A headhunter by definition is an employee or an external vendor who works to search, source, identify, and place the best possible available talent fit into a company's job opening. Known as HR staffing, contingent recruiters, and employment agencies, they are paid by the companies who engage their services to hunt talent for them. Hence the nickname, headhunter. Everybody knows this, right? Why is it that headhunters are too often the first avenue used by professional and executive job seekers especially when unemployed? They are the least helpful resource when trying to make a big career transition. They are the most helpful when you are looking for the exact same job, industry, and position level in a different company. Most people are not. The reason why we have this knee jerk outreach to search firms is habit long ingrained into us. Our first experience with any kind of recruiter is when they appeared on campus to recruit new graduates and interns. They hosted pizza nights, gave away bling and cool toys at career fairs. They got some of us our first jobs. We make mistaken assumptions about them due mainly to a long, satisfactory history and pattern of relationship with them. Often, it was a headhunter who lured us out of a current position and into a new opportunity. In time, we used their help to fill our open openings. They continued to cultivate relationships with us as we grew in title and responsibilities. It is the the nature of their business. It only makes sense to let them know that we are looking when it is time for us to move on. But, don't assume that they may actively work in our behalf to help place us by way of reciprocity. Sometimes they will try to help but we cannot expect that they will act to our benefit. We tend to lose an objective perspective of the demands made upon them by their corporate and organizational clients. They are looking for the absolute best fit for a position in terms of industry background, professional experience and position level. Transferable skills are not a significant factor because they don't consider someone making a career transition the best possible fit for a position. Yes, the whims of the economy affect all hiring, as a headhunter may have the perfect position when we aren't looking or desiring to make a move. Timing is everything. Do make connections with headhunters, but don't expect what they simply may not be able to deliver...a job.
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I came to appreciate the hidden value of SKYPE as the sum total of all its features: screen sharing, file transfer, conference calls, revamped dial pad, address book management, group video calling As my business has grown globally, SKYPE has become a low cost/free option when making calls to remote (from the USA) areas like Vietnam. I have gone through numerous GoToMeeting, and other screen sharing websites,paying exorbitant money with my clients struggling to log in and hear me. I came to rely on the file sharing and screen sharing features. When talking to potential and current clients, I could share my screen and show them real time examples and resources as we talked. SKYPE's file sharing and IM features quickly transferred data during and in between conversations while keeping a history of all exchanges. Each client contact's profile became a centralized place to maintain a history of what data has been exchanged and content shared and when. Adding on apps enables me to record video and audio calls as well. Certainly that all adds up to a client tracking and management system and I have come to rely on it for all my clients not just those off shore. But what is the most interesting is how much more accessible it is to be able to drop a random IM message in somebody's chat box while in SKYPE to engage with someone else. It makes keep up and staying in touch a whole lot easier because it keeps of history of what you sent and said most recently. I don't know about you but I can't keep the onslaught of data coming at me in short-term memory anymore. Green Mountain Train Wreck, March 21, 1910 Kudos to the article author, career strategist John Lees, as he is absolutely spot on in his assessment of how we become our own train wrecks. If You're Looking for a Job, Get Out of Your Own Wayby John Lees August 15, 2012 Why do some job hunters give up when they are just in sight of their goals? I've just seen Simon, a client who has been looking for a job for 6 months. Like many people on the market, he started out optimistically but has given up — not officially, mind you, but he's suddenly taken an urgent interest in redecorating his house. His argument to hire a career coach is summed up in this comment, "By insisting that job searching is logical, simple and hardly worth thinking about, we don't think about it at all. We act as if it's as simple as making an online purchase. Yet it's an activity which is all about influencing, communicating a brand, eliciting support, and making connections — skills that can take half a lifetime to perfect." Here are his 5 Ways to Derail a Search Summed Up:
I would add a 6th Way Often my clients come to me after they have committed the article's five top job search errors and lost valuable search time. But, I would add a sixth as well. The job hunter who expects and assumes that their next position should come through a search firm because their last four did. Time changes executive opportunities in marketplace as career growth raises position level and the corresponding availability jobs at the top. Successful job hunters respond with new approaches, tactics, tools and technologies that meet the current status quo. ResumUp is a new tool that is a graphically social based view of your experience and talents. Whew, graphically-social based, now that's a mouth full. But how do you describe the new image driven content style of cloud apps coming up online now? It is an interesting concept and of course it remains to be seen how they will monetize this but I like the look. Hint, sign up using your Linkedin profile not Facebook as it populates the data fields from the site you choose. I am not sure I would want a future employer to take a look at my credentials presented in this fashion. However, the resume is a dying breed we need to stay ahead of the curve and manipulate these tools to our advantage. If you want to sign-up for the free best click here. |
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