HOW TO VET A CANDIDATE-PAID ADVISER · HEADHUNTERS INTERNATIONAL
Is Paying for Career Help a Scam? How to Check an Executive Career Adviser Before You Sign
Some candidate-paid career services are worth the money and some are not, and the difference shows up in a handful of plain questions asked before you pay anyone. Ask who else pays the adviser, whether they have sat on the hiring side, what you receive and when, and how approaches to employers are made. Read the answers against the red flags below. Mark Ross spent thirty years on the employer's side of senior search before founding Headhunters International, and this page gives his answers to the same questions so you can test them like any other.
Executives tend to reach this page with a contract already open in another tab. Perhaps a firm messaged you on LinkedIn the week after your redundancy was announced, with a confident tone and a video of satisfied clients. A former colleague may have mentioned a service that "got her a role in six weeks", and you want to know whether that is likely to happen to you. Or you have already paid someone once, received a CV and a list of job boards, and you are wary of making the same mistake with more money.
Caution is the right instinct. You have probably never bought this kind of help before, because for twenty years headhunters were free to you. The employer paid them, and you were the candidate in someone else's process. Now that you are thinking of paying, you are a buyer in a market that has no regulator, no standard terms and a wide range of quality.
The questions to ask before you pay anyone
Ask each of these in writing, and keep the answers.
Who else pays you? If anyone other than you pays the adviser, such as an employer or a recruitment firm that rewards referrals, you need to know, because their interest will shape the advice. Headhunters International is paid by the executive and by nobody else.
Have you sat on the hiring side? An adviser who has built shortlists and written the reports a board reads knows which line of your record a panel reads first. Ask what they did on that side and for how long. Mark Ross spent thirty years in senior executive search, putting together shortlists and writing candidate reports for boards.
What exactly do I receive, and when? A list of named deliverables with dates. Vague answers such as "full support" or "unlimited access" make it impossible to tell later whether you got what you paid for. Headhunters International names the documents (the Career Memorandum, an executive CV and a one-page biography) and the four stages that produce them, and agrees the order of work in the first conversation.
Who does the work? Many firms sell on the founder's name and hand the work to junior staff or freelancers. Ask who will write your documents and who will speak to you each week. Mark Ross Roberts does the work himself.
What happens if I stop? Find out what you keep, what you owe and what notice is required if your circumstances change, including if you find a role on your own. The documents are yours to keep, and the terms for stopping are set out before you agree to anything.
Will you name or show other clients? Be careful how you read the answer. A serious adviser will not hand over client names, because senior people searching for a new role need discretion. An adviser who will name past clients freely may name you. Ask instead for anonymised examples of the work and to see the kind of document you would receive. Headhunters International never publishes client names or details, and shows the type of work through illustrative examples labelled as such.
How do you make approaches? Some services send your CV to advertised roles. Others approach companies directly in your name. Ask who the approaches go to, by what route and with whose agreement. The Private Office uses Reverse Headhunting: a target list of companies with something changing right now, a printed letter to the most senior person and a LinkedIn message to a second contact, each agreed with you before it goes.
Red flags
- A guaranteed placement or salary. Nobody acting for a candidate controls an employer's decision. A guarantee is either a promise that cannot be kept or a refund clause buried in conditions you will not meet.
- A fee as a percentage of the salary you will earn. That is how employers pay search firms. An adviser paid this way has an interest in the size of your next package and in speed, and neither may match your interest in the right role.
- A promise of access to a list of hidden jobs. Senior roles that never reach an advert are usually in the heads of chairs and investors, before any job exists. No one has a list of them to sell you.
- Application volume as the product. "We apply to two hundred roles for you" describes the slowest channel at senior level. By the time a senior role is advertised, the decision has usually begun. Headhunters International does not sell application volume.
- Statistics with no source or year. If a sales page quotes a percentage about the job market without naming who measured it and when, ask. Many of the figures repeated in this market cannot be traced to any study.
- Pressure to sign this week. A discount that expires on Friday, or a cohort with "two places left", is designed to stop you asking the questions above.
- Testimonials that read the same. If every review uses the same phrases and the same arc, and none can be checked, give them no weight.
Green flags
- The adviser asks more questions than they answer in the first call. They want to know what happened and what you have already tried before they suggest anything.
- They tell you when you do not need them. Sometimes the right advice is a coach, a CV refresh, or using the outplacement your former employer has already paid for.
- Every claim about the market comes with a source. Where there is no reliable figure, they argue the point without one.
- The deliverables and dates are in writing before you pay. You can see what you are buying and check it later.
- They will not promise an outcome. A serious adviser describes the work and its likely effect, and leaves the hiring decision with the employer, where it sits.
