These are the headhunters whose efforts and expertise are valuable enough that they must be paid regardless of whether anyone they introduce is hired.
These are the recruiters who usually...but not always...get the assignments to find executives at $100,000+.
And these are the executive search consultants you can almost...but not entirely...be certain will never slap a price-tag on your head, and race you to your most likely employers.
Yes, even some of the most prominent retainer recruiters may occasionally shift into the contingency mode...for their benefit, not yours. Consider yourself forewarned.
But now let's take a look at your self-interest in dealing with a retainer recruiter who's operating strictly as a retainer recruiter should.
Getting to the employer before she engages the retainer recruiter is very much to your advantage.
With the retainer recruiter, just as with the contingency recruiter, you're way ahead if you get to the employer before he does. Consider these advantages:
The employer saves time and $30,000+. No employer will hire you just to avoid a fee. But if you're right for the job, she's glad not to wait three months for somebody to find you. And not spending $30,000 on a retainer recruiter pleases her just as much as not spending $30,000 on a contingency recruiter.
You're a class of one. The retainer recruiter would present several candidates. You're good. But don't be overconfident. The employer just might hire one of the others.
There's no risk that the recruiter won't present you. We'll soon discuss six reasons a retainer recruiter may not present you. By getting to the employer before he does, you've by-passed all six roadblocks.
The employer is more open-minded and flexible. You may not
have precisely the background the employer insists on getting in return for $30,000+. But whatever you have that's not ideal may look quite attractive before firm specifications are written and lots of money is being spent to pursue them.
I can't overemphasize the benefits of reaching an employer before he or she is committed to either kind of search...retainer or contingency. By the time a search is assigned, a specific job is being filled. Detailed specifications have been written. Potential employees who show up at that late date tend to be thought of as either relevant or irrelevant. Try to arrive before you're considered a square peg, merely because the opening has been declared a round hole.
With a retainer search in progress, over $30,000 is being spent to have a consultant look for you. And with the money already spent, you're best off walking in as living proof that it was well spent. You have these advantages:
You're custom-selected for the job. Meticulous specifications have been drawn up, and you've been found in response to them.
You're expert-recommended. A professional commanding a substantial fee has identified, examined, and proposed you.
You're not challenged by an expert. Despite his or her financial impartiality, the $30,000+ expert may still tend to see more merit in candidates he finds than in ones that, being impartial, he evaluates as "also excellent." Talk is cheap. It's human nature...and good business...to want the client to feel he got more than an objective discussion for $30,000+.
You confirm the employer's wisdom. He decided to hire a consultant. You prove he was right.
No question about it. If you can't get to the employer before the retainer recruiter does, then your self-interest is best served if the recruiter "finds" and presents you.
But will he?
Not unless you meet a surprisingly restrictive set of six criteria...three of which have nothing to do with your ability to do the job.
When all six of these criteria are present, your self-interest is served by the retainer recruiter.
His introduction is the best possible way to reach the employer in situations that meet the following conditions:
- When he's searching to fill a job you could perform exceptionally well;
- When he's searching for someone with exactly your qualifications;
- When he's personally convinced that you possess those qualifications;
- When you're not blocked by the You-work-for-a-client "Off-limits" Rule;
- When you're not blocked by the You' reallocated-to-another-recruiter-within-the-firm "Off-limits" Rule;
- When the recruiter doesn't already have plenty of other fine candidates.
But suppose you are special. And, at least in your opinion, you're absolutely the right choice for a specific position you know is being "searched" by a retainer recruiter. Suppose, too, that you've found out his name and his firm's name. Should you call him? Or should you go directly to the employer instead?
There's a "catch 22" when you know there's a retainer search and you know who's doing it.
You don't want to be overlooked.
But if you go to the recruiter, you're playing
"Russian Roulette" with up to 5 bullets in your 6-shooter.
The only one of the six criteria on which you have direct information is #1. You know that you could perform exceptionally well. That's the harmless chamber in your revolver. However, even then you may be wrong...not about your abilities, but about the job content, which may be differently defined for the new person sought than for the former one, and for people with similar-sounding jobs in other companies.
With respect to each of the other five criteria, you don't know if it's "no problem," or possibly a fatal shot.
For you to get to the employer through the retainer recruiter...admittedly the ideal route...you've got to survive all six potentially eliminating criteria. How different from regular "Russian Roulette"! With only one chamber loaded, and only having to pull the trigger once, the traditional game is as safe as badminton when compared with trying to get a retainer recruiter to "present" you on a job you know he's "searching." Then, five of the six chambers may be loaded, and you've got to pull the trigger on all six, hoping that none of them is.
