A lower risk way to reap the freddom and rewards of self-employment
Frequently asked questions

What do you need to be a good head-hunter?

Your success will be directly proportionate to your ability to build and sustain relationships with clients and candidates. You have to be able to establish immediate credibility and be able to pick up information and underlying motivations very quickly. You need to be highly organised and able to juggle many balls at the same time. The bottom line is that you'll stand or fall by your merits; the force of your personality; and your ability to have an impact on people within a relatively short space of time.

Don't head-hunters steal people from companies?

No, recruiters present opportunities to qualified people and those people, if motivated to do so, will make a career decision to investigate further. No one can convince another to go through one of the most stressful changes in life (new employer, new role, possible relocation) without the person already having a reason to do so. The most successful recruiters are those who can spot real opportunities to bring a client and candidate together when both come from different start-points. When you bridge that gap, you add real value.

Do you ever have to 'bend the truth'?

At the outset of an assignment when you are conducting research to find out whom you will need to head-hunt, you may sometimes need to be deliberately evasive or misleading. In every other aspect of executive search, the more open and honest you are, the better you'll do. For example, I always told potential candidates the downsides of my client as well as the advantages. This was unheard of in recruitment but it built my credibility with candidates as well as setting their expectations.

Doesn't specialising in a sector give you a conflict of interest?

Only if your preferred sector is very small. If there are 30 companies or more in your niche you can work with just 4 and make an excellent income. Companies expect you to work with some of their competitors and won't object provided that they trust you to keep their confidence. Never betray this, and never be tempted to head-hunt staff from your clients.

How is telephone interviewing so effective?

Face to face interviewing is particularly subjective since people, including recruiters, tend to recruit in their own image. Also, your ability to absorb what is being said is diminished because you have to maintain eye contact and body language. With telephone interviewing you are able to concentrate fully and you will be more objective in your selection of candidates. Candidate qualities such as energy, humour, and gravitas are as easy to pick up on the telephone as they are face to face. The only risk you run is that a preferred candidate may be a sloppy dresser but because you will take references before introducing any candidate to a client, you will find this out in advance.

Is headhunting stressful?

Headhunting is personality-driven work so you do a lot of talking which brings a unique type of pressure: more fun, more transactional. Remember that headhunting is a specialised kind of sales: you will hear "no" much more often than "yes".

What legislation do head-hunters have to work with?

Surprisingly little since most employment legislation relates to hiring temporary workers. Head-hunters need to be registered under, and abide by, the data protection act. They also need to be aware of anti-discrimination legislation covering age, sex, race and disability. There are a few other straight-forward requirements, mainly to do with record keeping, which are covered in the Head-hunting Handbook.

What are the downsides of becoming a head-hunter?

The majority of your time will be spent on the phone and the business is highly repetitive, although it's seldom boring. However strong your process controls, clients will change ongoing assignments and candidates will unexpectedly drop out of the running, so you need resilience to cope. You also have to be disciplined to succeed because when things are going well the temptation is to let up and take it easy. This usually has negative consequences further down the line. If you can stick to my process however, these downsides should easily be outweighed by the rewards.

What are the upsides?

Above all, people are attracted by the high earnings and quality of life. But in addition head-hunters profoundly impact the lives of the people they work with. You become someone's confidante and having someone trust you for 3 or 4 months, and treat you as their trusted advisor, is deeply satisfying.

How easy is it to grow a head-hunting business?

If you want to scale up it's comparatively easy. Apart from premises, you will need a computerised database to ensure that your consultants don't talk to the same clients or candidates. You will also need discipline to ensure that you manage your trainees without making a costly dent in your own productivity. Paradoxically, the hardest part of growing a head-hunting business is finding and keeping your own top people.

Can I just buy your format and cut out the coaching?

There's a reason why you won't find any good books on how to become a head-hunter: it's an apprenticeship business in which you learn how to do it by working with seasoned head-hunters. A training manual alone will never give you all the answers you need. Even experienced recruiters will struggle without supplementary training. Coaching provides ongoing reinforcement to your formal learning and it broadens and deepens your understanding. It's also there to boost your morale and motivation if self-doubt sets in.

What are the risks of failure?

Most companies are wound up, not because they are loss making, but because the owner no longer considers the rewards worth the effort. This is why you need to be clear on what you want head-hunting to do for you. Provided you stick religiously to my proven format, your risk of failure is greatly reduced.

If you're so good at it why don't you still do it yourself?

I am forever indebted to head-hunting for what it has given me: financial security; a great work/life balance; more free time and personal fulfilment. But I have no desire to be a head-hunter again because I already have the benefits it can offer. Today I get more enjoyment and fulfilment from seeing the people I coach become successful than I would in proving myself as a head-hunter again.

Once the coaching is over is that the end of your involvement?

My coaching programme is designed to replicate the help I received in getting my fledgling business off the ground. Like me you will need a lot of support in your first few months. Thereafter you will know what you're doing, by which time you should have cleared my fee and other set up costs from your first placement, leaving you free to enjoy all of your future profits. (Once I knew what I was doing I still had to pay my mentor his fees for a full 2 years, £59,000 in today's money, and I resented this).

After you decide to terminate the programme you'll still receive your 3 and 6 month health-check, which is included in the initial cost. You can also restart the coaching retainer whenever you want in the unlikely event that you think you need to. Other than that, it is in my nature to keep in touch to see how you're doing (in the same way that I still keep in touch with many of my placed candidates).

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