Headhunter

Well, they're looking for a body as well. Ideally, one that can code in Java. Or has passed the bar...on 3 continents. Or brings in a sales channel of 800 reps who'd just love to sell the bluetooth enabled whoopee cushions.

Headhunters are hired when important jobs need filling, and they get paid handsomely for doing so, usually between 10 and 50 percent of the salary of the first year of that hire.

And "headhunter" just sounds so much cooler than (yawn) “corporate recruiter.” Just sayin’. Like you have this totem pole made of heads in your office waiting room. Versus a plaque on the wall (with floss) that says "Corporate Recruiter." Yeah.

Basically, a headhunter is just someone who hooks up people looking for work with the companies that are likely to hire ‘em. But in a world of LinkedIn and Facebook and other professional nets, like Indeed and Glassdoor, why do companies even need a headhunter?

Well, a lot of companies simply don’t know how to efficiently use these services. Or they use them poorly. Or they need a body (with head)…stat. And just as with the sale of real estate, often the best candidates...aren’t really listed.

That is, headhunters often have personal relationships with literally hundreds of workers in a deep, given category, and those workers’ profiles simply aren’t listed on job boards or social networks as being anything close to available.

So if you are a small company that nobody has heard of...like, think Google in 1998...then you often need a headhunter to help convince the early hire engineers that you aren’t yet another flash-in-the-pan.

And deep domain expertise of, say, algorithmic coding engineers, is a career for a headhunter, at least in Silicon Valley. Those engineers are very hard to find, and when you do find them, they want the multi-million dollar signing bonus, access to so many hours of the corporate jet, and the weekend spa homes around the world.

So if that headhunter can convince a big ticket, high-end engineer to leave Google and go to WhateverStartup.com, then that headhunter wins serious wampum. Normal fees are something like 20-25 percent of the first year’s compensation.

So a normal headhunter might make 40 or 50 grand a year in salary, but if they sign, say, 8 algorithmic coding engineers at 2 million bucks a year each for a total of 16 mil in first year salary and bonus...well, 25 percent of that figure is…bank. Like, 4 million bucks in that mega banner year.

Generally speaking, headhunters aren’t general. They own a vertical, or a specific niche or domain. Some focus on boards for media companies. Others focus on mathematically-driven marketing people. Others focus on lawyers with global tax expertise.

And, of course, if you run a noggin-shrinking business, and you want to hire the absolute best cranial condensing professional available, you may need a headhunter for your headhunter.