Probably you've been placed in one or more jobs yourself by a "headhunter." And chances are, you've also used professional help in identifying people to work for you.
So, what can you possibly find out that you don't already know?
Plenty! Because we're going to look at recruiters from an entirely new angle… your self-interest. And that's not the way they've been presented to you up to now.
There are, of course, two kinds: contingency and retainer. The difference is in how they're paid. The contingency firms get paid only if and when someone they submit is actually hired. And the retainer firms are paid for their professional skill and effort, regardless of whether anyone they provide is hired.
Even though the employer pays both types...and you never do...your self-interest is very different, depending on which type you're dealing with. And often that's not easy to determine. These days, both look the same, and call themselves by the same names. Even more confusing, both types may switch their compensation method, when it suits their self-interest...not yours...to do so.
Moreover, it's not a matter of "good guys" and "bad guys." Your self-interest very seldom lines up with either type. So in this chapter, you and I will figure out:
- What's best for you with both types, and
- How to tell them apart...in person and on the phone.
But we won't stop at polishing your reactions. You're going to reach out to these people, and get them to do more for you.
When we're finished, you'll know as much about recruiters as if you'd spent a decade of your life working in their industry.
On the surface, contingency and retainer recruiters are far more alike than different. Both:
Fill executive positions. Recruiting is the same function, regardless of payment method.
Are paid by the employer. You won't pay either type.
Range in size from small, intimate firms to multi-city giants. You can't tell them apart by the number and size of their offices.
Have handsome quarters. Neither type has a monopoly on ambience.
Call themselves by the same names. "Executive Recruiters," "Management Consultants," "Executive Search Consultants." Both types use all the same words. And the public calls both kinds "headhunters."
Keep vast files of resumes. Both will accept your mailed-in resume and may keep it on file, along with the resumes of people they've interviewed.
Fill jobs from resumes on file. That's why they both maintain such extensive files.
Telephone employed executives. When your phone rings, either type may be calling.
The fundamental distinction between the two kinds of firms is in how they're paid.
Contingency Payment
Contingency recruiters are paid by employers only if and when someone they submit is actually hired. They may just go through their files and send over a few resumes. Or they may do telephone investigation and persuasion to develop candidates, and then interview them, to screen a highly appropriate group for the "client" to see. Either way, these recruiters are operating strictly "on contingency"...on the chance that someone they submit will be appropriate and attractive enough to actually get hired. Otherwise, there's no fee. If the employer hires his or her in-law, a next-door neighbor, somebody who mailed in a resume, someone submitted by a different contingency recruiter or nobody at all, the contingency recruiter gets nothing for his efforts.
Retainer Payment
Retainer recruiters, on the other hand, are paid by the employer regardless of whether anyone they submit is actually hired. They're compensated for their professional skill and effort. Like the doctor, who's paid whether the patient lives or dies, and most lawyers, who're paid whether their case is won or lost, the retainer recruiter is paid merely to attempt a solution. He or she is not required to achieve one. In-laws, neighbors, contingency-recruiter-submissions, mailed-in resumes, internal promotions, and positions left unfilled don't keep the retainer recruiter from being paid.
Approximately half of the executive recruiting organizations in America today operate "on contingency," and the other half work "on retainer." With equal numbers on each side of the compensation issue, the answer certainly isn't that the contingency firms don't know what the retainer firms are doing. Indeed, many contingency firms also accept retainer assignments, and retainer firms sometimes glide opportunistically into the contingency mode.
Percentage fees are about equal for both types.
Clearly, which method of payment a firm chooses, is not explained by the amounts involved, because fees for both are very similar. The leading retainer firms charge one-third...33.3%...of estimated first-year's compensation of the executive sought.
Most of them bill that amount in monthly thirds or fourths during the three- or four-month period the search is expected to require; searching beyond that point, if necessary, continues without further fee. If, when the search is over, the recruited executive earns more than the early estimate, a final bill brings the fee to 33.3%. A few price-competitive retainer firms charge 30% and fewer yet charge 25%, but 33.3% is typical among top-ranking firms. A very rare few charge a fixed negotiated fee for each project, which may come to even more than 33.3%. All retainer firms allow cancellation of the project, which stops the billing cycle when work is stopped. If termination comes after the three or four-months of billing, the recruiter keeps the full fee.
