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Have You Personally Used an Honest Head Hunter?
Haacked asks: "As a software manager, I've tried using recruiters and head hunters to find qualified employees. My experience is that used car salesman feel like paragons of integrity, in comparison. It seems their interests never lie with the job applicant, nor the company. However, I once read that some recruiters do act with integrity and actually care about the people they are trying to place. The book suggested finding a head hunter who is interested in a long term relationship with you (not for the commitment-phobic) and will serve more as a career counselor, attempting to find a position that meets your goals. Seems to me that establishing a long-term relationship with fewer as opposed to screwing people over in volume would make good business sense to garner repeat business. Have any of you ever worked with any firms you felt represented your interests well?"
I actually have someone I work with fairly regularly who seems genuinely interested in helping. Of the handful of people I've used for headhunters, this one definitely stands out above the crowd. (er... if anyone is looking for a Data Warehousing job in the midwest, I can put you in contact... :-)
But I'm not sure it matters... you can pretty much get headhunters to do what you want by following a few simple rules:
First, remain independant -- don't agree to use only one Headhunter and, in fact, make it clear that whoever you use has no right to submit you for a job without your permission. You can maintain control this way, which leads us to:
Second, take what you want, leave the rest alone -- make it clear what you're looking for in a job and don't accept anything else (up to the point you can afford it). Headhunters make money by getting you to agree to work, so they'd rather be a bit annoyed with you and spend twice as long finding you a job than losing you as a client completely. As long as a headhunter is willing to call you up, you have the possibility that they'll be the one to find your perfect job, so you don't want to alienate anyone, but that's tough to do since they're on commission (all the ones I've seen).
Thirdly, demand open contracts -- this is the only one that's not completely trivial to negotiate. Many headhunting companies have policies that they will tell you the percentage off the top that they're skimming. Rates vary, of course -- I've seen 10% and 50%... still, if the money's right this may not be important to you. Most companies will agree to tell you, and in some cases, you can get a better deal going with someone's competitor. Lots of the jobs on web search engines are the same job posted through various employment agencies, so you may be able to get more money for the same job from someone else. Having this rate disclosure helps prevent that, and it also gives you a bit of a bargaining chip if you turn out to be really good in the position.
Just using those three rules, I think you can convince yourself that whoever is offering you jobs is at least somewhat likely to find something you'll accept. And for the most part, even if you can't stand your headhunter, that should barely affect your job once you're signed on and getting paid. While I like that my agent calls me up or takes me out for drinks now and again, it's not worth losing much salary over.