We've covered
- Forget about whether or not you can do the job. Let's look at the remaining five of these invisible threats to your candidacy. You should have gone directly to the employer, rather than playing with your Retainer-Recruiter-Revolver, if even one of the other five chambers has a hidden surprise for you:
- If your qualifications and experience aren't EXACTLY as specified. For $30,000+, the recruiter is expected to hit the target. If others match the specifications more closely, he'll present them, not you. On the other hand, if you get to the employer directly, and he meets and likes you, he may observe special abilities, or experience, or fine personal characteristics that outweigh your deficiencies. Even if he merely forwards your mailed-in resume to the retainer recruiter, he's implicitly expanding the specs to include you.
- If the recruiter isn't personally convinced that you've got the right stuff. You may seem more appropriate to the employer than to the recruiter. If so, let's hope you meet them in that order. Meet the employer first and you're in the running. Meet the recruiter first and you're dead.
- If you're blocked by the You-work-for-a-client "Off-limits" Rule. Then you must go to the employer. The recruiter's "don't-bite-the-hand-that-feeds" problems mean nothing to the employer. He'll ship you to the recruiter...or deal with you himself, if the recruiter refuses to touch you.
- If you're blocked by the ‘you’re-allocated-to-another-recruiter-within-the-firm’ "Off limits" Rule. The only way you'll ever hear about two appropriate-for-you jobs simultaneously within the same retainer firm is if YOU go to Employer #2. No recruiter will ever tell Client #2 that you're his at a cost of $30,000+, but he may have a hard time hiring you, because the firm is also providing you to Client #1.
- If the recruiter already has plenty of other fine candidates. Whenever you're one of a great many people who'd be appropriate, ordinary statistical odds will usually kill you. The recruiter doesn't need you, because he already has a full slate.
Would you merely like to hear occasionally about career-advancing alternatives to a job you love and would hate to leave? Or are you eager to move? Are you out of work? Your degree of interest in changing jobs will dictate how much you do.
But what to do is obvious.
Go directly to employers.
As we've just seen, you're better off if you get to the employer before the retainer recruiter is brought in. Even when you find out for sure that a retainer recruiter is working on a specific job you'd love, there's a strong likelihood that she won't "present" you for one or more of the six reasons we just looked at. And of course, 99% of the time you won't know the job exists... nor that the recruiter is working on it... nor that one of the six reasons stands in your way.
So, as a general rule, going directly to employers is your smartest move.
When you're not interested in changing jobs, of course, you won't be contacting any employers. But when you're very interested in a change, it's in your self-interest to contact as many employers as possible, as effectively as possible. How to do that will be one of the many "Rites of Passage" we'll cover later on.
Since it's clear that each retainer firm...no matter how large...is only going to show you a very few opportunities per year that would interest you, the only way you can know about more recruiter-handled opportunities is to know more firms. Certainly your self-interest lies in that direction, and how to achieve that goal is something else we'll look into.
Contingency firms, however, are another matter. If a firm offers any contingency services...even though it also offers retainer services...consider it a contingency firm and look out for the potential disadvantages. You're probably already acquainted with some very fine contingency firms which have agreed never to submit you without first identifying both the employer and the job, and getting your advance approval. I suggest limiting your involvement with contingency firms to the ones where you have this high level of personal rapport.
Reach out to firms you don't know only if they're exclusively retainer, and hence unlikely to jeopardize their "pay-me-to-look" status by circulating your resume to any company that hasn't paid.
Wouldn't getting in touch with lots of retainer recruiting firms make me seem too readily available?
Absolutely not.
Retainer recruiting firms do not call each other up and compare notes on who's been in touch with them. Neither do employers.
And of course no two retainer firms will ever be "searching" the same job simultaneously, since no employer would ever pay two suppliers to do the same work at the same time.
Therefore, no employer...and no retainer recruiter...will ever find out how many other recruiters and employers you've been in touch with.
Limiting the number of retainer recruiters who know about you doesn't increase your value to anyone. Such "exclusivity" merely reduces the number of attractive positions you'll know about, by reducing the number of firms that know about you.
The only potential problem you could have along these lines would be if you happened to contact both the employer and his retainer recruiter simultaneously. Then the employer might feel that the recruiter didn't have to look very hard to find you. However, the recruiter will also present several other fine candidates who weren't obvious, so he's in no trouble for presenting one obvious candidate. Indeed, he might have seemed remiss not to identify and check out the obvious one.
Notice that medium-sized and smaller retainer firms are likely to do you just as much good as the largest ones.
Don't neglect medium-sized and smaller firms. After all, no retainer firm...no matter how large, and how many of its jobs would interest you...is likely to show you more than one-at-a-time and two-or-three-a-year. Therefore, a firm that annually handles only thirty jobs you'd want may be just as likely to show you three-a-year as a huge company that handles three hundred you'd want.