On the other hand, the typical fee for a contingency firm is "1% per thousand, up to a maximum of 35%." Under this formula, the contingency firm gets 35% of estimated first-year's compensation on positions over $35,000, whereas their charge on a $26,000 job is 26%. Retainer recruiters hardly ever work on positions under $35,000, whereas contingency recruiters often do.
The reason a recruiting organization chooses one payment method over the other is the degree of commitment it's willing to undertake. The retainer recruiter promises to search diligently...even exhaustively...for qualified candidates. The contingency recruiter does not.
A retainer recruiter accepts full payment for doing a successful search as his three- or four-month billing cycle elapses. Having taken the money, he's under a heavy obligation. He's been paid for success. So he'd better come up with it. Otherwise his reputation and the future of his business will suffer. Even if the client is capricious in rejecting candidates, or makes unrealistically low offers, or in any other way fails to recognize good candidates or drives them away, the retainer recruiter must try to deliver the desired result to someone who's already paid for it.
The contingency recruiter, on the other hand, has no such problem. His or her "client" pays absolutely nothing for effort, nothing for candidates-unless and until someone the recruiter submits is actually hired. If what the employer wants proves difficult to find, or hard to deliver at the intended salary, the contingency recruiter shifts her attention to an easier target.
Here's the contingency recruiter's philosophy, as summarized to me by one of the finest people in that field:
"I don't mind if I don't get paid for every speck of work I do. I can fill three easy ones, John, in the time it takes you to do one hard one on retainer. And at the end of the year, I'll bet I count up as much or more money than you do. And everybody I collect from is somebody who actually got an employee from me. I tried retainer, and I stopped. When you accept a retainer, the client thinks he owns you. I value my freedom!"
Touché! The point is well taken. After 24 years as a retainer recruiter, I agree. "Three easy ones" can be done on contingency as quickly as one "hard one" on retainer. However, retainer assignments tend to be at higher salaries, so fees tend to be higher. What makes the "easy ones" less difficult is that they're usually at a lower level, where both the number of openings and the supply of good candidates are more numerous.
So who knows who's ahead on total fees at the end of the year...retainer or contingency recruiters? Both types have co-existed for 30 years, and the industry today is split about 50/50. Chances are, we'll have both types for many years to come.
Contingency firms also accept retainers.
Many contingency firms "also accept retainers," or "also do search" (meaning the same thing). The idea is to get the employer to pay a fee for the firm's attention, and thus nail down more time and effort than his or her opening would otherwise merit under the "easiest-first" priorities of contingency operation.
There's also another interesting wrinkle when a contingency firm accepts an optional "retainer." Normally the contingency firm is one of many such firms "working on" the employer's "listing," and must race the others to fill it. The retainer arrangement gives the firm an "exclusive" on the job, and a respite from the race. Nonetheless, being accustomed to focusing on openings that are easily filled, the contingency firm may still balk at giving too much time to a resistant project "on retainer."
The solution: accept retainer payments during several months of exclusivity, and afterward, if the job proves hard to fill, merely refund all or most of the retainer...thus pleasing the "retainer" client with the firm's "honesty," while winding up no worse off than if the same work had been devoted to the opening on a non-exclusive contingency basis. Such a refund is never made by a true retainer recruiter.
Retainer recruiters sometimes "lob one in" on contingency.
Occasionally, a retainer recruiter may volunteer a candidate without being paid on retainer to look. But not often. And only under cover of an excuse.
The reason for the retainer recruiter's furtiveness about his or her rare grab for a contingency fee is that, if it becomes known that he's willing to provide candidates without being paid to find them, then clients will ask for more "freebee" candidates, rather than pay the customary retainer.
