

Junior positions are typically filled by active job applicants. Executive recruitment is not like staffing! This is a major difference to what an executive might experience earlier in her career. They don’t care if you are a job seeker – they don’t care if you are looking for a new opportunity. The headhunter will target candidates and approach them directly.The vast majority of these opportunities will not be listed on job boards – even “ executive job boards.”.Jill (and her associated recruiting team) needs to be able to find you, or you will not make the longlist.

This means that your long term relationship with recruiter Jane at Korn Ferry is of no value if recruiter Jill of Heidrick and Struggles is managing the search.

They don’t simply forward resumes from applicants. These firms aim to proactively source the right candidate on behalf of the client company. More senior roles (26% of them, according to our research) are filled by retained executive search consultants than by any other formal hiring process.However, if you take the time to understand how the executive search industry actually works, you may question how much support these businesses can provide. Firms acting on behalf of the candidate may be known as executive job search firms and do something entirely different. For the former, the hiring company’s interests and needs is their impetus because that company is their client – not the executives. The major distinction between executive search companies and executive job search firms is the recruiter’s client. In reality, a successful executive career is not linear and doesn’t ‘just happen.’ For an executive to maximize his or her career potential requires many things, including an understanding of how the best executive search companies find candidates, what the search process actually is and what to expect when the recruiter calls. Not least, the fact that most ladders don’t have competitive climbers trying to get to the next rung before you do! The executive career ladder, however, is triangular, with steps appearing less frequently as the candidate gets closer to the top. While slight vertigo means I can’t claim to be an expert on ladders, those I’ve seen are generally as wide at the bottom as the top, and the steps are typically spaced equidistantly. While there is a certain logic to this, the reality is that it is a flawed analogy. An executive career is not a ladder.Īn executive career is often likened to a ladder. An executive search firm is not an executive job search firm. Having spoken to literally thousands of executive search recruiters over the years (my firm provides technology and support services to headhunters), I felt it might be helpful to outline how C-Level and other senior executive jobs are filled. Executives often ask: “How do executive search firms find candidates? What can an executive do to get on recruiter radars?”.