Incidentally, from the sophisticated employer's point of view, the smaller firms can sometimes be far more valuable as recruiters than the largest ones, because they're far less handicapped by the "You-work-for-a-client" and the "Allocated-to-another-recruiter-within-the-firm" barriers.
As you know, the firm will only tell you about one-opportunity-for-you at a time...usually no more than two or three per year. Chances are that "Murphy's Law" will have you allocated to an opportunity in Hog Wallow Bend, when the firm is asked to fill the job you'd love in an ideal company just twelve miles from your home.
If this happens when you're actively "looking," and you fail to reach the nearby employer, don't blame the retainer recruiter handling the Hog Wallow Bend search...nor his colleague doing the Hometown search. And don't blame me. You knew that you should have been in touch with the target employer directly. You're the one who failed to watch out for your self-interest.
Getting in touch with a recruiter raises an unfortunate presumption. Executives ordinarily do so only when they're out of work, or in trouble, and anxious to move. The more recent the contact, the more it looks like the difficulty is now!
So if your resume is a recent arrival, you'll probably be earmarked for something relatively unattractive. The firm won't feel you have to be lured away from a great situation. And once you're allocated to a recruiter for a search, nobody in her firm can contact you on anything else, until she's finished her project and her secretary has "returned you to the pool." You'll never know if something more attractive is co-pending, or comes along during the weeks and months before you're back in circulation.
Keep in touch as your career progresses.
For all the reasons we've just seen, it's good strategy to have your up-to-date information in the files of all the exclusively-retainer recruiting firms well before you actually want to move. Each time you get a major promotion, use that opportunity to send the announcement memo to the firms you've had contact with.
The implication is that you're continuing to move ahead on the fast track. You're the type of person the retainer firms want to show their clients. You're not in trouble. You're not answering the newspaper ads placed by the contingency firms. And you certainly can't be offered uninteresting, low-salaried, out-of-the-way jobs. Your announcement arrives at a time when you're obviously on a high. And the firm updates its file on you accordingly.
No. Make contacts that are convenient and time-efficient. But don't waste lots of valuable time that you could devote to other aspects of a well-rounded job search.
Remember that even the largest firms will allow you to see only one-position-for-you at a time...probably only two or three per year. Once any firm has a file on you and you've met even one of its members, you're about as fully involved as you can possibly be.
Moreover, if any firm is already actively discussing any job with you, you know that you won't hear about anything else from them until that search is completed, or you've declared yourself a non-candidate... until the recruiter's secretary has returned you to the "pool."
The only sure way to get strongly involved with any retainer firm, large or small...and with any retainer recruiter, regardless of firm...is to be frank and helpful whenever you're called to solicit your personal interest and/or suggestions. Then you're helping the recruiter, not trying to get him to help you. If you sound impressive on the phone...and you genuinely try to help...those facts will be duly noted in your file.
Later, when other recruiters in the firm get their hands on your file, the first recruiter's comments will encourage them to call you for suggestions, even when you don't personally look like the solution to their problem. Gradually, over the months and years, you'll meet many of the firm's recruiters by phone, and... when you're appropriate to be interviewed... face-to-face as well.
Just as you can't get a baby in a month by getting nine women pregnant... or if you're a woman, by encouraging nine men to get you pregnant... you also can't become the darling of Korn/Ferry or Russell Reynolds Associates by hustling several of their recruiters simultaneously. Rather than spending lots of time trying to reach more recruiters in the same large firm, you'd be better off contacting additional firms.
You must reach the employer before the retainer recruiter tells you about the employer's position. Once you hear about the job from the recruiter, it's too late for the direct approach.
Of course, if the retainer recruiter is free-within-his-firm to deal with you, and he's likely to decide you're an ideal candidate, you don't want to "go direct." Then you bask in the spotlight of his recommendation. You're part of what the employer paid upwards of $30,000 for... a "finalist candidate."
But suppose you're interviewed by the retainer recruiter... in the office, or just on the phone and he decides you're not a "finalist." Maybe you lack something the employer has clearly asked for. You feel, on the other hand, that what's missing is outweighed by special advantages which, when the client's aware of them, will cause him to widen his specifications to include you... and perhaps others like you.
Now, however, it's too late to do what you easily could have done earlier. Now you can't go straight to the employer. If you do, it will be an outrageous affront to the recruiter. And remember that the retainer recruiter, unlike the contingency recruiter, is financially-unbiased. Therefore, he usually helps the client evaluate all candidates from all sources, not just the ones the recruiter supplies. Someone you've slapped-in-the-face will probably be asked his opinion of you.
On the other hand, if you'd gone to the employer before the recruiter turned you down, the employer might have pronounced you a worthy candidate. Or asked the recruiter to check you out...indicating that your deficiency wasn't disabling. Then, the recruiter could have "adopted" you. Indeed, you'd have broadened the specifications and made his work easier.
