Headhunter for machinists

Anyone used one? I see a few on google but would love to hear good/bad experiences and especially any positive recommendations.

Thanks,
Mark

My brief experience with headhunters is they don't really understand what their customer wants or needs. I applied to a few jobs that came from headhunters and after talking with their customer (client? the place actually needing the machinist/toolmaker) found it was really a different position/skillset than advertised. They seem to blanket machinist/programmer/operator/toolmaker into one job/position which ultimately, IMO, ruins their chance of finding a good candidate. I think a lot of the seasoned machinists/toolmaker/programmer/etc here can recognize a headhunter ad a mile away.

I can't speak to machinist head hunters but I can speak to engineering ones and so far I have found the experience to be wonderful! I got laid off 3weeks ago and have been finding that I am having virtually no luck applying to jobs myself and am finding that of the 8 interviews so far virtually all of them are coming from either head hunters or personal connections.

I posted my resume over on monster.com, indeed, and career builder not expecting to hear back much, but within hours my phone started ringing from head hunters left and right. In one case I landed an interview last Thursday at my dream employer, thankfully I didn't apply to them in person but went through the headhunter. I currently have my fingers crossed but they are asking me back for a round 2 interview. One interesting thing they told me is that they got about 100-200+ resumes piling in to their posting of the job over on indeed and it was overwhelming. Instead, they have opted to go to 1 or 2 different head hunters and have asked that they only send in the best candidates, so going through the head hunter I am basically cutting the line.

It is really nice from my side too I must say to use these guys. First off if you see a position you think you are a fit for you can actually call and give someone your sales pitch. The next thing that was really nice was the same head hunter firm sent me on an interview for a really neat position. I blew it! What the coolest part was they brought me in and gave me some excellent coaching and for the first time ever I actually knew where I went wrong in an interview. I didn't make that mistake on the next one.

Often times when I see an ad for a job I can also quickly find the head hunter's version of it and call them first. If they don't think they can get me in then I will apply on my own but I have just been really happy with how the process is going. Usually when I call a head hunter about a job and he sends my resume over I usually know in 1-2days whether I will/won't be interviewing with their client. As opposed to tossing my resume in with the other 200 that may go to a given posting online I figure this is a huge advantage.

One other thing by the way since the head hunter gets such a large chunk of your pay it makes them motivated to make a sale, they can push really hard to get you in there without you coming off as an ass to your potential future employer. Hopefully I will have a little more resolution to this issue by the end of the week and can post more but I must say I have almost given up applying to jobs not with head hunters, unless I have an inside connection.

The fees are what make me avoid head hunters. And we get more than a dozen calls a month from head hunters asking to speak with my employees to tell them about a new position that they are hiring for. I am glad to have a staff that is professional enough to tell them "don't call me, I'll call you" . . . My COO thinks it is a good way to get high quality candidates, but the jury is out as far as I am concerned as I haven't yet seen the value and past experience has been that the candidates are over coached.

When someone applies for work here, I want to see the authentic person, not someone they think I want to see.

One other thought here, it has been discussed elsewhere how the internet has made for almost "the perfect market" when it comes to say auctions, but when it comes to a job search I have found quite the opposite has happened.

First off on the job searcher's end there are now tons of competing websites which wind up with about 60% of the same job postings, but to see all jobs you really ought to look at every site, this takes enormous amounts of time and effort. Then you often find your perfect fit position only to find that while it says it is a 1day old posting it really is actually 2 months old when you look further into it.

The next issue at least on the engineering side is that the job postings are usually catered to the job title not the skill set. So you may see a title "project engineer", "product development engineer" as opposed to "mechanical engineer". If you searched the job posting sites for "mechanical engineer" you would miss the project/development engineering position that may otherwise be exactly what you are looking for. However the issue with the project/development engineer title is that description also gets used for electrical engineers, software engineers, etc... so now your job search needs to focus on using the title "engineer" which means you are going to pull up over 300-500 new postings on each website you search every day. At the same time of those 300-500 postings they encompass every type of engineer imaginable, and also include the secretary position who's job description reads "must support facilitating meetings for the chief project engineer" or something along those lines. Now you have to weed through 3-5 sites a day like this knowing that your resume will likely wind up in a pile of 200-300 others and may never get looked at.

Then in speaking with my father on this one to get the perspective from the employer's end, in the old days when you actually had to mail away for a job position it cost the applicant time and money so they had to be strategic about it. Now dad says that it is quite common for postings to get over 200+ applicants for a given job, as the barriers to applying are so low! So then on the employer's end there is a huge process to weed that down and find the right people.

