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What is a headhunter?

Headhunters are the people or companies that specialize in finding the best professional profiles for all those managerial, executive or senior positions that are essential and on which the success of the company depends. These positions are very difficult to find on many occasions, so for companies, resorting to a headhunter is the best solution because they are the ones who know the market in depth, they can specialize in different sectors or areas and they also have the necessary contacts to find the desired profile.

Hiring a headhunter offers several advantages, among which the following two stand out:

  • Outsourcing the search: while the headhunter performs the exhaustive search for the requested profile, the client company's managers will be able to focus on their work and save time. 
  • Guaranteed success: since the selection process is carried out by specialized people, as mentioned previously, where agreements can be established during the search for the profile or guarantees so that both parties (client company and candidate) are satisfied.
     

When contacting a headhunter you should keep in mind that: 

  • For the headhunter, clients are very important and they seek to have a close business relationship with them.
  • The headhunter can become or already is part of the circle of trust of the company that hires him, allowing him to know non-publishable details of the required position.
  • Uses several recruitment sources such as their circle or network of contacts, own database, social networks, management forums, etc.


The whole process of selection and recruitment of talent in which a headhunter is involved is called headhunting, and it is a process that consists of the following steps:

  • Collecting information on the executive/managerial profile that the company is looking for.
  • Search for the candidate (it can be through a database, such as we have in Servitalent).
  • Interview with the candidate to see if his/her profile is suitable to be presented to the company. 
  • Interview of the candidate with the company to evaluate key aspects, and even the affinity between both parties.


Generally these processes are carried out discreetly through the headhunter since they are profiles that will handle sensitive and confidential information of the company. That is why it is very important to know which headhunter to use in this type of process, since they will be the ones to watch over the interests and privacy of the client company and the candidates involved in the process.
 

In Servitalent, as a company specialized in executives and talent management, we are proud to know that we are a reference company in Spain in the management of executives.