The distinction between recruitment and headhunting can be confused very easily. People have been surfing about some Product Manager Interview Questions but are confused between the words headhunting and recruitment. We will take you through that differentiation here in our blog.
- What distinguishes a head hunter from a recruiter are usually the techniques used in each method of headhunting and recruitment. Fundamentally, it is the distinction between an internal and an agency recruiter. (An agency recruiters are a third-party recruiter, professional recruiter, or search consultant) and an internal recruiter is known as a corporate recruiter or an HR recruiter.
- The primary distinction between a headhunter and a recruiter is how they handle hiring and recruitment. Agency recruiters do the headhunting, and Internal recruiters like HR of firms perform recruitment drives.
Let us understand the type of Professionals in the labor market first:
Active job seekers and Passive candidates-
- Active job seekers are actively hunting for new employment. They may or may not be employed, but they don’t like how job searches at job search engines turn out to be. In any case, they are actively seeking out a different opportunity. These people are browsing internet job postings and applying for positions that catch their attention.
- Passive candidates are not actively hunting for a new job. They are called passive for this reason. They would, however, be eager to move for a different chance. The requirement is that the opportunity must be unquestionably superior to the one they now hold. Passive candidates do not submit online job applications.
Differentiation between Headhunting and Recruitment-
- Recruitment is the process of reviewing applications and resumes that have been submitted or uploaded by job seekers who are actively seeking employment. Given that the inside recruiter or HR employee does not actively search out job candidates, this is comparable to collecting. Because prospects are supposedly approaching them as active job seekers, this is the case.
- On the other hand, headhunting involves aggressively contacting competent applicants who have not been actively looking for a new job. The non-active candidates are those. Most of the time, passive candidates are better qualified than aggressive job seekers, though this is not always the case. They typically represent the top 5% to 10% of experts in their chosen specialty. And as a result, they are not only employed but also devoted to their present employers. Their employer values them and wants to keep them because they represent outstanding talent.
However, there are other factors to consider besides the candidates involved when comparing headhunting versus recruitment. It also includes additional elements, such as the following:
- The nature of Post: Recruiting is the primary method used by businesses to fill entry-level roles. These include internships and entry-level jobs. Internal recruiters and hiring managers are happy with the simple act of posting online job adverts because they do not require specialists. They also deploy other strategies, such as employee referral schemes. But a business is more likely to use headhunting if the position is a high-level opportunity, particularly at the executive level.
- The positions need to be filled immediately: All job vacancies are not posted equally for all levels. Some requirements may be for entry-level and others in the executive tier. In a similar vein, certain positions require filling more urgently than others. It is so that you can calculate the expense of leaving it open. Or, to put it another way, the longer we stay unhired, the more money the business loses due to decreased production. This will result in the likelihood of a business undertaking headhunting to fill a post and how quickly they do it.
- A candidate’s degree of talent: A business utilizes recruitment when a job opening is another distinction between headhunting and recruiting. But when it comes to headhunting, this isn’t always the case because headhunters or agency recruiters will occasionally promote an MPC(Most Placeable Candidate). An MPC is a top applicant and a passive candidate that would move for a position that offered more handsome pay or benefits than their current one. Even when there is no vacant post, organizations may interview and recruit an MPC. Instead, they hire the individual and then establish a position for the MPC. Finding a company that has developed a particular position for a candidate they saw on a job board would be difficult.
- The company’s readiness to pay a charge for hiring: An organization will employ recruitment rather than headhunting if it does not want to pay a recruiting cost. Unless they bring in a head hunter and pay them, businesses have been doing it in the past, and it has now become a standard procedure. On occasion, both sides of the equation benefit. The company wants to hire outstanding individuals but doesn’t want to shell out a lot of money for recruiting expenses. On the other hand, an agency recruiter longs for a regular paycheck and is sick of surviving from month to month with a contingency fee schedule. Both parties benefit from this scenario.
What has a more positive approach: Recruitment and headhunting
Let’s go back to our earlier observation that not all agency recruiters only conduct headhunting. To be clear, though, there are headhunters who work exclusively in this field. This indicates that they don’t employ any job postings or job boards on their company’s website. They don’t even list available vacancies. Instead, they employ a mix of recruitment and headhunting. This indicates that they actively engage passive applicants using headhunting strategies and sourcing individuals through conventional recruitment techniques. Not the best companies for product managers or professional recruiters adheres to this strategy. And job advertising on job boards is a strategy for hiring through both methods in a firm.
