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The article is sound but I am on the fence regarding external headhunters. The arguments supporting their use (e.g. hiring company does want to leak informatio

The article is sound but I am on the fence regarding external headhunters. The arguments supporting their use (e.g. hiring company does want to leak information) seem weak. I would tend to think that a strong hiring company should be able to bypass this information leakage on their own and own the process. Using an external headhunter does not prevent the leakage that much and removes ownership and control from the hiring company’s hands. As a senior lead, being approached by an external head hunter has always triggered a knee-jerk negative reaction with me. I would not mind being proven wrong.

nickff 5y ago
I am not a big fan of head-hunters, as the ones I've talked to seem to act like used-car salesmen (deceptive and plain slimy). That said, external recruiters do make sense for small and growing companies who haven't sorted out an internal recruiting system yet.
Aeolun 5y ago
My experience with the candidates introduced to us by well known recruitment firms here in Tokyo has been fairly positive. Of course I have no idea how many equally great candidates they filter out before they get to us.
- post_from_work 5y ago
  Such as Michael Page? That's one of the few recruiters that ever has interesting-looking jobs at decent salaries in Japan.
gen220 5y ago
It's very similar to financial/wealth managers. You don't want to work with a "Financial Manager", but you would probably happily give your portfolio to Warren Buffet or Seth Klarman (there's 1000s of other people in this sphere, whose names we don't know). I think it's close to the 80/20 principle: 80% of people whose job title would be "third party recruiter" are not (or are just barely) worth your time, but 20% will do wonders for your career and network. Good recruiters are primarily skilled at building a wide but high-quality professional network, keeping information flowing through it, and, generally, significantly raising the signal:noise ratio of the connection process for both sides. This earns them repeat customers on both sides. Hires convert into hiring managers convert into founders, and good reputation for quality on both ends goes a long way. It's actually not too dissimilar from good LPs in a VC firm, and there's some VC firms that function pretty explicitly as recruiting hubs. The practical differences: good third party recruiters invest in long-term relationships, with an incrementally increasing quality bar for people and companies admitted into those relationships. Mediocre third party recruiters are more transactional (maybe they see it as an in-between gig, or don't get/want to get the bigger picture) and follow the money with minimal attention paid to quality. The latter are more numerous and more vocal. The good ones exist, but there's probably not a lot of them, and they don't reach out as often. IME, you can usually distinguish between the two based on the portfolio of companies they work with, if you're familiar with the companies you can draw your own opinions. However, with anything qualitatively-differentiated like this, it is hard to persuade somebody that this thing exists. You would know it when you see it.

nickff 5y ago

I am not a big fan of head-hunters, as the ones I've talked to seem to act like used-car salesmen (deceptive and plain slimy). That said, external recruiters do make sense for small and growing companies who haven't sorted out an internal recruiting system yet.

Aeolun 5y ago

My experience with the candidates introduced to us by well known recruitment firms here in Tokyo has been fairly positive. Of course I have no idea how many equally great candidates they filter out before they get to us.

post_from_work 5y ago
Such as Michael Page? That's one of the few recruiters that ever has interesting-looking jobs at decent salaries in Japan.

gen220 5y ago

It's very similar to financial/wealth managers. You don't want to work with a "Financial Manager", but you would probably happily give your portfolio to Warren Buffet or Seth Klarman (there's 1000s of other people in this sphere, whose names we don't know). I think it's close to the 80/20 principle: 80% of people whose job title would be "third party recruiter" are not (or are just barely) worth your time, but 20% will do wonders for your career and network. Good recruiters are primarily skilled at building a wide but high-quality professional network, keeping information flowing through it, and, generally, significantly raising the signal:noise ratio of the connection process for both sides. This earns them repeat customers on both sides. Hires convert into hiring managers convert into founders, and good reputation for quality on both ends goes a long way. It's actually not too dissimilar from good LPs in a VC firm, and there's some VC firms that function pretty explicitly as recruiting hubs. The practical differences: good third party recruiters invest in long-term relationships, with an incrementally increasing quality bar for people and companies admitted into those relationships. Mediocre third party recruiters are more transactional (maybe they see it as an in-between gig, or don't get/want to get the bigger picture) and follow the money with minimal attention paid to quality. The latter are more numerous and more vocal. The good ones exist, but there's probably not a lot of them, and they don't reach out as often. IME, you can usually distinguish between the two based on the portfolio of companies they work with, if you're familiar with the companies you can draw your own opinions. However, with anything qualitatively-differentiated like this, it is hard to persuade somebody that this thing exists. You would know it when you see it.