Since retainer payment is more stringent and prestigious than contingency, the contingency recruiter can accept retainer assignments without jeopardizing his or her contingency status. On the other hand, the retainer recruiter cannot toy with contingency activity without endangering his or her retainer status.
Despite their surface similarity when you deal with them as an executive intent on forwarding your own career, contingency and retainer recruiters are really operating two different kinds of businesses. And that's true, even though each may sometimes resort to the other's payment method.
The contingency recruiter is basically a broker, and the retainer recruiter is fundamentally a consultant. This clear distinction prevails, even though the contingency recruiter often gives the employer valuable advice, and the retainer recruiter has to deliver employees; advice won't suffice.
Contingency recruiters are in the brokerage business.
Contingency compensation...payment only if and when an introduction leads to a sale...is the central characteristic of all brokerage businesses.
The real estate agency is a perfect example. No matter how much work the broker puts in...No matter how many prospects are shown the property...there's no fee until there's a sale or lease. The broker is really a clearing house of "free market" information, helping interested buyers and sellers find each other. It's a volume business. The more properties "listed", the more chance of having what any buyer wants. And the more prospective buyers who register their interest, the more chance that one will want what any seller offers. It's a competitive business. Lots of other brokers are trying to make matches among the same prospective buyers and sellers. And speed is important. Move fast, or the seller will have sold...or the buyer will have bought...through another broker.
"Roots" of the Contingency Recruiting Business
The contingency executive recruiting firm is today's highly-evolved version of the "employment agency" and the "personnel agency" of the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Indeed, any firm with "personnel" in its name probably works on contingency, even if it also seeks retainer business. Most, but not all, such firms you'll encounter at or near $100,000+ have by now removed both "personnel" and "agency" from their names.
Up until the mid-'60s, contingency firms usually called themselves "agencies," and got all of their "applicants" to come in and "register" by running newspaper ads for highly attractive jobs that had been "listed" with them, plus prototype "jobs" designed to attract the type of people they specialized in "placing." In those days the employee paid the low fee...6% to 12% of annual compensation. As the demand for good employees heated up in the booming '60s, employers began paying agency fees as a way of competing for the best people. And with employers paying, the agencies raised their fees to the 20%-to-25% range that had been successfully pioneered by the retainer recruiters.
Changes in Terminology, Decor, and Salary Level
As contingency firms evolved toward the higher fees of the retainer firms, they also adopted their terminology. They became "management consultants" doing "executive search," and they submitted "candidates" rather than "applicants." "Personnel" and "agency" were dropped from company names. Along with upscale prices and terminology came elegant offices, and the solicitation of truly executive-level listings. Twenty years ago, contingency firms would never have been "working on" jobs at or near $100,000. Today many of them are, even though the vast majority of their work is at lower levels.
Newspaper Ads and Telephone Solicitation
Contingency firms always have...and still do...run a lot of advertising in newspapers and trade publications. It's the fastest way to bring in plenty of candidates to submit on the jobs listed with them...their "searches," under modern terminology. Most truly retainer firms never advertise any job they fill. This is true throughout the U.S., although not in Canada and the U.K. So if you see a firm advertising its jobs, it probably does most of its work on contingency. Conversely, not advertising strongly suggests...but doesn't prove...that a firm is primarily "retainer."
As percentage fees and salary levels both rose, the contingency firms could afford to put more effort into attempting to fill each of their higher-level openings. When newspaper ads didn't draw enough of the right candidates, they began telephoning employed executives, exactly the same way retainer firms do. Today both types of firms telephone extensively, and both send out lots of letters.
Industry Specialization
Most, but not all, contingency firms tend to specialize in a single industry, such as consumer products, publishing, retailing, health care, high-tech, banking and brokerage, etc.; and/or a particular category, such as marketing, sales, finance, EDP, engineering, law, etc. Not being guaranteed payment for their efforts, they gear up for high-volume cost-efficiency, and that generally means moving around lots of similar people in the same industry.
Today many industry-specific contingency firms have evolved to the point of requesting retainers for almost every job opening presented to them. Yet they still do not accept "searches" that require looking beyond the people their ads are bringing in, plus a not-too-burdensome number of phone calls to contacts they already know. If a firm does any contingency work, chances are it tends to do all of its work in its accustomed contingency-oriented manner.
