Headhunters are third-party recruiters who are often retained when typical recruitment efforts have failed.

Headhunters are normally small operations that make great margins on candidate placements (in some cases more than 30% of the candidate’s annual return). Due to their higher expenses, headhunters are traditionally employed to fill senior management and executive level positions, or to find very specialized individuals.

Headhunters will both interest candidates and actively seek them out as well. To do so, they may use  networks, cultivate relationships with different companies, maintain great databases, purchase company candidate lists, and cold call.

Headhunters are normally more aggressive than in-house recruiters. They may use superior sales methods, such as initially pretense as clients to collect employee contacts, as well as going to candidate offices. They may also buy expensive lists of names and job titles, however more often will make their own lists. They may make a candidate ready for the interview, help negotiate the wages, and conduct closure to the hunt. They are commonly members in good standing of industry trade groups and associations. Headhunters will frequently attend trade shows and other meetings nationwide or even internationally that may be attended by probable candidates and hiring managers.