What is an executive recruiter?
I love questions like this because the answer is baked into the term itself. What is an executive recruiter? It’s a recruiting solution for companies looking to hire for the most senior positions … your vice presidents, your C-suite executives, your senior directors, and so on.
Sounds simple enough on its face, but there’s one critical thing you need to keep in mind. Executive recruiters come in all different shapes and sizes (from agencies to individuals) and go by many names (from headhunters to talent advisors).
On top of that, yes, executive recruiters, on the whole, share the same top-level mandate – helping you find the company leadership you need to build great teams and move your business objectives forward. However, for better or for worse, each recruiter, headhunter, or talent advisor you meet will have their own unique approaches to recruiting and client relationships, structures, best practices, and more.
If you’re on the hunt for your own executive hiring rockstar, that last point is essential for you to understand. Not every executive recruiter or talent advisor out there is going to be right for you.
What an executive recruiter does
Let’s start again at a high level. Broadly speaking, executive recruiters follow some version of this playbook:
A discovery process in which they get to know you, your business, your needs, your current hiring processes and gaps, etc.
Already have immense knowledge of the field you’re in – they know the market.
They have the relationships and access to best-in-class talent.
Researching and sourcing candidates to meet your hiring needs.
Screening, first-round interviews, and initial evaluations of potential candidates.
Providing recommendations around the candidates you should speak to.
Support during salary negotiation, offer, and reference check phases.
I’ll be honest, though. While these are all essential parts of the process, great executive recruiters – the ones that are so good, you would never dare tell your competitors about them – are talent advisors. (At People Obsessed, we consider ourselves the latter.)
Executive recruiter vs. talent advisor
A talent advisor does everything we’ve already talked about (discovery, researching, screening, and so on), but the great ones go deeper.
They don’t settle for understanding the immediate, transactional hiring needs you have; they sit alongside you and go out of their way to become fluent in your business. What is your vision and mission? What are your products and services today, and what is your product and service roadmap for the future? What is your current position in your respective industry? How do you stack up against your competition?
They also dig into your hiring processes for points of failure, provide strategic guidance on crafting job descriptions that are literal magnets for the candidates you’re looking for, help you design the right hiring process, and more.
This level of intentional and purposeful integration into your company is what separates good from great; transactional executive recruiters and talent advisors who possess exceptional professional match-making skills.
It’s worth noting that every recruiting agency, headhunter, and talent advisory solution has its own way of labeling and talking about themselves. For example, we call ourselves talent advisors here at People Obsessed, because we believe in the approach I outlined above. However, there may be “executive recruiters” out there who operate in a similar way.
That’s why it’s so important for you to be active and probing when looking for your own executive recruiting or talent advisory solution.
Choosing an executive recruiting solution
Before you shine the interrogation spotlight on a potential recruiter or talent advisor, you first have to do that for yourself. So much of who you choose will depend on your unique needs, challenges, and goals.
For example, here are a few of the variables that can heavily influence what you choose:
What are your hiring needs? Are you at the start or in the mindset of a substantial hiring push with needs that will continue for the next six to 12 months? Or are you looking for one or two specialized roles with no plans beyond that?
Do you currently have any in-house recruiting resources? If so, what are their strengths and weaknesses?
Do you need support with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in your hiring?
Do you have full visibility or understanding into any gaps, points of failure, or deficiencies in your hiring process?
Historically or currently, have you been struggling to find great candidates? If so, for how long?
Great executive recruiters and talent advisors will also be able to help you uncover the answers to those questions because they’re not always easy to unpack without the help of an experienced third party with an outsider’s perspective.
From there, you’ll have other considerations ahead of you as you make your choice, including but certainly not limited to:
Do you want to work with a large executive recruiting agency or an individual and/or smaller talent advisory firm?
How much time do you have to vet sourced candidates from your recruiters? (For some recruiters, it’s a numbers game, where they know some candidates may not be the right fit; for others, they’re more selective in who they send your way, so you’ll spend less time vetting candidates.)
How involved do you want a recruiter to get in your business?
Are you looking for something more transactional to meet an immediate need or are you looking to develop a long-term strategic partnership?
Do you work in an industry where niche experience in that industry is a must-have for your recruiter?
Are these a lot of things to think about while you’re also trying to fill a mission-critical executive role at your company? Yes. But doing this level of due diligence internally and using that intelligence to drive discussions with potential recruiters will radically improve your hiring outcomes overall.