Interviewing and Screening
Because the contingency recruiter isn't assured payment, he or she usually can't invest large amounts of time in interviewing and screening candidates for any particular opening. The decisive employer who lists frequently, gives clear specifications, and actually hires what's asked for will, of course, get more attention than someone who provides less business and is vague and capricious. However, in a brokerage business like contingency recruiting, the more candidates any employer is shown, the more chance of achieving the placement. So the rule-of-thumb is:
"When in doubt, send'em out!"
In other words, do not screen restrictively.
Non-exclusivity and the Need for Speed
An employer who uses contingency recruiters likes to list the same job simultaneously with lots of them. After all, she pays nothing for their efforts. And since they're not obligated, she's unsure how much, if anything, any of them will do for her.
Not having an "exclusive" on the job, the contingency recruiter must act quickly...if he decides to act at all. He's in competition with other contingency recruiters, and also with all the executives who may be sending their resumes directly to the employer...not to mention the employer herself, who may promote from within or hire her next-door neighbor.
Financial bias precludes a consulting relationship.
Since the contingency recruiter is paid only if and when one of his candidates is hired, he's financially biased. Therefore, he hardly ever acts as a consultant to the employer. Unless he enjoys extraordinary personal rapport with the employer, he's never asked to evaluate any candidates he doesn't supply, and he never interviews internal candidates.
Where's the price-tag?
In contingency recruiting, the price-tag is on the head of each candidate submitted by the recruiter. The more candidates, the more chances this broker has to make a sale.
On the other hand, if there are several obviously-appropriate candidates in the marketplace that the contingency recruiter hasn't contacted and tagged, then each one of them represents a definite risk that he'll lose the sale. Therefore, at levels high enough for candidates to be clearly apparent, and in industries the contingency recruiter is familiar with, he'll certainly get on the phone and attempt to affix his price-tag to the head of everyone who's at all likely to be hired into the job that's listed with him. Indeed, he may even try to get his tag on the heads of all the most obvious candidates, even if the opening has not yet been listed with him.
At or reaching for $100,000+, you're now a high-profile target for the contingency recruiters serving your industry. Sometimes it will be very much in your self-interest to go along with what they propose. Other times it will not be. Subtle and fascinating issues and tactics are involved.
Retainer recruiters are in the consulting business.
Unlike the contingency recruiter, who's presumed to be biased in favor of the candidates he'll make money on, and against all others, the retainer recruiter is in an economic position that allows him to be objective. Moreover, his professional prestige and expertise are usually substantial enough to be considered part of what his client is paying for.
Therefore he's a consultant. But he'd better come up with some very impressive people. Words alone won't justify his fee.
"Roots" of the Retainer Recruiting Business
With the exception of one narrowly-specialized New York firm, retainer executive recruiting didn't exist until after World War II. But as America returned to a prosperous peacetime economy in the late '40s and the '50s, and boomed in the '60s, many corporations needed more and better managers than they were developing internally.
The solution: Hire an aggressive third-party to scout the best managers at competitive companies and persuade them to consider a career-advancing move. No more settling for the ad-answerers and the unemployed as served up by the agencies. And no need to become involved in the tacky matter of directly soliciting a competitor's key employees. This new gospel had an appealing ring, and it had charismatic missionaries, some of whom are memorialized in the names of today's giant firms: Gardner Heidrick, John Struggles, Sid Boyden, and Ward Howell, among many others.
A New Process...with No Advertising
Retainer recruiting was a radical idea in the late '40s and the '50s, when it first took hold. Employers were asked to pay an expert in the identification, evaluation, and persuasion of executives to address time and skill to the filling of a key opening, without any guarantee, or even a promise, that he or she would succeed. And the fee was a hefty 20% to 25% of annual salary.
But 25% of annual compensation is only three months' salary for the position (even today's 33.3% is only four months). Not unreasonable, if it provides a truly different and superior recruiting process.