All of this makes searching for a job and the right candidate pretty frustrating for both sides. When a head hunter calls me about the position the first thing they usually do is ask me to describe my background and what I am looking for prior to even telling me about the opportunity. They can then figure out what client of theirs I would be a match for. Then they tell me about the position to see if I am interested or not. It seems to save a lot of time and effort on both ends. One more thing I like about the head hunters is that usually when the client finally turns to one of them they are serious about moving fast to find the right candidate. The job search process can be really painful on both sides of it so it is a lot nicer to hear you are one of 3 or 4 people they are considering for a position good luck! It is also nice to actually hear an answer even if it is not the one you wanted and get it really fast.

Adam,

With all due respect, you are starting to sound like an advertisement for a recruiting company that caters to narcissists. All about you and your needs . . . Is this perhaps some hint at why you might be looking for employment in the first place?

You have always struck me as a bright chap and this glowing report of how recruiters make the job hunt so easy reminds me of the first time home buyer being taken in by a savvy real estate agent. Hearing what you want to hear may get both you and your new found employer a serious case of buyers remorse. I hope that's not the case, but your gushing would portend an apparent absence of an appropriate level of cynicism. Just sayin. . .

headhunter

Mark Winsor said:

Anyone used one? I see a few on google but would love to hear good/bad experiences and especially any positive recommendations.

Thanks,
Mark

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current job i have i got through a headhunter. i got the phone call within minutes of applying for the job. other than job on second shift or nights it is a good job with good pay and benefits.
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i tried to get a day shift job and not a good sign when i show up for interview they do not have my resume. i leave a copy and come back the next day. as i am being interviewed the ask me to hand write gcode (mastercan programmer job) with tool wear comp which admittedly i was not fast enough for them. also they finally read my resume and see a lot of manual machinist and 2 axis cnc experience (32 years) which to them means nothing. only 2 years 3 to 5 axis cnc experience. so during interview i am told interview over with and walked out the door. i get phone call from headhunter i did not have enough cnc experience experience
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point is the place hiring. some have very specific needs and do not want to pay much. and maybe unorganized. headhunter cannot change that. they can help getting a job but ultimately if employer is picky they will interview hundreds over many months til they find perfect employee. i asked why they were hiring and was told they are always looking for good machinist to hire. maybe not a good sign if a place is always looking for good machinist. some places hire and fire weekly.
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my current job i got 3 pay raises in 30 months. i am now more cautious about applying for a different job. always a risk to quite a good job for a new job and maybe get fired in a week. there is always a few places that either fire people easily or machinist quit for very good reasons. i would be on the look out for places like that. headhunter might not tell you anything about a hiring companies history.

I've been placed by a headhunter several times over my career. It's worked out well for me.

Edit - engineering jobs, that is. When I've had to fall back on machining skills, I just walked into a local shop that I knew needed help.

And as a hiring manager, not much success using headhunters.

The company I worked for went through massive downsizing in 2007/2008 and let go close to 1000 engineers. The best method to find a new job was to have an "in" at another company through networking with former colleagues. A close second was a good headhunter. The key word being "good". The majority of them suck. They make no effort to match job requirements to a candidate's skillset. A good headhunter is a great help, especially if you're looking to move into another part of the country where you don't have a network. The problem is sorting good from bad. That's where former colleagues come in - most of them have had interactions with headhunters so you can get warnings about the bad ones and recommendations for good ones. I get 2 or 3 link requests a week on LinkedIn from headhunters. I just ignore them since odds are they're lousy at their jobs. I keep in contact with the ones who got a thumbs up from former coworkers who I respect.

motion guru said:

Adam,

With all due respect, you are starting to sound like an advertisement for a recruiting company that caters to narcissists. All about you and your needs . . . Is this perhaps some hint at why you might be looking for employment in the first place?

You have always struck me as a bright chap and this glowing report of how recruiters make the job hunt so easy reminds me of the first time home buyer being taken in by a savvy real estate agent. Hearing what you want to hear may get both you and your new found employer a serious case of buyers remorse. I hope that's not the case, but your gushing would portend an apparent absence of an appropriate level of cynicism. Just sayin. . .

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I find the "new" way of hiring.....internet to be distasteful. I prefer the old method of walking into a place.....show them you are a decent person Hygeine....dress....etiquitte....etc. Internet is way to impersonal and caters to people who are trying to B.S. their way through. My opinion.

You can tell alot about a person in a 15 minute face to face conversation and as someone who believes they are worth a 2nd look for most machine shops.....I get that opportunity taken away by the internet hiring and head hunters......of course as a programmer / machinist I always bring half a dozen different examples of my work with me as well

motion guru said:

Adam,

With all due respect, you are starting to sound like an advertisement for a recruiting company that caters to narcissists. All about you and your needs . . . Is this perhaps some hint at why you might be looking for employment in the first place?

