… are they or were they as common in Engineering fields as in accounting?
In the 80’s when I was a young CPA I was contacted by them frequently. IIRC I met with one or two and went on a couple of interviews but I don’t remember many of the specifics.
I’m guessing that the internet makes DIY job searching easier and that headhunters aren’t as popular as they once were. I’m wondering with regard to a friend’s child who is an Electrical/Computer Engineer so I’m not specifically interested in the accounting field.
I don’t know about accounting, but in the software engineering world they are widely (and correctly) considered a plague upon humanity, and about as reputable as an 1890s Congressman.
I’m in my current job due to a recruiter. I’m in statistics, and I know that we still use recruiters for stats positions. My area of statistics is kind of a niche area, so there really aren’t that many people out there that fit our needs. So a recruiter can be handy.
Edit to add: all costs of the recruiter were picked up by the company, not by me. I wouldn’t pay someone myself to help in a job search.
I disagree. While there are certainly disreputable headhunters out there, I’ve worked with a few very good ones over the years and keep in touch with them. IMO, they are part of the grease in the gears of the tech world that makes changing jobs fairly easy and painless.
The only thing I have to contribute is that, upon reading the title of this thread, I first thought it had something to do with primitive tribes from the Amazon or Papua New Guinea.
They’re everywhere in the pharmaceutical world. Scientists are not the best at either writing accurate job descriptions or actually summarizing their own skills. Having a matchmaker is very useful, and widely used.
The balance seems to shift from time to time. I get approximately one reach-out from them per day (usually on LinkedIn, these days), and it’s clear that the majority of them have never read my resume or work history; in my last job, they were often trying to get me to give up my full-time, highly-paid gig with my company to work as an entry-level vendor contract…to the same company.
In general, I’m seeing a lot of activity around trying to fill undesirable jobs (3 month contracts in expensive cities, that sort of thing); I’ll often get 3-4 headhunters send me the same position for those on the same day.
So far as I can tell, the vast majority of them are just contacting anybody who matches any of the job requirements in their search engine with mass emails (“You’re skill set looks perfect for this job.”). They’re either incapable of–or it simply isn’t worth their time to–determining if the skills really are a real match or not.
I don’t know that I’d agree with that. Of course there’s disreputable people most everywhere; but If you want a specialized IT job, I’d say good luck finding one without a headhunter. A lot of companies outsource their hiring to headhunters so you don’t have a chance at a job there UNLESS you go through a headhunter.
I have the same impression of headhunters from working in the legal profession. Among other things, they often use underhanded tactics to get through to a target on the phone such as telling reception “this is so and so, returning skdo23’s call” when I never had heard of this person in my life. This isn’t just annoying, it also could’ve led to rumors that I was looking for a job somewhere else.
Every single IT job I’ve ever had, including the one I’m currently at (in which I essentially get paid to read the Dope all day) has been thru some sort of headhunter/contracting company. Some are better than others, but mostly I feel they just take half of what my job actually pays to have me here.
They are active in entertainment as well. I used to get semi-regular calls (some asking for names, not recruiting me directly). In my area these were for TV network/very large production company jobs; production and post-production jobs on the actual shows are filled by personal contacts or through agents, or because the network has a preference.
I’m an electrical engineer who does hardware and embedded software design in the field of industrial control. I personally have been employed by the same company for almost 20 years, so I don’t have a freaking clue how people find a job these days. I got this job basically by saying “hey, people are sending resumes over the internet now, let’s give this new thing a try and see what happens”. This was the first (and last) time I ever e-mailed out a resume. It’s a whole different world now.
I can tell you that headhunters are definitely still out their in our business. My company gets pinged all the time by headhunters looking to place clients. I also know two people who have landed jobs through headhunters, so I know it happens. How often it happens, I don’t know.
I also know that headhunters (and employers in general) aren’t too interested in engineers who don’t have much experience. Once you get some decent experience under your belt, that’s when everyone gets more interested in hiring you.
Seems to me (a fellow IT professional) that there are really 2 kinds of headhunters- the ones who try to place you in jobs that you’re a good fit for and that you’ll thrive in, and who are ultimately trying to build a relationship of sorts with you, and then there are the bottom-feeder kinds who apparently have some sort of resume buzzword filter, and will call/email you out of the blue offering you some low-paying short-term shit contract in some distant city. Repeatedly. And so will their competitors/compatriots. And they’re ALWAYS Indian for some reason, even the ones who say their name is “Mike” or “Billy” or whatever. It’s so bad that I’ve got into the habit of basically ignoring any email or voice mail from someone who sounds like they might be Indian.
But a LOT of companies, especially corporate IT ones, tend to go through headhunters to do their hiring, as they seem to really like contract-to-hire work, since if someone turns out to suck, it’s a lot easier to sever that contractor relationship at the end of the contract term, than to fire a full-time employee.
And it’s that latter 90% who give the former %10 a bad name. Yeah, there are a lot of the bottom feeders around, but there are plenty of good recruiters out there who are interested in long term relationships with quality engineers.
Yeah, there are a lot of the bottom feeders around, but there are plenty of good recruiters out there who are interested in long term relationships with quality engineers.