A friend asked me about switching to headhunting. I think comprehensive analysis is better, not necessarily comprehensive, for reference only.
Can the headhunting industry do it?
You can do it, but be careful. First of all, you must clearly know the basic situation of the headhunting industry. As an ordinary headhunter, the basic work of headhunting industry focuses on two directions, one is to find people, and the other is to find customers.
People who do career counseling and business negotiation on TV had better not believe that it is nonsense to talk about a love company going public. Grassroots headhunters are mainly looking for people, so there are several obvious characteristics of finding people.
1, it will be useful for the long-term accumulation of an industry, but it is not very useful. If you start from scratch, it mainly depends on your understanding of the post and your hand speed. The understanding of location is generally not that difficult. All headhunters I know start keyword search within minutes of getting a position, and all companies are the same, because everyone is scrambling for recommendations. I'm slow myself, maybe it's personal reasons. I usually study my post thoroughly before starting work, so my performance is just so-so, not as powerful as many people think.
2. As mentioned above, it is of little use for the long-term accumulation of an industry, but it is only for the headhunting work at the grassroots level. If you are a leader or start a company, that is another matter. The specific reason is quite simple, because the positions of headhunting operations are basically inconsistent, which means that I am operating research and development today, production tomorrow, marketing the day after tomorrow, and law and finance the day after tomorrow. Therefore, it is basically futile to accumulate more contacts in any single position, which will only play a little introduction role.
If you work in a headhunting company, big companies may be better, some will be divided into industries, but many small companies are not. It is not easy to develop a customer now. Who cares what industry this is? For customers who have developed aerospace today, we will look for aerospace customers who have developed archaeology every day, and we will look for archaeologists. Anyway, for any client, we will say that we are professional in this line, which is more realistic for most headhunting companies.
Another point of view is that if you don't plan to start a business or mix leadership in a big headhunting company, it will be more difficult for this job to be an industry for life.
In this case, if you are young, you can earn a high income, but if you want to do search and development all your life, it will be more difficult. Summarized as follows:
1. Looking for talents and developing customers is not as tall as the outside world looks. The basic job is to rummage through the computer every day. It doesn't mean that people go out for coffee with candidates every day. Unless there are many well-paid jobs, the basic content of every day is to endure time and repeat work. After 40 years old, as an individual, basically nothing can be done. Because this repetitive work is faster, not just repetitive work. You have to face the competitive pressure that other headhunters may find the right person faster than you. So after a certain age, you may not be able to move.
2. It would be much better if you can get into a leadership position, because after many years of work, you have a deep understanding of the position and candidates, which can be shared with the following employees and can play a certain role. At the same time, you don't have to do search and development work every day, you can use your own experience to broaden your horizons. In this case, you can do it for a long time, and you will become more and more experienced.
3. If you start your own company, it's similar to the above. The only problem may be a little risk. Of course, the risk of headhunting industry mainly lies in the cost of manpower expenditure, which can't be said to be empty-handed, and the difference is not too big, mainly manpower, rent, water and electricity, and other basic costs are not much, so we see that all kinds of companies, large and small, appear like this.
As mentioned above, the accumulation of an industry or contacts will be more effective when you start your own company or become a leader. If an industry has accumulated a lot, you will be very familiar with various positions, and even many human resources will provide all kinds of information. In addition, there will be more customer resources and smoother cooperation.
In addition, the headhunting industry also has an obvious feature, that is, the probability is relatively large. We will find that those who have made 200,000 this year may make 800,000 next year, those who have made 800,000 will make 200,000 next year. Although experienced and capable headhunters will be much better than ordinary headhunters like me, it is difficult for them to guarantee the stability of orders. That is to say, the fluctuation will be relatively large. Of course, it will be a little better in headhunting companies, because the clients of headhunting companies are also headhunting companies, so the stability of recruitment positions will be better (except for a few headhunting companies), and there will be more talent resources, which will naturally bring about relatively stable performance.
There is no guarantee that anyone will win any position. Basically, no headhunter can say such a thing, because it is difficult for us to judge how many competitors there are, and it is not easy to judge how fast competitors are and what resources they have.
So if you want to be a headhunter, you should mainly look at your own situation and expectations. If you like stable friends, if you like a job as a pension (excluding those who plan to be leaders and bosses), then headhunting may not be particularly suitable.
If you like to chat with people, communicate with people, expand your contacts, or want to start your own company as a boss, or be a leader in a large enterprise, being a headhunter is a good choice.
In addition, if a headhunter resigns and wants to change jobs, he will usually go to the field of human resources. This is another system, and it will be easier for headhunters to become human resources, which is also one of the benefits of headhunters.
As for how to become a competent headhunter, I am not very clear at present, so I need to explore it myself, or earn millions one day, and then brag about it and introduce my experience.