10 Things Your Headhunter Won't Tell You

1. “I’ll play you for a sucker.”

Headhunters come in two flavors. “Retained” executive search firms, such as blue-chippers Korn/Ferry International or Heidrick & Struggles, charge a company up front to locate candidates for client openings. “Contingency” search firms, on the other hand, get paid by employers only if they place a candidate. The payoff? For both, around a third of your first year’s salary.

Charging the candidate for a search is verboten. The Association of Executive Search Consultants, which represents 250 retained firms worldwide, urges jobseekers to proceed with caution. But there are headhunters out there who still try to bill candidates thousands of dollars for “career services,” thus potentially snaring fees at both ends. Industry bible Kennedy Information’s Directory of Executive Recruiters has been known to screen out new applicants who squeeze job candidates for fees, and plenty of other firms doing the same thing don’t even try to get listed. There are also numerous online ventures that charge the candidate, and not the posting companies, for the privilege of trolling through their jobs databases.

How can you determine whether your headhunter is on the up-and-up? The answer's simple: Ask up front.

2. “There’s a lawsuit in your future.”

Lawyers must love the job-search industry. Why? Because any given job move has the potential to embroil your former employer, your new employer, your search firm—and even you—in a fireworks display of legal writs. Company-to-company lawsuits over talent pilfering, for example, have become almost commonplace: Starbucks v. Dunkin' Donuts, Wal-Mart v. Amazon.com, Nortel Networks v. ONI Systems, Nike v. Gap, and so on. And how do these affect the job candidate? Such a suit could hold up your appointment, or even block it altogether, especially if you signed a noncompete agreement and are jumping to another firm in your field.

What should you do if you're interested in accepting a new offer but don't know if you're crossing the legal line? If you're leaving a job and have a non-compete, it's best to seek the advice of an employment attorney before making any big moves.

3. “I may be headed for extinction.”

If you’re a rising star, recruiters are going to want you all to themselves. And, indeed, an exclusive relationship with the right recruiter who knows you well can lead to fantastic job offers, the right corporate fit—and, of course, commissions in the recruiter’s pocket.

But before you invest all that time and energy with a headhunter, take heed: He may be going the way of the 8-track tape. Websites such as 6FigureJobs.com and Netshare.com have been compiling databases of $100,000-plus earners and matching them directly with companies, a task previously the sole domain of retained recruiters. It’s faster, and it’s financially alluring—no middleman, no hefty fee.

For its part, 6FigureJobs.com says it’s seeing the shift away from recruiters gain momentum: Whereas the site’s subscriber ratio was 60/40 recruiters to companies back in 2000, these days it’s more like 35/65. “We think the math just makes that inevitable,” says a spokesperson for 6FigureJobs.com. “You can save yourself a lot of money by using smart research and using the right mix of sites.”