A short checklist
| Question | A good answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Who else pays you? | Only you | An employer, job board or referral fee |
| Have you sat on the hiring side? | Years of shortlists and board reports, named | "We understand recruiters" |
| What do I receive, and when? | Named documents, stages and dates | "Full support", "unlimited access" |
| Who does the work? | A named person, the one you met | A team you will not meet |
| What happens if I stop? | Written terms, you keep the work | Unclear, or the full fee regardless |
| Will you name clients? | No, with anonymised examples instead | A list of names and logos |
| How do you make approaches? | Direct, agreed with you, to named people | Volume applications to adverts |
| What is promised? | The work, described | A role, a salary or a timescale |
The stakes: paying for the wrong thing
An illustrative head of finance at a services business, made redundant in a restructure. She paid a firm that promised to apply to roles on her behalf, and spent six months watching applications go out. The person and every figure are fictional.
| Illustrative figures | £ |
|---|---|
| Previous total package | 120,000 |
| Months on the volume service before stopping | 6 |
| Package forgone over those six months | (60,000) |
| Applications sent in her name | 240 |
| First interviews from those applications | 3 |
| Further months before accepting a role | 4 |
| Package forgone over those four months | (40,000) |
| Total package forgone over ten months | (100,000) |
The fee she paid is left out of the table deliberately, because the larger cost was time. Each application was a copy of the same CV, sent to advertised roles where a longlist already existed. Two of the three interviews were for roles below her level. By the time she stopped, two recruiters she knew had seen her name arrive through the same job boards more than once, and one asked her, kindly, whether she was all right.
Paying for the wrong thing, 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.
Head of finance after a volume application service
Starting point. Six months on a service that applied to roles in her name, with three first interviews and no offers. She was cautious about paying anyone again.
What the work found. Her record led with a job title that put her in a crowded column, and her strongest result, a finance function rebuilt after an acquisition, sat in the middle of a paragraph. Two hundred and forty applications had sent that same document to the same kind of advertised role.
What changed. The applications stopped. The record was rebuilt around the post-acquisition work, and the target list went to businesses that had recently made an acquisition or been bought by private equity. Approaches went by letter to the chief executive or chief financial officer.
Outcome. Approaches went to ten businesses. Conversations followed at three, and one led to a finance director role in a group integrating two businesses.
Operations director who bought coaching when he needed approaches
Starting point. Eight months of weekly coaching sessions, which had helped him through a difficult exit, and no conversations with employers.
What the work found. He interviewed well and knew what he wanted. Nobody had approached a company on his behalf, and his CV still described a role he had left.
What changed. The documents were rewritten for the market he wanted, and a target list was built from manufacturing businesses with a new owner.
Outcome. Approaches went to eight businesses. Two chief executives agreed to meet.
How the work runs
The work 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.
- Criteria. A scoring framework built from your own priorities.
- Positioning. The Career Memorandum, an executive CV and a one-page biography.
These four stages are the Foundation Programme. When the documents are ready, The Private Office can take the search to market through Reverse Headhunting.
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 any service you have already paid for. Ask him the questions on this page. He replies himself, and the first conversation establishes whether Headhunters International is the right kind of help for you, which stage the work would start at and what it would cost. Nothing is payable until you decide to go ahead.
Questions executives ask before paying for career help
Is paying a headhunter a scam?
Search firms are paid by employers, so a firm asking a candidate to pay for a placement is unusual. A candidate-paid adviser is legitimate when the adviser is paid only by you, has sat on the hiring side, names what you receive and promises no outcome. The services to avoid are those that guarantee a role, take a percentage of your future salary or sell application volume.
How do I choose an executive career adviser?
Ask the seven questions on this page in writing and compare the answers. Give most weight to who else pays them and whether they have sat on the hiring side, because those two answers decide whose interest the advice serves and how well it reflects the way a panel reads.
What are the red flags with an executive career coach?
A guaranteed placement or salary, a fee tied to the salary you will earn, a promise of hidden jobs, statistics without a source, pressure to sign quickly and testimonials that all read alike. Any one of them is reason to slow down.
Why won't Headhunters International show me a list of clients?
Because senior executives searching for a role need discretion, and many are still employed while they search. Headhunters International never publishes client names or details. The examples on its pages are illustrative and labelled as such.
What should I get in writing before I pay?
The named deliverables, the order and timing of the work, who will do it, what you keep and what happens if you stop. If an adviser will not put those in writing, do not sign.
Can a career adviser guarantee me a job?
No. The hiring decision belongs to the employer. An honest adviser can describe the work and how it changes the way your record is read and who sees it, and Headhunters International does not promise a role, a level, a salary or a timescale.
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.
- Reverse recruiting: why paying someone to apply at volume stalls at director level.
One email, principal to principal
Write to Mark Ross at ross@headhunters-international.com. He replies himself.
Email Mark Ross