7 good reasons to hire a headhunter

Admittedly, the American term for recruiters sounds very martial. As if a service provider were to lay his hunted prey at your feet and then expects a reward. Hardly!

It’s more like going to a surgeon for an important medical procedure instead of using a home remedy.

What exactly is a headhunter?

Companies that are specifically looking for specialists and managers hire a headhunter or recruiter. The focus is usually on direct searches.

A good headhunter is not satisfied with an imprecise job description. He analyses very carefully what the client wants to achieve by filling the position. With the help of his own researchers, he then sets out to find suitable candidates. After an initial contact to check the willingness to change, interview appointments are subsequently arranged. The aim here is not only to test the candidate. Rather, the idea is to generate enthusiasm for the job, the company and, if applicable, the region.

A good headhunter therefore does not limit himself to sending out CVs. He prepares the candidate and the company for the interviews and accompanies them. He also advises on salary issues and makes recommendations for individual candidates in the selection.

7 reasons for using a headhunter

The question of whether you want to hire a headhunter is not easy to answer. In a cost-benefit analysis, the following considerations may be important for you:

1. Your desired employee most likely works in another company. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, you can only penetrate this territory with difficulty. This is because it is prohibited by law against unfair competition or the UWG.
2. You want discretion in order not to signal to competitors that you want to open up a new market segment or expand your capacities in this area, for example.
3. The effort to find a new employee is simply too high for your HR department. Applications have to be evaluated, interviews have to be coordinated and conducted, assessment centres have to be prepared, conducted and evaluated. The search in advance turns out to be expensive, difficult and not infrequently fruitless. Often the necessary expertise or training is also lacking, e.g. to analyse the biostructure of the applicants and match it with the requirement.
4. A professional can also bring a breath of fresh air and new ideas to support your HR team. He finds new ways of recruiting and arguments for the job and the company. A good consultant has the ability to think his way into your company and the culture. This has the goal of avoiding bad hires.
5. During the application process, the headhunter keeps the candidates “in line”. He provides information about the current status and ensures that good candidates do not drop out prematurely.
6. The calculation should include what it means when a position is not filled. This so-called “cost-of-vacancy” is an essential key figure in the personnel sector. Often these opportunity costs exceed the headhunter’s costs many times over. This makes the use of external recruiters worthwhile in many cases.
7. Good recruiters usually have extensive knowledge of the industry. They can therefore point out benefits that are customary in the industry or help to better highlight the company’s own advantages.

What does an HR consultant really cost in the end?

Ultimately, you should simply ask yourself what damage is done to your company if you fill a position too late or not at all. The rest of the team is often overloaded beyond what is reasonable. In most cases, orders are not processed satisfactorily for the customer or even have to be cancelled. It is not uncommon to lose important existing employees or customers as a result of such a situation.

One of our clients recently summed it up like this: “Due to the absence of another architect, I lost a turnover of more than 10 million EUR and thus also a high six-figure profit! The costs for the headhunter are actually peanuts. I don’t need a business degree to realise that.”