HR departments are increasingly turning to the support of external service providers to fill vacant positions. Because even an intensive, strategic search does not always guarantee a find or even a long-term occupation. One reason for this is the shortage of skilled workers, which leads to strong competition on the market in many sectors. Employees are often poached and switch to companies that prove more interesting to them. At this point, working with experienced headhunters can be a solution. It also proves to be useful when highly specialized people are to be found, profiles are being sought for which the company lacks the evaluation skills, or the company is under time pressure. When an HR department decides to work with an external service provider, it is essential to consider their strategic, partnership nature and some essential ones competencies must be taken into account in order to optimize the process. This includes, for example, an understanding of customer needs, values, digital tools and hard skills.
customer needs and values
In order to find suitable candidates, headhunters must understand the needs of a client company and place them at the heart of the search process. The client must be able to rely on the recruiting company, especially if the needs change during the course of the mandate. Then headhunters have to be able to react quickly, reset the parameters, create a new candidate profile and start the search again. Transparency, adherence to deadlines and constant exchange play an important role in the entire process. In order to find employees who want to stay, they also have to pay attention to the values of the company. A successful match between company and candidate arises above all when values are shared and attention is paid to (inter)human aspects and soft skills. Digital tools can help to take over mechanical processes in which humans add no added value. In order to simplify the exchange, make it more transparent and thus enable a good candidate experience, headhunting companies should therefore work with digital tools. This allows headhunters to fully devote themselves to the human relationship that ultimately makes the difference.
Hard Skills: Kollaboratives Recruiting
Although different aspects play an important role in the search for the right personnel, headhunters must take a particularly close look at the hard skills of the candidates. A successful method is that of the headhunting company Reverse patented collaborative recruiting. The Model involves “scouts”, external professionals from a specific industry sector who support the recruitment consultants in interviewing the talents. Due to their experience, scouts are particularly good at assessing hard skills and are therefore better able to respond to the candidates than “all-rounders”.
Conclusion
When looking for the right external service provider, companies must pay attention to a number of important aspects and indispensable competencies. Headhunters need to understand the deepest motives of the client company, its values, corporate culture and the technical skills of a role. The digital revolution has not only changed the job market, but also headhunting strategies. The right external service provider is therefore one who understands these changes. This increases the chance of finding the right candidates who will stay for the long term.
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