On/off hunting

28-Jun-2006

Headhunting is no longer confined to board/senior-level appointments but is increasingly being used for all kinds of jobs. This is contributing to a shortage of candidates responding to job adverts in the press, making it harder for employers to recruit in the traditional way.

That's the view of Jerry Goldsmith, managing director of Endeavour Search & Selection, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development's recruitment focus group, as reported in the CIPD's latest Recruitment, Retention and Turnover Survey.

Paul Mulcock, head of consumer operations practice at sevenhr, agrees. "When headhunting first came to the UK, it was very much the preserve of top executive and board level jobs. Now it is increasingly being used in a whole range of jobs from the boardroom through into middle management, even for some lower-paid technical roles."

Mulcock says he recently placed a £3,500 job ad in a journal which generated only three responses. "A candidate is more likely to talk to a third party," he suggests. "Where there is an ad they will get somebody in personnel, who will not be an expert, so they probably won't bother sending their CV."

Mulcock argues that another reason why employers are turning away from press adverts in favour of headhunters is because they [press adverts] only reach people who are actively seeking a job. "People are waiting to be contacted," he says.

Henry Chuks, a director at Carrington Blake agrees that speculative approaches are on the rise, and that the increasing use of headhunters helps to explain why there is less emphasis on job adverts.

"The attitude is, 'I know what Jim Smith does. I want him to work with me. Let's go and get him'." Chuks says this applies to "almost any role", and that in many cases it bypasses traditional agencies. He argues that the trend is due to skills shortages.

Paul Harper, chairman of the Association of Executive Recruiters comments; "Corporate clients are finding it increasingly difficult to source the talented staff they are seeking so they are relying on headhunters to access the best staff from their key competitors.

"In many ways it can be harder to find professional staff with specialist skills than a chief executive who is in the public eye. It is not surprising that firms seeking the best are using headhunters to source candidates."

However Dave Swan, managing director of Quayside Recruitment in Newcastle, says he hasn't noticed any great growth in the use of headhunting beyond its traditional market. "The majority of middle management roles are still recruited via ads and the web," he says. If there is any change, Swan suggests that it may be a London phenomenon. Steve Huxham, chairman of the Recruitment Society accepts that headhunters are now being used for jobs with salaries as low as £30,000. But he doesn't see any link between this and any shortage of candidates responding to job adverts. "Usually a headhunter is approaching someone who is not active in the jobs market, and not looking for a job. You are not looking for people who are applying to job adverts." Those who are not active in the jobs market and those who are applying to job adverts are two different types of people.

Huxham says it is fanciful to suggest that people wait for a call from a headhunter. "You can't just sit there and predict 'I am the sort of person who is going to be headhunted'," he says. "I don't see that there is any science behind that."