What is the difference between a headhunter and a recruiter? Many years of experience show that these two functions require two completely different sets of skills. Ideally, an HR director should possess all of them. This is, however, more of an imaginary situation rather than reality. So let’s take a look at things that headhunters and recruiters do differently in terms of functions, techniques and skills.

Research shows that 90% of all recruiters are satisfied with only four ways of finding new people:

1. Publishing vacancies on several job websites.

2. Resume search on the same websites.

3. Publishing of vacancies in print media.

4. Searching the corporate database, which has already been built.

Headhunters, on the other hand, use much more resources and search tools, and above all, do a direct search in competitors’ and other companies. They do not always use the above four methods, because of their low efficiency when searching for rare candidates or top managers.

Recruitment Strategy

Recruiters: passive. Basically, they are waiting for suitable candidates to respond to their job ad. They search only among "active" candidates (job seekers).

Headhunters: active. They look among "passive" job seekers (not seeking employment at this point) and create a network of contacts in the right industry.

The search circle of recruiters is only 15-25% of the market of candidates.

The search circle of headhunters may expand to 80-90% of the market of such specialists.

Search on the Internet

A recruiter mostly uses passive search on the internet: posting job vacancies at three to seven top job websites, the company’s website and then spending hours looking through hundreds of resumes, searching for suitable candidates.

Naturally, headhunters also use an internet search, but are far more active. In addition to placement of vacancies and searching for CVs on job websites, headhunters use a lot of other resources for additional information such as paid job websites, which extend search terms, sites of companies in the desired sector (donors) to obtain necessary contacts, industry review sites to analyze news and search for names and forums that have access to potential candidates when they are not looking for work. Headhunters skillfully use search engines (and not only Google), looking deep into the Internet.

Recommendations

Regular recruiters use the recommendations of candidates only if they do not meet the requirements or refuse to take the job.

Headhunters intentionally look for people who can recommend the right people. It may be competitors, suppliers, customers or other partners. It could be colleagues in the department, even friends and acquaintances - anyone who is familiar with the object of "hunting" and can give a tip.

Does a company need a headhunter or a recruiter? I would say both. While a recruiter can take care of entry and medium positions, a headhunter will be able to close the most important and demanding ones. However, often companies go with recruiters only, which might be the main reason for high employee turnover.

About the author: Ann Aldrich, a highly qualified management consultant, and a freelance writer at Essayhackers, has helped multiple companies to raise the effectiveness of their human resources policy and organizational structure. In the free time, she provides help to management students.