COACH, HEADHUNTER OR REPRESENTATION · HEADHUNTERS INTERNATIONAL
Career Coach, Headhunter or Someone on Your Side: Who Is Actually Paid to Help You?
Every adviser around a senior job search is paid by someone, and whoever pays decides whose question the work answers. A search consultant is paid by the employer and an outplacement provider by the company that let you go. Coaches and CV writers are paid by you, usually for a session or a document. Candidate-paid representation is the arrangement where someone who has sat on the hiring side works to your brief and makes the approaches in your name. Mark Ross spent thirty years in senior executive search on the employer's side of that table, and Headhunters International now works on the executive's.
Executives tend to ask this question after a final round. The chair seemed keen, the second meeting ran over by forty minutes, and a week later the consultant rang to say the client had gone another way. You asked why. The answer was one word, usually "fit", and the call was over in four minutes. It was the third time this year, or the fourth, and your partner has stopped asking how the interview went because the answer at the end of the week is always the same.
Meanwhile you have done the sensible things. A coach has helped with how you come across, a CV writer has produced a document that reads well, and the recruiters you have known for years still take your calls. Nobody in any of those conversations has told you why the last four panels chose someone else, because none of them was in a position to find out, or paid to say.
Five kinds of help, side by side
| Who pays | Whose interest the brief serves | Has sat on the hiring side | Makes approaches for you | What you get afterwards | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Search consultant | The employer | The client's, to fill its role | Yes, it is their job | No. They approach you on a client's behalf | Nothing, unless you are appointed |
| Outplacement provider | Your former employer, as part of the exit package | A managed exit and a move into work | Varies by provider | Varies, usually support for your own applications | Whatever the programme covers, until it ends |
| Career coach | You | Yours, on how you think and present | Rarely | Rarely | Session notes and your own conclusions |
| CV writer | You | Yours, on the document | Rarely | No | A CV, sometimes a LinkedIn profile |
| Candidate-paid representation | You, and nobody else | Yours, on the whole search | Yes | Yes, in your name, to companies you agree | Documents you keep and a debrief after each process |
None of them is acting in bad faith. Each is doing the job its fee describes. The columns that matter most are the second and the fourth, because a brief written by somebody else will be followed even when it runs against you, and an adviser who never approaches anyone on your behalf leaves the market to come to you on its own timetable.
The stakes: four final rounds and a one-word answer
An illustrative chief operating officer with a total package of £180,000, made redundant when the business was sold. She reached four final rounds through search firms over eleven months and received one word of feedback after each. The person and every figure are fictional.
| Illustrative figures | £ |
|---|---|
| Previous total package | 180,000 |
| Months between redundancy and accepting a role | 11 |
| Package forgone over those eleven months | (165,000) |
| Final rounds reached | 4 |
| Written or specific feedback received after them | 0 |
| Role accepted: chief operating officer, smaller business | 160,000 |
| Shortfall against previous package, per year | (20,000) |
| Shortfall over five years | (100,000) |
| Pension contributions forgone on the shortfall at 8% | (8,000) |
| Cost against the previous package over five years and eleven months | (273,000) |
The arithmetic leaves out the part that hurt most. Each final round took about six weeks and ended with the same word. She changed her answers after every rejection, guessing at what "fit" had meant, and by the fourth panel she was presenting a version of herself built from four guesses. Two of the four chairs had in fact wanted someone who had run a business through a sale, which she had done twice and mentioned once, near the end of a long answer. Nobody told her, so she never moved it to the front.
Who is in the room, and who pays them
The search consultant
is paid by the client employer to fill a role. The brief was written by a chair or a chief executive, and the consultant's reputation rests on that client being pleased with the appointment. You are a candidate in their process, assessed against their brief, and that is the right arrangement for the job they are paid to do. When you are not appointed, their work for you is finished.
The outplacement provider
is paid for by the company that made you redundant, as part of the exit package. Its brief usually asks it to support you into work within the period the package covers. Whether the next role is the right one, or in a different market from the last, is a question the brief rarely asks. If outplacement is offered, take it, because it has already been paid for.
The career coach
works for you and can do real good with your confidence and with how you tell your own story. Few coaches have sat on the hiring side, so few know which line of a profile a panel reads first, and few approach employers for you.
The CV writer
produces a document, often a good one. The document then goes out through the same channels as before, to the same advertised roles, and the writer's work ends when you approve the final draft.
Candidate-paid representation
is paid by the executive and by nobody else. The brief is yours, the reading of your record is done from the buying side, and the approaches go out in your name to companies chosen because something in them is changing. That is the arrangement Headhunters International offers.
Why the feedback after a final round is one word
The answer sits in the fee structure. A retained search firm is paid by its client in stages, with the last stage usually due when someone is appointed. Contingent recruiters are paid only on appointment. In both cases the work is done for the client the moment the client chooses. Any time the consultant then spends explaining to an unsuccessful candidate why the chair preferred someone else is unpaid.
It carries risk as well. The real reasons are often specific and awkward. Perhaps the chair had worked with the other candidate before, or your answer on the integration ran long and the finance director stopped listening. Writing any of that down could damage the client relationship or travel further than intended. A careful consultant says "fit" or "chemistry" and moves on to the next search.
Mark Ross gave that one-word answer himself, many times, for exactly those reasons. He also knows how often the real reason could have been fixed before the final round if the candidate had heard it after the first. Nobody in the process is paid to be on your side, which is why a capable executive can reach four final rounds in a year and learn nothing from any of them.
