Headhunting Value 

In a nutshell, the key advantage of using a headhunter over say a DIY approach to acquiring a new executive is ‘opportunity cost’.  Each dollar spent on a professional headhunter will achieve far more than the same dollar used on a more in-house activity.   To expand on this, there are a series of key considerations as follows.  

As the name implies, headhunters go out and hunt for your future executive.  Based on a thorough understanding of your culture and needs we can use our extensive networks, information systems and broad knowledge of the field to find the people you need.  Our networks are matrixed and we often find your best candidates at 2 or 3 degrees of separation. 

Most potential candidates are not actually looking for a new position when you need them.  We can identify and contact these people, who are usually pleased to hear from a headhunter, and most often they will respond positively by at least considering the position or directing us to a colleague that might be more interested. 

We can de-risk the selection process.  Hiring companies will generally only take one of three types of risk; either they do not know the candidate, the candidate has not done the role/job/work before, or the candidate has a lack of proven success.  However, it is not uncommon for experience and success to be given less consideration just because a person is known.  A headhunter will overcome this tendency and derisk the overall process by thoroughly getting to know the candidates (they may already be known over a period of time) from a personality, reputation, experience, success and potential perspective. 

We can become a Strategic Partner and as such, build a relationship and work with you over a long period of time.  We can understand your culture, values, ways of working and strategy. We are therefore well placed to help build a strong board or executive level over time; building your team around your strengths and weaknesses. 

The Hawes Partners Added Value 

Hawes partners will of course do all of the above.  In addition: 

We have many years of experience and expertise in leadership, management, organizational structure and development, change and executive recruitment. We have been part of large organizations and we have run businesses of our own. 

We are excellent at dealing with people at the one-to-one level at all positions. The people we work with ‘matter’; all should feel that dealing with Hawes Partners was a positive experience. We retain the personal touch and commitment and develop one-to-one relationships with our clients. 

We have well defined and proven processes based on observed ‘best practice’; however, we can continuously evolve and adapt these to clients’ unique requirements.  Our processes give the client complete visibility of search progress and opportunity for input. 

We don’t specialize in just finance or just engineering, we specialize in building a management team of many disciplines.  It’s the team that makes the difference and a cohesive team (even of less capable individuals) is far more effective than a group of outstanding individuals pulling in different directions, competing, rebelling against the culture etc