[sideduck]

Hi all,

Can anybody tell me what it is like to work for a recruiting firm itself? I heard we have to make a lot of cold calls to companies to help them recruit and we also have to make cold calls to other senior directors and managers to switch them over from the competition. Is this true? Do we have to acquire human capital that way? Is it illegal to make cold calls just like that to find people to fill senior positions? Has any senior managers here ever experienced something like that where somebody calls you to offer you a position and to ask you to send your CV? Also, I want to know what the going average salary package they offer and what to expect. Please help. Is consulting really a great opportunity or career?

[c1000]

Personally I would not want to be a recruitment "consultant". At most places, you will have to regularly cold call people. Many of them will find you to be an annoyance. By the sounds of it, you aren't very comfortable with this type of work. There are indeed some very well compensated and reputable headhunters, but these people typically have a good deal of connections and prior experience in the industry they are serving.

[freeier]

pays are on commission basis. if you get like 3 placement done and each of them have a package of maybe 2mil HKD, then your company wld clear maybe 20% of that as commission, i.e. 1.2mil hkd. i'd think most companies expect their HH to clear maybe like 50k or 100k usd worth of revenue, anything above that would be a shared commission basis.

anyway because if one deal is done the amount is high, it becomes a cut throat business. everyone knows who else everyone is in most lines. you can't tell a client too much aboutany new jobs (afraid he goes to his fav HH to get him the job you lose the commission), and yet for some ppl they don't even wnat to entertain you if you do not tell them who has assigned thme the job (e.g. me! ehhe).

not a job i'd like.

[adze]

Dude, it's not a bad job. You have to be super money driven. Lots of cold calling - after all, it's sales! Let me recommend the best book on the subject: The Headhunters, by John A.Byrne. (Macmillan). And you make tons of money. The HHs I know are super slick and smart. I would not look down on them.

[sideduck]

Thanks for advice. I am not sure I like this line of work.

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by sideduck

Thanks for advice. I am not sure I like this line of work.

If its the cold calling and sales aspect you don't like then you could always try and go for a resourcer role, negligible sales involved and you'll still get commission.

[sideduck]

Originally Posted by jimbo

If its the cold calling and sales aspect you don't like then you could always try and go for a resourcer role, negligible sales involved and you'll still get commission.

What is a resourcer role? Cold calling is ok, but I am not sure that we can call executives to get them to switch companies and stuff like that.

[jimbo]

Originally Posted by sideduck

What is a resourcer role? Cold calling is ok, but I am not sure that we can call executives to get them to switch companies and stuff like that.

Resourcer is more of a research role and trawling databases and relevant media to get a potential client list of candidates for the headhunter to look through.

[lionrock88]

I work in recruitment/sales and there's a big difference between 'cold' 'warm' and 'hot' calls.

A cold call is when you're calling someone completely blind - without any clue as to what they do and their name. As you can imagine, these calls are very hit or miss and the probability of success is low. It's also not very time-efficient and you may have very well reached the janitor!

There are varying levels of warm calls. For example, give me a name and a brief description of what they do, and there's a good chance that I can recruit them, or at the very least, initiate a relationship to gather more information or recruit them in the future.

Without a name but knowing what dept or function they're in, is a little more difficult but still very possible to headhunt.

In any case, most good recruitment firms won't encourage blind cold-calling for the reasons stated above, but a lot of warm calling would be involved.

Good headhunters/researchers with their ability to talk to people, should probably be spending the majority of their time warm calling.

Even calling the main switchboard of a company and knowing which area the operator is transferring you to, will increase the 'warmth' and probability of success of the call.

[sideduck]

lionrock 88...can you tell me what kind of renumeration package is offered and how it works? Thanks!!