Do you still need Headhunters in an economic down turn?

If we at EcoSearch compare our specialist headhunt service to that of standard database recruiters on any given day, the pool of available candidates might look something like this:

The headhunt side on the left is populated with all those people currently working in the renewable energy field that would be relevant to your vacancy. These are the people we would contact about filling your vacancy first.

The database recruiter area on the right shows the active candidates that are relevant to your job at any given time. These represent those that a standard database recruiter would contact.

It might be easier to attract those active candidates, but the picture changes dramatically when the economy takes a turn for the worse:

As you can see, there has been a massive influx of applications to your job from outside of the Renewable Energy industry. Not everyone will be relevant, or even have any transferable skills that might benefit your business.

The database recruiter now has a lot more ground to cover as they sort the relevant applications from those without the skills you require.

For the headhunters, business in the largely unaffected Renewable Energy sector remains the same. It is business as usual.

So when other industries start experiencing job cuts, it is important to know that your recruitment process will not be slowed. It is vital that you can rely on the service you expect from your talent acquisition partners.

What's your view?