10 Things Your Headhunter Won't Tell You (10 Things)

Published Oct. 26, 2009 at 4:00 a.m.

1. “I’ll play you for a sucker.”

Headhunters come in two flavors. “Retained” executive search firms, such as blue-chippers Korn/Ferry International or Heidrick & Struggles, charge a company up front to locate candidates for client openings. “Contingency” search firms, on the other hand, get paid by employers only if they place a candidate. The payoff? For both, around a third of your first year’s salary.

Charging the candidate for a search is verboten. The Association of Executive Search Consultants, which represents 250 retained firms worldwide, urges jobseekers to proceed with caution. But there are headhunters out there who still try to bill candidates thousands of dollars for “career services,” thus potentially snaring fees at both ends. Industry bible Kennedy Information’s Directory of Executive Recruiters has been known to screen out new applicants who squeeze job candidates for fees, and plenty of other firms doing the same thing don’t even try to get listed. There are also numerous online ventures that charge the candidate, and not the posting companies, for the privilege of trolling through their jobs databases.

How can you determine whether your headhunter is on the up-and-up? The answer's simple: Ask up front.

2. “There’s a lawsuit in your future.”

Lawyers must love the job-search industry. Why? Because any given job move has the potential to embroil your former employer, your new employer, your search firm—and even you—in a fireworks display of legal writs. Company-to-company lawsuits over talent pilfering, for example, have become almost commonplace: Starbucks v. Dunkin' Donuts, Wal-Mart v. Amazon.com, Nortel Networks v. ONI Systems, Nike v. Gap, and so on. And how do these affect the job candidate? Such a suit could hold up your appointment, or even block it altogether, especially if you signed a noncompete agreement and are jumping to another firm in your field.

What should you do if you're interested in accepting a new offer but don't know if you're crossing the legal line? If you're leaving a job and have a non-compete, it's best to seek the advice of an employment attorney before making any big moves.

3. “I may be headed for extinction.”

If you’re a rising star, recruiters are going to want you all to themselves. And, indeed, an exclusive relationship with the right recruiter who knows you well can lead to fantastic job offers, the right corporate fit—and, of course, commissions in the recruiter’s pocket.

But before you invest all that time and energy with a headhunter, take heed: He may be going the way of the 8-track tape. Websites such as BountyJobs.com, 6FigureJobs.com, and Netshare.com have been compiling databases of $100,000- plus earners and matching them directly with companies, a task previously the sole domain of retained recruiters. It’s faster, and it’s financially alluring—no middleman, no hefty fee.

For its part, 6FigureJobs.com says it’s seeing the shift away from recruiters gain momentum: Whereas the site’s subscriber ratio was 60/40 recruiters to companies back in 2000, these days it’s more like 35/65. “We think the math just makes that inevitable,” says a spokesperson for 6FigureJobs.com. “You can save yourself a lot of money by using smart research and using the right mix of sites.”

4. “I’m not above wasting your time.”

You may be excited about an upcoming job interview your headhunter just set up, but don’t break out the bubbly just yet. The reality is that you may be considered “filler.” That is, the recruiter doesn’t think you’re a good fit for the position but sends you to the interview anyway.

To mask the fact that you’re a square peg being pitched for a round hole, your résumé might even be tweaked by an overzealous recruiter who’s stretching for a fit. This tactic revealed itself to an automation engineer for a South Carolina industrial equipment manufacturer who was lured to an interview by a lavish job description— and found that his CV had been altered almost beyond recognition: “I said, ‘What is that?’ The interviewer said, ‘This is your résumé.’ I said, ‘No, it’s not.’” The job candidate says that the recruiter had changed the format of the résumé completely, as well as the way he had listed his jobs and skills. “They only wanted to emphasize the things that matched the job description, so they could have an identical fit,” he says.

