Headhunting has become a popular approach to for recruiters to acquire top talent within their organization.
Yet, within the modern age of LinkedIn and social media, is headhunting still a relevant and efficient way to find and attract top talent?
3 Reasons Headhunting Is the Most Efficient Way to Recruit Top Talent
According to Craig Smith, writing for the DMR, a staggering 94% of recruiters use LinkedIn to hire new talent. What’s more, in May 2015, there were over 3 million jobs advertised on the popular professional social networking site. Social media has transformed the recruiting industry, giving power to recruiters and organizations, providing to a large amount of data in a large talent pool.
In such a climate, is there really a place for hiring professional headhunters?
Here are our three reasons why headhunting is even more important for organizations in recruiting top talent than it ever has been.
- Top Candidates Are Not Always Visible Online
Professional social media networks rely on their users to submit accurate information on their sites. In such a way, if employers rely on social media to recruit, they are relying solely on the accuracy of the information provided by the networks’ users. Over-dependence on social media to recruit may lead to missing potential top talent.
Sandra Collins explains how LinkedIn profiles are not always well written and may not accurately represent possible top talent for your organization. In contrast, headhunters tap into existing networks which provide reliable sources to uncover talent.
- Head-hunters Are Best Placed to Efficiently Find Specialist Skills
There is a distinct difference between the way headhunters recruit with the approach taken by general recruiters or organizations who recruit without outside help. Sabrina Baker explains for Acacia HR Solutions, that head-hunters bring specialized, industry knowledge about how to directly find the right talent and how to spot it.
Having a generalized understanding of an industry does not equate to understanding how to find and attract top talent within a specific industry. For example, a director of an IT company may recognize that the specific skills, experience, attributes and qualifications of their previous top-performing employees. However, they are likely to have a limited number of employees on which to base their assumptions of what constitutes “top talent”. A head-hunter specializes in having a deep understanding of talent and has years of experience and successful talent acquisitions to use to apply to their recruiting practices. This results in a more efficient approach to recruiting specialized talent.
- Headhunting Helps You to Reach Out and Successfully Attract Top Talent
Wayne Parker explains that the role of a headhunter does not stop at just finding talent. Headhunters have expertise in creating packages and incentivizing professionals to move around organizations. On contrast, the number of interactions on LinkedIn is not moderated, meaning that communicating and negotiating with busy professionals can be a challenge.
Headhunting Is Crucial to Find, Acquire and Attract Specialized Talent
It is clear that an over-dependence on professional, social networks such as LinkedIn can leave employers falling short in many areas. The key reasons lie in the headhunter’s ability to cut through the noise and clutter of social networks and rely on built networks of relationships and years of expertise.
Find out more about A Crawford Thomas’ recruiting services.