Executive Headhunting

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Headhunting is a deceptively attractive approach to finding the best candidate. While it’s quite true that many of the best candidates are already employed, serving in and excelling at exactly the capacity you need to fill, the problem is the time, cost, and risk of convincing such an executive to leave a role that they have proven successful in and take a risk in joining your organisation. In most cases, these outweigh any possible benefits.

At our Recruitment & Corporate Success Forum, Gordon Steele, former Sales and Marketing Director of The Post Office, was scathing of the six months it takes executive headhunters to find senior talent.

The Time Lost in Executive Headhunting

It takes weeks to months for an executive headhunter to network to the individuals who meet the requirements, arrange screening interviews and check references. And once the headhunter has found a suitable candidate, it can take further weeks or even months of negotiation, offers and counter-offers, and waiting out notice periods and gardening leave before the new executive starts on the job. (Our research report, Executive Talent 2006, concludes that the average executive vacancy takes four+ months to fill, and that companies lose fully two years of management time owing to slower-than-necessary recruitment.)

The High Costs of Executive Headhunting

Because success cannot be guaranteed in headhunting, executive headhunters require a retainer and progress payments far in advance of – and without guarantee of – the anticipated placement. And when a suitable candidate has been found, it normally requires an exceptionally lucrative compensation package to entice the candidate to switch jobs.

The Failure Rate of Executive Headhunting

All too often when the executive headhunter has found a suitable candidate the rounds of offers and counter-offers, and the personal issues of relocation and the risks that go along with any change cause candidates to back out at the last moment. Months of painstaking work can fall apart in just one phone call. Market research for our report Executive Talent 2006 found that one in six executive searches fails to result in a candidate hired.

The Alternative

Improved technology and communications have made the world smaller. Executives Online’s talent bank of over 30,000 pre-screened executive jobseekers, drawn from over 70,000 applications, means that in all likelihood we already know and have screened a candidate who is right for your job, making our service much faster than traditional executive headhunting.

Learn more about our approach. Read case studies of our successful executive placements, and what outstanding company you will be in among our clients.

Ready for a superior alternative to executive headhunting? Contact us now to discuss how we can help you fill your critical executive roles.

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