Unleashing the Power of Headhunting: How a Headhunting Firm Can Transform Your Talent Acquisition Strategy

The vast majority of talent acquisition strategies are overseen by overstretched HR departments, often as an afterthought amongst a huge remit of responsibilities. You don’t need us to tell you that this approach is unlikely to yield the best recruitment results. Little wonder that many in-house recruiters turn to headhunters to source their talent more efficiently.

Headhunter firms have the connections, resources, systems and expertise to source the right candidates for a wide range of executive and C-suite roles. Moreover, headhunters can find the most sought-after passive candidates, and they’ll do it quickly and convincingly. The upshot for your business is that your talent acquisition strategy is executed flawlessly.

Just think of the hours and subsequent money and resources you will save by putting your talent acquisition in the hands of experienced headhunters. You stand to gain from hiring the right candidates, and your HR team will be free to focus on their primary objectives. 

Here, Red Diamond Executive Headhunters founder and Managing Director Emma Robinson explains how headhunters can transform your talent acquisition strategy.

Why Are Headhunters Important To The Talent Acquisition Process?

Many of the in-house recruiters that we work with come to us because they’ve reached the end of the line and don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not that they’re unsuitable for the job at hand, but they’ve got a capacity. For example, recruitment is often managed through HR departments. But HR is such a huge remit. In some companies, HR people do everything from compensation and benefits to pensions, legal frameworks and contracts.

Then you go and bolt on recruitment as well. Are you actually kidding me?! It’s like, “what part of my job do you want me to give up to do recruitment on top of everything else?” Most decent HR people don’t like doing recruitment. They’d rather do all the other stuff they should do, like coaching and mentoring, not spending their days doing recruitment. It dilutes the job and creates an untenable situation.

This is where executive search can really add value to a company’s talent acquisition process. By bringing in an external headhunter firm, whose day-to-day job is to network and bring new people into organisations, the likelihood is that they will find you people that your in-house recruiters can’t find themselves. Headhunters will be much more dedicated to the cause by their very nature. 

Recruiters have a profile all of their own, and that’s the type of person who will deliver results against a company’s talent acquisition strategy. The whole notion of talent acquisition should be more than just an afterthought of the HR function. Specialist executive headhunters add value through attention to detail, niche skills and extended networks. All of which are invaluable to many businesses, not to mention their overstretched HR departments.

Several departments often dictate in-house talent acquisition mandates. So a talent acquisition strategy will likely be part of a broader HR strategy. The difference is that I read recruitment magazines. Day in, day out, I talk about AI, marketing, salaries, benchmarking and diversity. They’re all at the forefront of my mind, and I have my finger on the pulse regarding all things recruitment.

But if you sat in an in-house talent acquisition role, you’re more likely to be talking about John in Operations and his HR problems. Will you have the skill set and resources to acquire effective talent, especially at the executive level? Not likely, because it’s such a different mindset from one to the other. This is the real advantage any headhunter worth their salt can bring to an organisation’s talent acquisition strategy.

Is Hiring A Headhunter Useful For The Talent Acquisition Process In Any Industry?

In short, yes! If I get parachuted in, nine times out of ten, it’s a rinse-and-repeat situation. As a headhunter, it’s about having good processes in place. For instance, I always tell my clients to start with the end in mind. What’s your five-year plan? Where do you want to be? A client will come to us, and they’ll say, “we’ve got a £20 million turnover company now, and we’ve got the capacity for that company to be a £100 million company”.

In which case, you probably want someone that’s been there so they can walk you through it. In other words, we need someone who’s been at the dizzy heights of the £100 million company, not someone who’s currently at the comparably less dizzy heights of £20 million. So my job is to help people to think about how they can get to where they want to be. But what will invariably happen with a lot of clients is they don’t want to pay for the person that’s been there. They want someone to go on the journey with them.

Well, you’ll be like passing trains then because that’s probably not going to work. In this case, maybe you should be more realistic and build towards a £50 million company. Then in five years, plan to replace your person with someone who can take you the rest of the way to the £100 million mark. An incremental approach often makes more sense. It depends on how aggressive you want to be and how much cash you’ve got in the bank.

What Benefits Do Headhunters Add To A Company’s Talent Acquisition Strategy?

Here’s the thing, to continue the previous analogy: why would the £100 million candidate want to take the seemingly backwards step to join the £20 million company? The answer is equity. It’s about drawing up a compelling package. Recruiters are not just recruiters. Decent headhunters are marketers as well. My job is to get that £100 million person through the door of that £20 million company and educate both parties.

I’ll tell the candidate that this is a super exciting career move for them, and the client that hiring the candidate is a super exciting opportunity to bring in somebody that can take them on that journey they’ve envisioned – and do it quickly. The headhunter’s role in all of this is to impress both sides of the deal. It’s about educating the client and convincingly presenting the facts. If the opportunity is exciting enough, all sides will go for it.

What Should I Consider When Hiring A Headhunter For My Talent Acquisition Process?

Headhunters and headhunter firms with a proven track record of success are worth their weight in gold. So one of the main factors when considering working with one is to research their track history of talent acquisition.

One of my first-ever jobs was working with a big American aerospace company with a small warehouse not far from our office. They used my services for around 15 years, and as I continued my career, my job naturally grew to the point where I had placed their Global Director of Business Development, CEO, CFO and Head of HR. I placed five or six key staff members, and in 2018 the business was sold for around $4 billion.

That is to say, I’ve seen with my own eyes the positive impact that arises from employing high-calibre people. 

None of that happened by chance; it resulted from headhunting expertise. And while not every company has the budget to buy best-in-class talent, tried and tested headhunters can help you to execute your talent acquisition strategy to its fullest potential. The rewards can be significant if you’re willing to speculate to accumulate.

Contact us today on 0845 643 2615 to learn how Red Diamond Executive Headhunters can assist your talent acquisition strategy.