Now, however, you're a pain in the neck! Now you've defied the recruiter. And you've called his judgment into question. Why didn't he at least see you as a close case? Why didn't he at least ask if you were worth considering?
Pursuing a recruiter's client after the recruiter rejects you is unforgivable. Your centrally-maintained file will be annotated. No other recruiter in the firm will ever risk a similar experience. You'll never again be a candidate of that firm. Yes, Virginia, there is a death penalty!
Once you get to an employer and persuade him you're a viable candidate, hidden blockages with the retainer recruiter disappear. Either the employer meets and evaluates you without involving the recruiter; or, more likely, he passes you on to the recruiter, who's forced to follow up.
If you were held back merely because the recruiter had plenty of other fine candidates, he may keep plugging his "finds." But he'll also "adopt" you. And he'll be glad to get the job filled, regardless of who's hired.
If "You-work-for-a-client" was the barrier, the recruiter may reveal it to the employer as his excuse for not "finding" you. Secretly, of course, he'll be delighted that you've innocently helped him complete his search.
If "You're-allocated-to-another-recruiter-in-the-firm" was the problem, the recruiter will never admit it, because this handicap of larger recruiting firms is never publicly exposed. However, he'll be equally pleased to have this roadblock removed.
Whatever the barrier may have been, you've broken through by going straight to the employer. And the retainer recruiter is probably just as happy as you are with the result.
This "end run" can only be scored if you've already established a close personal friendship with one of the firm's recruiters...a relationship built over a period of years. Your friend probably first called you as a potential candidate. You weren't interested, but you went out of your way to offer excellent suggestions. Several became "finalists" or valuable "sources" of further ideas. You've made money for the recruiter. You've also been trusted with secrets that never leaked out. Maybe you've even had lunch with him or her on several occasions.
Now you want to move. So you call your friend and ask if there's anything at his firm that might meet your objectives.
YOU: "Jim, I'd really like to get out of this family-owned business and into a big conglomerate where I can develop a track record with full P&L responsibility for a good-sized subsidiary, and I was wondering if there's any way you could possibly let me know what's going on over at your place that might fill the bill."
If your recruiter friend wants to...he certainly has no obligation other than friendship to "go around the rules"...he can do the following:
- Get your file. He'll call the central record-keeping location to nab it, if no other recruiter has it. And if someone does have it, he'll get "wait-listed" to receive it next time it's free. This will pull you away from searches that don't appeal to you.
- Look up the firm's assignments that could interest you. He'll consult his computer terminal or a weekly-printout for this information.
- Tell you the relevant searches, and help you select the ONE you like best. Probably there will be 20 to 50 or more such assignments among the various offices and recruiters of a large retainer firm doing upwards of a thousand searches per year. The computer screen or printout will tell your friend the location, name of company and subsidiary, projected salary range, and name of the firm-member doing the search, for every active project. How far out on a limb he'll go to reveal these facts to you will depend on how much he trusts you to keep the discussion absolutely confidential.
YOUR RETAINER RECRUITER FRIEND: "By the way, Dick, I know somebody who'd be terrific for that Ideal Subsidiary project you're working on for Conglomerate Corporation. In fact, he's a personal friend of mine, and I happen to have his file right here. Not only does he have the perfect background, but I'm sure he'd be interested. Would you like me to send you his file?"
DICK: "Is he really good?"
RECRUITER FRIEND: "Outstanding! I've tried several times to get him to be a candidate on general management projects I've been handling. But he works for a family-owned mini-conglomerate and they've kept giving him more money and responsibility, so I've never had anything he was willing to spring for. In fact he's practically running the place now."
"They're about $350 million in everything from consumer products to a grey iron casting company. But he's finally decided that it's time to build his career in a big public company; he's gone about as far as he can where he is."
"Your project makes sense, because his experience is exactly right...and you've got a high enough salary on that job to be able to afford him. Most public companies don't pay as well as Conglomerate Corporation."
DICK: "Well, if you think he's that good, let's go ahead. I've got three fine candidates right now, and I could use a fourth to round out the slate."
RECRUITER FRIEND: "Fine, I'll put his file in tonight's pouch. You'll have it tomorrow. I'll tell him to expect your call."
But remember, your retainer recruiter friend can only do that if he's sure you're going to play square with him.
If you later contact the employers on some of the other searches your recruiter friend has told you about, it'll be obvious that you violated his trust. Every one of the firm's clients that you reach is likely to involve his or her recruiter from the firm in evaluating you. And every recruiter will check the firm's central files to get permission to deal with you. Bang! Your deceit is automatically exposed! If you cheat, you'll be blacklisted by your friend's firm, and you'll lose one of the most valuable recruiter contacts any executive can ever have.
