Key Differences Between In-House Recruiters and Headhunters
Thoughts from Carrie:
I was an internal recruiter and have more than 10 years of experience in human resources. There is a night-and-day difference between headhunting and being on the inside as an employee recruiting for a single employer. As an internal recruiter, there are fewer variables to consider. Internally, my only client is the company I work for, with the only variable being which team currently has an opening. Success is measured very differently internally versus my short time as an external recruiter or headhunter. Recruiting internally comes with a never-ending string of KPIs that are tracked, analyzed, and used as indicators of success.
As an internal recruiter, my employers prioritized things like:
- Days-to-fill metrics
- Mandatory DEI candidate presentation percentages
- Candidate satisfaction survey results
- Internal promotion rates
I was an internal recruiter and have more than 10 years of experience in human resources. There is a night-and-day difference between headhunting and being on the inside as an employee recruiting for a single employer. As an internal recruiter, there are fewer variables to consider. Internally, my only client is the company I work for, with the only variable being which team currently has an opening. Success is measured very differently internally versus my short time as an external recruiter or headhunter. Recruiting internally comes with a never-ending string of KPIs that are tracked, analyzed, and used as indicators of success.
As an internal recruiter, my employers prioritized things like:
- Days-to-fill metrics
- Mandatory DEI candidate presentation percentages
- Candidate satisfaction survey results
- Internal promotion rates
While these are certainly important, they miss the mark of identifying the true measure of success… did the right person get the job? I just posted roles on LinkedIn or Indeed and hoped good enough people applied. Additionally, it did not generate much volume, but my employers also generally offered referral fees to existing employees to help bring friends or old colleagues into our workforce. Looking back, the quality standard was far lower internally than my experiences in headhunting.
Thoughts from Bill:
Thoughts from Bill:
Simply put: headhunting for an external candidate is held to a much higher standard than internal recruiting. If the client company is not impressed, they won’t extend an offer. As headhunters, we are focused on finding the very best candidate our clients can attract at the salaries they are willing to pay right now. There is a much higher sense of urgency. We generally identify passive candidates (people who aren’t actively looking for roles at our client’s competitors) and then pitch our client’s opportunity to them. Internal recruiters often don’t have the chutzpah or the skills to handle that. It can also feel a little icky for a company to have their own employees poaching from other companies. Sniping great candidates is tough, and I’ve only met one internal guy since 2019 that could do it (he wasn’t cheap in case you were wondering).
Key differences:
- Internal recruiters are a fixed cost. They get paid whether they make a hire or not, for as long as they remain employed.
- Headhunters are a variable cost. They only get paid if they are successful in attracting a candidate a company wishes to hire.
- When a hire does not work out, internal recruiters are not penalized.
- Headhunters offer a guarantee that their candidates will stick and perform the roles they were hired to perform. Headhunters will re-perform a search if a candidate quits within the guarantee period.
- Success rates vary when it comes to the tenure of hired candidates, with external recruiters boasting significantly higher probabilities for their placed candidates to last. Note: The Headhunters historical success rate is near 95% for candidates lasting a year or more.
- Effective external recruiters save a lot of time by presenting only a handful of qualified candidates with the right experience at the right salary.