a need or an interest in discussing it with them.
Headhunters are hard working and ambitious. They often meet candidates for 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. breakfasts and then may have a dinner interview at the end of the day. Busy executives often don’t have the time to explore new job opportunities in the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. time frame. So executive search consultants have to make themselves available in order to hook up with high powered achievers whom they typically pursue.
“Neither wind, nor rain, nor sleet, nor hail . . . “; the mailman cannot compare to this particular headhunter. He got in his four-wheel-drive jeep and drove from New York City to Providence, Rhode Island in a near blinding snow storm, through closed highways, to secure a search with a new client.