You have always struck me as a bright chap and this glowing report of how recruiters make the job hunt so easy reminds me of the first time home buyer being taken in by a savvy real estate agent. Hearing what you want to hear may get both you and your new found employer a serious case of buyers remorse. I hope that's not the case, but your gushing would portend an apparent absence of an appropriate level of cynicism. Just sayin. . .

Click to expand...

Motion, I took a bit of a risk leaving the big boring position I had two years back to get into a new product development program that was a tons of fun and I was really enjoying the job putting in long hard hours and it was a real blast, enjoyed working with everyone there and had a huge role in the launch of the new product. They were in the process of approving this year's development plan and I had a huge role in it. I came in on a Friday morning and they walked out myself and the other junior engineer on the project keeping only those who had been with the company for more time than I. I know that to sell our product was awaiting some laws and funding to be passed by the European Union. I also know the program I was working on was funded by a guy who started a huge company and is still the majority shareholder there. This past weekend 60minutes did a story of his company faking all sorts of Californian safety regulations in the glues they used to hold together the wood laminates and his company's stock was frozen for several hours trading on the stock exchange. I don't know which one of those issues if either did me in but they have let about 10% of the staff go in recent days there so I don't think I was at fault.

As far as recruiting companies, I guess I see it differently. Maybe you could provide more insight than I from the perspective of an employer on what it takes to get good resumes/candidates in the door. But I know in my case these recruiters are opening doors for me that I never have been able to open myself. In one case the company I have a round 2 interview with tomorrow morning is really my dream job. I tried writing letters to the VP of Engineering and applying 2 years ago when they had openings and I could never get in there. I called up the recruiting company they were using and had an interview set up 2days later with the company. When I was there interviewing the other day I told the current VP of Engineering that I had applied and even wrote to his predecessor and he then said based on my resume he doesn't understand why I wasn't brought in 2 years ago, I guess they never saw my application!

When I got laid off it was kind of like coming out of a bad car crash. When ever you pour so much pride and heart into something only to be let got it is rather traumatic occurrence. I was pretty shaken up after that and went in and heard back from the recruiter in no uncertain terms that it showed big time in the interview. I got some great coaching on how to relax and listen in an interview. It was really helpful. The biggest thing I got out of the meeting was to change my strategy for interviewing all together. I always went into an interview thinking I have 1hr or so to convince a perfect stranger that I am the right guy for the job so I tried to focus as much time on selling myself, and then figured use the rest of the time to figure out if I wanted to be there second, thinking I can find out a lot more about the employer based on their websites etc... than they can of me, so I tried to use my time to do as much of the selling as possible. The recruiter basically told me I had it all upside down and told me to change the way I do things so that now I listen intently and let the interviewer do as much of the talking first in order to do 2 things. #1 it shows you can listen to others, which I believe I can do, #2 you get to hear his needs and ensure you are pitching him on the strengths you have that he cares of most. I guess the advice wasn't rocket science but the truth is I don't interview every day of my life, in fact I would be happy if this week was my last week of interviewing ever. None the less it was some of the best advice I have ever gotten.

So I wouldn't say I was coached on what to say so that you would want to hire me, but rather I was coached to stop doing that and take my time to listen to your needs first and then tell you how I believe I could do a good job at meeting them based on past experiences. It is really some neat advice, even if to some more natural sales men out there it may just sound like common sense.

One last thing about head hunters that makes me view them so highly. My family was lucky for the help of a guy named Bob Demarko. Bob placed dad in his second job out of school and after placing him there he would call up dad every 6months or so and take him out to lunch or catch up with him. Bob would never try to recruit dad away from a company he placed him in but rather he was listening to dad to get intelligence on how things were going at the company, where future needs were, where growth or problems were emerging and who dad knew that was looking for a new job from a previous employer. Often if Bob saw a guy come on the market who was a perfect fit for dad's company even if they didn't have an opening at the time if he knew the place was growing he could often call up dad and get the guy viewed by the right people.

Bob would never ask dad if he wanted a new job but it was always understood if dad needed a new one all he had to do was ask. Over the years 2 of the companies dad worked at shut down and moved overseas and each time Bob was there to help dad move on to a greener pasture. As dad got to the point in his career when he was in the position of hiring his relationship he had with Bob was so strong that he always made sure Bob knew of an opening as soon as it came available and Bob always tried to send over the right person for the position. Sometimes Bob would tell dad that he didn't have a guy who was a perfect fit but he had one who he knew could learn easily would my father like to speak with him. Since Bob kept in touch with so many people like my father often Bob knew someone who had worked with a guy whose resume came across the table and he could run references not provided to him by the candidate. So dad found when Bob sent him a guy even if his background wasn't what was needed dad found the ones Bob sent over tended to work out a lot better in general due to the diligence the guy provided. Over the years too by the way dad too fielded a lot of calls for references from Bob on former coworkers. So Bob and my father made each other a lot of money over time and my house growing up fared pretty darn well for it. When I was in college and looking for a summer job Bob even came through and found me one probono! So at any rate I know there are some bad recruiters out there but I have been having a lot more luck going through them than I am having on my own, and I know in my dad's case he was lucky to find a great one who over the years helped him save his own career when needed and also provided him with many very talented employees when he moved on to management.