What changes when you are the client
- The brief is yours. The search starts from where you want to be in five years and which companies fit, before anyone else's vacancy sets the terms.
- The read comes before the panel. Your record is read the way a researcher and a chair will read it, and the weak points are found while there is still time to deal with them.
- Approaches go out in your name. A target list of companies with something changing right now, and a direct approach to the person who owns the problem, often before any role is advertised.
- A debrief you can use. After each process you get a specific account of what probably decided it and what to change, because the person giving it answers to you.
Where each kind of help fits
If the redundancy has knocked your confidence, a coach may be the right first call. Outplacement your old employer is paying for is worth using, and search consultants who know your sector remain worth staying close to. Candidate-paid representation fits a narrower situation, where the search itself has become the problem and final rounds come and go without explanation.
Two searches, illustrated
These examples were written for this page to show the kind of finding the work produces. They are not records of real clients. Headhunters International never publishes client names or details.
Chief operating officer, four final rounds in a year
Starting point. Redundant after a trade sale, with four final rounds through search firms and the word "fit" after each.
What the work found. Her two completed sales of a business, the experience two of those chairs were looking for, appeared on page two of her CV and at the end of her interview answers. She had led with a cost programme, which was what her old board had valued.
What changed. The record was rebuilt with the sales leading. The target list went to businesses whose owners had appointed advisers or bought in the past year, where a chief operating officer who has been through a sale is easy to justify to investors.
Outcome. Approaches went to nine businesses. Conversations followed at three, and one chair asked to meet her again before any role had been defined.
Sales director who had paid for a coach and a CV
Starting point. Commercial director at a software company, with six months of coaching and a professionally written CV behind him, hearing very little back from applications.
What the work found. The coaching had done its job and he interviewed well. The CV led with his title and his old employer's name, which put him in a column of fifty similar sales directors before anyone read on, and nobody had approached a company on his behalf.
What changed. The documents were rewritten around the two markets he had opened, with a figure and a period behind each result. Approaches went to chief executives at companies that had recently raised money to expand into those markets.
Outcome. Two chief executives met him. One of those conversations turned into a role written around the expansion.
How the work runs
Every search goes through four stages before anyone outside is approached.
- Value. Your achievements, excavated and quantified with a base, a period and a source.
- Direction. A five-year position and the level you are aiming at, settled before the first conversation.
- Criteria. A scoring framework built from your own priorities, so every option is measured the same way.
- Positioning. The Career Memorandum, an executive CV and a one-page biography.
These four stages make up the Foundation Programme. When the documents are ready, The Private Office can take the search to market through Reverse Headhunting, with direct approaches by printed letter to the most senior person and on LinkedIn to a second contact.
Who does the work
Mark Ross Roberts, founder of Headhunters International, does the work himself. He has spent thirty years in senior executive search, putting together shortlists and writing the candidate reports a board reads, and in M&A, where he sees a change of owner or strategy months before a role appears. His qualifications include the FMVA and CBCA from the Corporate Finance Institute and Wharton Executive Education programmes in executive presence and in neuroscience in leadership, and he is the author of four books including STAR Success.
How to start
Email Mark Ross at ross@headhunters-international.com with a line on where you are now and what has happened in your search so far. If you have had final rounds with no useful feedback, say how many. He replies himself, and the first conversation establishes whether candidate-paid representation is the right kind of help for you at this point, or whether a coach, a CV writer or your old employer's outplacement would serve you better. Nothing is payable until you decide to go ahead.
Questions executives ask about who to hire
What is the difference between an executive coach and a headhunter?
A headhunter is paid by an employer to fill a role and assesses you against that employer's brief. An executive coach is paid by you and works on how you lead and present. Candidate-paid representation reads your record from the buying side on your behalf and approaches companies in your name.
Who does a headhunter actually work for?
The client employer that pays the fee. A good headhunter treats candidates with care, and many build long relationships with executives, but their obligation in any search is to the client. When the client appoints someone else, the work on your candidacy stops.
Why won't recruiters give proper feedback after a final interview?
Nobody pays them to, and specific feedback carries risk to the client relationship. The real reasons are often personal or political, such as a chair who already knew the other candidate. A one-word answer is the safe one for the consultant and the client, and it leaves you guessing at what to change.
Is there a career adviser who is paid by the candidate rather than the employer?
Yes. Coaches and CV writers are paid by the candidate, and so are candidate-paid representatives such as Headhunters International. The difference lies in whether the adviser has sat on the hiring side and whether they approach employers for you.
Should I use outplacement if my employer offers it?
Yes. It has already been paid for as part of your exit, and it can help with applications and interview practice. Bear in mind that its brief was agreed with your former employer, usually around getting you into work within a set period.
Can a candidate-paid adviser guarantee me a job?
No, and you should be wary of anyone who says they can. Headhunters International does not promise a role or a salary. The work improves how your record is read and who sees it, and the hiring decision stays with the employer.
Read next
Related guides from Headhunters International
- Reverse Headhunting and The Private Office: approaches to the person who owns the problem, before a role is advertised.
- Do headhunters charge candidates?: why the headhunter was always free, and what changes when you pay.
- How to check a career adviser: the questions to ask and the red flags before you pay anyone.
One email, principal to principal
Write to Mark Ross at ross@headhunters-international.com. He replies himself.
Email Mark Ross