Obviously, running ads and screening applicants could never have supplied the necessary point-of-difference. Employers were already doing their own advertising and screening. And the agencies did the same thing at no charge, because they were billing the employee.
The retainer recruiter's answer to hesitant employers...from the beginning, and still today:
"We don't just advertise and hope that somebody good will see the ad and feel like approaching us. We research the companies and industries of maximum interest to you, and find out who the very best people are. Then we approach them. The best people are usually well challenged and generously rewarded where they are. They're busy with their fast-rising careers, not reading and answering employment ads. They're the ones you want to meet. And they're the ones we go out and get for you."
After thirty years, the original promise of retainer recruiting still represents its highest expression. Whenever an excellent retainer recruiter is sufficiently unimpeded by entangling client relationships, he or she can study an entire industry and select its finest people as candidates. Then the client can hire the very best person, and thereby shift the competitive balance of management power in the industry. And management is the number-one competitive factor. As I always tell my clients when we set out together to fill a position:
"Somebody's got to have the best person in the industry. Why not you?"
So the pioneers of retainer executive recruiting turned their backs on advertising. Instead, they reached for the telephone, and it became the symbol of their new profession. Advertising was out. Phoning was in. And, among the leading retainer recruiters, it's been that way ever since. Even in Canada and the U.K., where many prominent retainer recruiters do advertise, telephoning is their primary technique.
My fondest memory of one of the great founders of the field is the evening when Ward Howell dropped in at my office in the Olympic Tower. As we drank a toast to his retirement and watched the changing colors of the sunset on St. Patrick's Cathedral, he told me about the earliest days of his great firm in 1951. Having left McKinsey, which eliminated recruiting from its consulting practice, he operated temporarily from a phone booth in Grand Central Station, until he could set up an office.
Specialists in Senior Managers...Not in an Industry
The vast majority of truly retainer firms...the ones making absolutely no referrals "on contingency "...do not specialize in any particular industry. This may seem ironic in view of the fact that the very first retainer firm (founded before WWII) was, and still is, a specialist in the retailing and fashion industries. But it's readily understandable. Modern executive recruiting is a process that can be employed with equal effectiveness in any industry. So the early firms offered their skills to employers in every field, and the overwhelming majority of exclusively-retainer recruiters do so today.
Retainer recruiters do specialize, however, in the higher levels of management. Corporations willingly accept a pay-regardless-of-hiring fee-structure when looking for senior managers. And of course salaries...and hence fees...are higher at the higher echelons. So the retainer recruiters seek upper-level assignments, while shunning lesser ones.
Moreover, at the senior levels, target people in the target companies are highly visible...as visible to a non-specialist as to a specialist. Also, any significant degree of industry-specialization tends to severely restrict the number of companies the retainer recruiter can tap, because of "don't-bite-the-hand-that-feeds" considerations. Most retainer recruiters would rather serve lots of industries with minimal restriction, than just one in a handicapped manner.
Full Participation in the Hiring Process
Paid regardless of who's hired, the retainer recruiter is normally used by his clients as a consultant.
Unlike the contingency recruiter, who's presumed biased in favor of the candidates on whom he or she will earn a fee, the retainer recruiter is often asked to interview and evaluate candidates whom the employer finds on his own, and internal candidates too.
Where's the price-tag?
The retainer recruiter's price-tag is on his professional services, not on your head.
Far from being a broker operating on contingency...and thus owed nothing unless a purchase is made, the retainer recruiter has a professional relationship with the employer. He's brought in as an outside expert...fully-paid, fully-involved, and fully-trusted.
Moreover, since he's being paid to look for exactly what's needed, the retainer recruiter's candidates are presumed to have been found specifically for the client who's footing the bill. Therefore, the retainer recruiter must never offer the same candidate to more than one client at a time, whereas the contingency recruiter always offers the same candidate to as many potential employers as possible, as fast as possible.
- He may not be able to touch you, even when you're the best person in the world for his client's position.
- If he can show you any jobs at all, he can't show you many.
