Working Q&A: Tapping Area Experts For Insight On Workplace Issues

Job boards play role, but are the best candidates not looking for work?

                    By Julie Forster

Q. How do headhunters work? Do you pay them a fee up front, or do the employers who successfully find employees through them pay the fee?

A. There's a big misconception about search firms, or headhunters, as they are called. "The misconception a lot of times is that individuals contact recruiters because they are looking for assistance on a job search or access to companies," said Kurt Rakos, a founding partner with the McKinley Group, a search firm in Minnetonka. "That's completely opposite of what we do."

In most cases, the recruiter is working for employers who need candidates with specialized skills. It's important that the search firm has a database full of potential candidates and contacts, but the employer is the client and pays the fee when a candidate accepts a job.

The fee tends to be about 30 percent of the amount of the person's first-year salary. Again, it's paid by the company, not the candidate. "We need good candidates all of the time," Rakos said. "They are important to us, but we could have 10 of the greatest candidates in the world, but if we do not have clients, we're not able to do much."