Other times, particularly given today's job market, recruiters may send you to an interview at a company that doesn't necessarily have an open position. When times are slow, HR departments within companies still need to keep busy, and so it's in their best interest to screen potential candidates anyway. The best case scenario: They'll keep you on file and contact you again when the timing is right.

5. “I’ll send your résumé everywhere—even if you don’t want me to.”

Since contingency firms get paid only if they place a candidate, the temptation is to carpet-bomb hundreds of companies in hopes that something pans out. The result: Your information could be spread far and wide by recruiters eager to make a commission or traded with others who might do the same. It could even end up in the lap of your current employer.

Even if you’re careful, you might still get burned.

If multiple agencies are sending in your résumé, a company might decline to hire you simply because it looks like you don’t know what you’re doing. Or it might not want to get involved in a nasty fee dispute between competing headhunters who are pitching the same person—even if you’re the perfect candidate.

6. “I have no idea what you do for a living.”

When it comes to technology, too many recruiters still don’t know what they’re talking about. To be sure, many firms now offer sector-specific high-tech placement services. But there are plenty of headhunters who are just trying to get by. They might be up on the latest tech buzzwords, for example, but that doesn’t mean they’re savvy about e-commerce. At the very least, it can mean a waste of time and effort spent chasing the wrong job. Worse, if you took the word of a clueless recruiter, you could be looking for another job as soon as you start.

7. “We’re too busy to worry about you.”

One big dilemma with headhunters: When the market’s in trouble, there aren’t enough jobs for candidates; then, when the market recovers, recruitment firms overbook themselves, meaning clients don’t get enough or the right kind of attention.

Another consequence of a firm’s scrambling on too many searches at once: Your file might be offloaded onto a junior person. This happened to Tim Hu, a Cheyenne, Wyo., systems analyst. Bounced around between reps, he ended up with a green staffer who “didn’t quite understand what was going on,” Hu says. The result: Hu was placed at a financial services firm with a far more buttoned down corporate culture than he had been looking for. He left soon afterward.

8. “I make promises I can’t keep.”

In a tight job market, recruiters and the high-tech companies they represent often offer perks they can’t deliver. Think attractive 401(k) plans, stock options, lengthy vacation time or the likelihood of a promotion upon a one-year review. Recruiters will also sometimes paint a far rosier picture of a job than is actually the case. And that could lead to some very bad career decisions. You should think of your recruiter as a salesman; you can't take everything he or she says at face value. Do your own research. Also arrive at each job interview armed with questions, so you can compare and contrast with what the recruiter tells you. "There are some terrific individuals out there who can make a big difference to your job search, but you must do your due diligence," says Della Giles, director of executive search firm BlueSteps.com.

9. “You didn’t hire me—but I’m out pitching your résumé anyway.”

At the lower end of the headhunter food chain, recruitment tactics can get a little fast and loose. In the case of a desperate firm, the recruiter might pitch you without having ever met you or even spoken with you about the job.

So how do these firms find out about you? The Web, naturally. Headhunters have grown increasingly savvy when it comes to navigating job-hunting sites like LinkedIn or Monster. Often they’ll manually search these sites, where they may come upon your résumé and add it to their own candidate pool—without your ever knowing about it. In addition, member profiles for LinkedIn will often come up in Google searches with a high page rating if the user has chosen to let their profile be “publicly viewed,” a LinkedIn spokesperson explains.

Fortunately, there are ways to limit the possibility of your résumé landing in the hands of a dicey headhunter —especially if you’re posting it for networking purposes, rather than to find a new job. Many sites offer contact and privacy settings that you can fiddle with. A spokesperson for LinkedIn also suggests typing the phrase, “If you’re a headhunter, please do not contact me,” directly in your online profile.

10. “This job will self-destruct in three months.”

Don’t expect headhunters to tip you off about a possible merger, downsizing, or corporate meltdown. Even if they know, they won’t tell you—sometimes because they’re legally required to stay mum, and sometimes because it’s just not in their job description to air a company’s dirty laundry. After all, recruiters work for the companies, not you.

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