Even if the retainer firm handles dozens...or hundreds...of jobs per year that you'd be appropriate for:
- You may not hear about ANY, and
- If you do hear about some, chances are it won't be more than two or three within any 12-month period.
Barrier #1: The You-Work-for-a-CIient "Off-Limits" Rule
Let's begin with the barrier that can keep you from seeing any jobs at all.
Because the retainer recruiter is being paid to strengthen the client organization, he or she has a corresponding duty not to tear it down. When the client agrees to pay the recruiter to attempt to fill an empty office, she has a right to expect that the recruiter won't simultaneously...or shortly afterward...try to empty another office.
Indeed, no employer will ever willingly contribute to the financial health of any recruiting organization that currently is...or soon will be...working against the health of the employer's organization.
As a Result: The Industry-Standard "Off-Limits-for-Two- Years" Rule
How long should a retainer recruiter have to consider a client's employees "off-limits," after being paid for a consulting assignment?
For a while, at least. But certainly not forever. Over the years, the retainer recruiting profession has almost universally acquiesced in the "Two Years Rule." Indeed, I would be hard-pressed to name a single respected firm that does not adhere to it. Here's the rule, as stated in the Code of Ethics of the AESC, the industry's professional association:
"The member will not recruit or cause to be recruited any person from within the defined client organization for a period of two years after completion of such assignment unless the member firm and client agree in writing to an exception."
Translated, the rule means that any company that pays a retainer recruiting firm to assist it is "off-limits" to that recruiting firm for the next 24 months. If, during that time, another assignment is received, the "off-limits" boundary extends 24 months from the completion of the latest assignment.
Large retainer firms with dozens of recruiters and multiple offices handle hundreds...and in the largest firms way over a thousand...jobs per year. Therefore, at every moment they may be handling dozens, and perhaps even hundreds, of jobs that would be right for you. Unfortunately, they also have hundreds of client companies "off-limits," and there's a strong chance that your employer may be among them. If so, you'll hear of no opportunities from that firm.
An example will illustrate the dimensions and evolution of this phenomenon. In Fortune Magazine of October 9, 1978, Heidrick & Struggles was quoted as having 2,000 client companies off-limits...a disclosure that stirred considerable comment among corporate users of recruitment, who previously hadn't been aware how many companies were not being "searched" in their behalf by the largest firms.
Since then, the biggest firms have grown in both dollar volume and staffing. However, today they tend to consider only the precise company or subsidiary served "off-limits," rather than also shielding its corporate parent and sister divisions as in the '70s.
Thus, when Forbes studied America's four largest retainer firms in its July 10,1989 issue, it found the following numbers of client companies off-limits: Korn/Ferry 2,150; Russell Reynolds 1,567; Heidrick & Struggles 1,289; SpencerStuart 1,250. With numbers like these, it's likely that your employer may be "off-limits" to several of the sizable retainer firms...especially if you work for a major company, since big companies are the ones most likely to have used several recruiting firms within the past two years.
Regardless of how outstanding you are, you won't hear about any job suitable for you from any firm your employer has used in the past 24 months. You may, however, be called to suggest people for jobs that obviously wouldn't interest you.
Moreover, the barrier isn't removed if you contact the firm and ask to be considered.
It doesn't solve the "off-limits" problem if you approach the retainer recruiter yourself, instead of waiting for him or her to call you. If she were unethical, she'd approach her client's employees and, with their cooperation, merely claim that they approached her. Therefore, the recruiting firm protects itself from any seeming impropriety by not involving you at all in its projects. The ethical retainer recruiter won't empty offices in any company where she's been paid to help fill them...at least not for two years, according to standard industry practice.
Barrier #2: The You're-Allocated-to-Another-Recruiter-Within-the-Firm "Off-Limits" Rule
Under this rule, which is virtually universal among retainer recruiting firms:
You'll never hear about more than one-job-at-a-time ...probably no more than two or three per year.
You may simultaneously be asked to suggest candidates for several jobs that would not interest you. But when it comes to jobs you'd personally be interested in, virtually all retainer firms will only let you know about one-at-a-time.
