Employment agencies are companies that work to match a candidate with a specific position in a company. Agencies do this through their recruiters, which vary between the in-house recruiter and the headhunter.
An in-house recruiter, or internal recruiter, is a member of the company that is usually a part of the company’s human resource department. Some in-house recruiters work for the company on a contractual basis, moving around in different companies and working at each one for a short time until the specific number of employees have been hired. These kinds of recruiters typically work in recruitment agencies, or employment agencies.
Third party recruiters, more commonly known as headhunters, are the people companies turn to when their in-house recruiters can’t find suitable candidates for the job. Headhunters may work alone or through an agency. They act as the contact between the client and the candidates, and may specialize in either client relationship or looking for candidates, or both.
In the world of headhunting we have what you call Executive Search Agents or Professionals. these individuals are more involved in the hiring process than normal agents and are usually found to be a part of a larger company or agency.They usually also have long distance relationships with their clients. The qualifications of the Executive Search agents are detailed knowledge of the job, a very extensive network of contacts and seniority.
The executive Search Agents operate on a much higher level when compared to other agents. To them, the poaching resorted to by some others is a definite no-no. They go through the extensive and backbreaking process of doing interviews, reports and overall assessments in order to find exactly the right people to fit each job. This level or professionalism ensures that companies get only the best when dealing with the kinds of agents.
Executive Search agencies usually add compensations for their clients to maintain their long relationship. A common example is how Executive Search agencies promise to make additional searches for free if the candidate resigns or is fired within a year of employment.
Very pleasing to read an authoritative piece on the recruitment industry. I intend to keep an eye on your site.
Good luck with it.
James
In Dubai, it is quite different. Only the largest companies in Dubai have in-house recruiters. Most companies have human resource administration personnel. Companies outsource their recruitment needs to third party agencies, which do both recruiting and headhunting for the companies, sometimes on retainer contract.
This is a good and informative piece, however. Glad I stumbled upon it.
Best,
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A very accurate and descriptive article – thanks!
Salvador
I previously worked for an online bank and when I was there (during the early .com boom) one chaps lucky job was literally to fly around the world from India to Malaysia through to Russia, Eastern Europe and whever he liked it seemed to me hiring people and offering them company sponsorship and entry visas….
At the time I thought he had to have the best job in the world… I was better paid but he must have had close to 100% job satisfaction.
Anyway long story short this is obviously one of the 'in-house recruiter' types…. the trouble with hiriung in house recuiters one might think is that if the company stops hiring he's unemployed suddenly… and it's therefore unlikely that someone would have many years training and experience as an in-house recruiter as economy's in the world just don't last long enough fior such a person to gain experience on their own. A recruitment ageny on the other hand can also be measured by the economic up's and down's it has survived… would you suggest that this line of thought might suggest recruitment agencies would offer better quality HRM?
I was reading the comments above mine about executive recruiting oversees – it's interesting to hear that in some of these other countries don't even have in house recruiting unless they are a huge company. I guess outsourcing the hiring is the trend but who knows with that economy it could switch. I work with these firms everyday and I'm already seeing more and more companies drop their services because they can't afford to hire a recruiter.
Good article I believe that recruitment is best when it is outsourced to an expert
There are some great books out there teaching you what questions to ask during an interview
Another way to sharpen the skills is to continue to educate yourself
Cheers
There's nothing like a good headhunter to boost your ego. I think its a dirty way to hire people though.
As a recruitment expert, we always have access to great candidate database which recruiters would not be able to gain by themselves.
An interesting insight into the highly competitive world of recruitment. I have subscribed to your feed.
A great post into the world of executive level recruitment. I have worked at several levels within the recruitment industry over the past 18 years. At present I work for an Executive Research Company, this used to be an internal function used by Executive Search organisations to locate and identify potential candidates, and competitor profiles.
In recent years, this has become a stand-alone option in the recruitment industry, and is often labelled as a ‘true alternative to traditional recruitment’. We still support Executive Search firms and qualify candidates on their behalf but we also offer our service to corporate clients directly.
We don't work from candidate databases, instead we identify, and qualify clients who are already in a particular industry sector. I hope this gives everyone an insight into another area of executive recruitment, and a great post by Salvador Paez.