Adam,

It sounds like you have had a good experience and I am glad to hear it worked out for you. On the employer side - most of the one's I have dealt with have been more like parasites who have taken the ads I have posted and reposted them and then sought to place people with me whom they groomed to say specific things during the interview. . . and once they know a little about our company, they have at times returned to seek specific employees that have been in my employ in an effort to recruit them for other opportunities.

A few experiences like that in the last 20 years have left me jaded.

Reading MG & Adam's comments is interesting - different sides of the divide.

In the IT field I've had pretty good experiences. The head hunters don't get paid much (if anything) unless the person they place lasts at least 3 months and I think they get paid more at the 6 month mark, so they definitely have an incentive to place suitable people. My personal experiences have been pretty positive, though I've only ever used them 3 times in my working career. Most opportunities came my way via personal contacts.

As an employer, they really had little to offer me in the way of suitable people for marine work. You either had the skills & experience, or you didn't. We sometimes took people with skills and no marine experience to train up but nobody I recall through an employment agency. We advertised ourselves with pretty specific selection criteria and binned every application that didn't address them quite specifically.

On which note, people applying for positions need to take note of that. If a job has a list of selection criteria, you DO need to address them all and give specific examples of skills/experience. I know of a number of people who have applied for a position, had everything needed, but couldn't or wouldn't write a decent application. They don't make the first cut.

This is one area where head hunters add value, because they fix up resumes etc. But this only works if they don't gild the lily.

PDW

As is always true, there are good headhunters and bad ones -- I've encountered both, to a limited degree. Sounds like Motion has had more than his share of the bad ones!

Interesting stories, Thanks for the feedback

motion guru said:

The fees are what make me avoid head hunters. And we get more than a dozen calls a month from head hunters asking to speak with my employees to tell them about a new position that they are hiring for. I am glad to have a staff that is professional enough to tell them "don't call me, I'll call you" . . . My COO thinks it is a good way to get high quality candidates, but the jury is out as far as I am concerned as I haven't yet seen the value and past experience has been that the candidates are over coached.

When someone applies for work here, I want to see the authentic person, not someone they think I want to see.

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The job came through for me and I couldn't be happier, as mentioned I sought out this place once before and was unable to get in on my own as I saw it as the best place to transition from working at a big boring aircraft OEM position to working on aircraft ground test equipment which I saw as a lot faster paced, more diversity and lots more fun.

One other thing to consider here, to search all the different websites each day for positions takes hours to do. If you don't just stumble on the right opportunity, you almost have to be unemployed just to spend that level of time searching out the right job today! Even then in the very good fit positions I wasn't ever hearing back from my application. Based on how well the whole experience of using a good head hunter or two has worked for me, I would think if ever in the future, (which I hope doesn't happen for for a good many years or more) I am employed but need to find something new, I am going to just seek out a few good head hunters and let them do the shopping to find me the right opportunities, as the job search in my opinion is one of the few examples of technology/internet actually making something a whole heck of a lot worse! Sometimes it is easier to just find a good professional to do the job for you.

Looking at the OP's request for a machinist and seeing the company, I have a feeling they are looking for a very particular and hard to find person. The poor machinist who is qualified and looking for a job like the one at the OP's company is going to have to spend a lot of time weeding through $12/hr "machinist" positions for operators who merely push a button to find that diamond in the rough. They have enough work there to do reinventing the internal combustion engine, it may just make sense to get a few professionals to help them track down the right machinists and engineers when needed.

When it comes to getting the high quality employees the other thing as you have seen is some of the head hunters will also try to poach from your competitor when necessary. I am not sure this is something to be afraid of. From reading your posts I have a feeling the real reason your employees usually reply "not interested" to the headhunters has more to do with you finding the right people who enjoy working in a challenging and interesting environment and treating them right. At the very least based on my experiences in the past if your place is as fun to work in as you make it sound and you were treating me right I wouldn't think to leave!

By the way these two companies seemed to me to both be real nice to deal with if you are looking for a recommendation on who to use in the Hartford area. http://www.stewartstaff.com/ http://www.rjsassociates.com