Head hunters also known as Executive Search are the recruiters who basically search
for the candidates who are in executive positions in another organization but that may not always be the case. The clients served by the head hunters are always the organizations or companies but not the individuals. Headhunters are usually paid on a retained basis or on contingency basis. Those headhunters who are paid on contingency terms are paid only when the search is completed and the hired candidate is on board. Those headhunters who work on retainer basis gets the bulk of the fee before the search is complete.
The contingency fees charged are generally for searching candidates for lower level positions and the retained fees charged is for higher level management positions. The services of Headhunters are being used by more than half of the business corporate and as per the reports of the Institute of Corporate Productivity 67% of the organizations use outside recruitment firms to find new employees and about 79% of big companies are using search firms to locate new employees.
The headhunters may be divided into three types (1) Retained recruiters who have an exclusive arrangement with the employer and they receive the fees for their search at the beginning of the search assignment and continue to submit candidates until the company fills in the job position or calls off the search. Services of retained recruiters are used for senior level positions or for those positions that requires confidentiality. (2) Contingent recruiters - These recruiters work on assignment basis without retainer fees and receive payment from the employer only if the candidate present to the employer is subsequently hired. These recruiters usually search for middle management, professional and technical placements. (3) Corporate recruiters These people are the employees of the company and may be assigned to search for all staff openings or recruiting for specific departments. This type of recruiters work with outside recruiters and thereby combine the candidates that they got with the help of outside recruiters thus creating a well rounded applicant pool. The other known facts about head hunters are that they source candidates through key recruitment websites and it has been proved that 86% of headhunters do online search for the candidates in question. Headhunters are indeed valuable coach to the applicant as well as the hiring manager. More and more companies are using the services of headhunters due to their reliability and consistency in producing qualified candidates that gels well with the corporate ethics of the client organization.