The way it works is that only one-recruiter-at-a-time is given permission within the firm to contact you. And he's only allowed to tell you about one-job-at-a-time. Not until you declare yourself uninterested in job #1 do you have any chance of being told about job #2. And unless the very same person you turn down has a second job he wants to ask you about, chances are that weeks or months of inside-the-firm red tape will have to unwind, before another of the firm's recruiters can tempt you with something else.
Searchers usually take three to four months, plus a while afterward during which secretaries "close out" completed searches and return non-recruited executives to the "pool." Therefore, even if you're given maximum exposure, you probably won't see more than two or three...or conceivably four...of any retainer firm's appropriate-for-you opportunities per year.
Not allowing prospective candidates to know about more than one search at a time is based on two compelling business reasons:
- Clients of retainer firms pay handsomely for each candidate. On a $100,000+ position, the recruiter bills upwards of $30,000...more than $6,000 each, if there are five candidates. Client A would be furious if any of his $6,000 candidates were simultaneously provided to Client B, against whom he'd then have to compete in the hiring process.*
- Filling jobs is the objective; accommodating executives is not. Therefore, any executive who is shown any job...unless he refuses to consider it...must not be distracted by alternatives. Suppose an executive lives in Greenwich, Conn., has two kids in high school, a spouse with a lucrative local job, and a beautiful house with a 6% mortgage. Even so, she's willing to consider an attractive position in Nome, Alaska.
How These Barriers Operate Within the Recruiting Firm
It's simple. Every recruiter in a retainer firm is forbidden to phone any executive as a prospect for a job until he or she checks to determine that the executive:
- doesn't work for a client, AND
- hasn't been allocated to a different recruiter doing a different search.
The recruiter who wants to "use" you as a candidate simply cannot break the "off-limits" rules under which virtually all retainer firms operate. These rules are for the economic benefit of the firm and its individual recruiters. When one firm member helps himself by breaking the rules, he hurts his company and his colleagues. Such behavior is not tolerated.
The ‘you-work-for-a-client’ barrier will always prevent you from being called as a potential candidate. However, it usually won't prevent your being called as a "source" of suggestions of other potential candidates. But only if the job would clearly be inappropriate for you...too junior if it's within your function (a Chief of Financial Planning, if you're a CFO), or in a different function (Marketing, rather than Finance). But even then, the recruiter will ask you only for executives not currently working for your off-limits company. She'll want people who've been there and left, and people at competitive companies.
If the job might appeal to you personally, you will not be called, even for suggestions, because of the obvious danger that when you express personal interest and are told you're off-limits to the recruiter because of client conflict, you'll merely go straight to the employer. After all, you don't care about the recruiter's "don't-bite-the-hand-that-feeds" problem. It's neither your problem...nor that of the recruiter's client, whom you'd like to work for, and who'd be delighted to have a chance to consider you.
If a job represents a fine career opportunity for you, and you'd be an ideal candidate, then both you and the potential employer are hurt...not helped...when the recruiter has to keep you apart. Therefore, the recruiter doesn't want you showing up on his client's doorstep and illustrating what fine candidates he's forced to withhold. And he certainly doesn't want your present employer to find out that he's emptying your office, after just being paid to fill the one down the hall. For both reasons he'll steer clear of you.
Moreover, it wouldn't be any excuse to say that you went ahead on your own after the recruiter specifically told you he couldn't make an introduction because of the You-work-for-a-client "Off-limits" Rule. After all, tempting you with the job, and then telling you that he couldn't introduce you is exactly the way he'd manipulate you into the hands of his latest client, if he were a sleazy operator with no ethical policy.
That's it. Now you know the ground rules.
Think of dealing with recruiters as a game. You now know how the game works. But there's still a wide-open opportunity to improve your skills as a player.
The stakes are high. If you play expertly, and have a little luck, you may never have to do anything more to achieve career advancement outside your current company than just to handle recruiters effectively. Don't worry about what recruiters won't do for you. What they will do, if you treat them right, can still be the most favorable of all outside influences on your career.
