Hopefully
by the time you become a middle management executive you will have learned what
the role the headhunter plays
in the overall picture of your total working career. When you were a green
employee at your first company, a phone call from any headhunter most likely
put the fear of God into you. Flashes of termination crossed your mind every
time the phone would ring. Mr. Green, there is a Mrs. Red on the phone. She
says it's a personal business call. Sweat begins to drip from your brow. Who
could this possibly be? Is it a telemarketer? Did I forget to pay a bill? Worse
yet, what if it is one of those dreaded headhunters? Panic sets in. You don't
take the call. At this point you don't know what you should do when the
headhunter calls.
The
second year of your employment, you accidentally take a call your secretary
puts through. It's a call from a headhunter. Before you even listen to what
s/he has to say, you immediately tell the recruiter, I have no interest and
hang up in their ear. You then run to your boss to inform him that you have
just been called by a headhunter. Your boss stares at you for a moment in
disbelief with a little smile just starting to round the corner of his/her
mouth and thanks you. You leave his/her office seemingly covered in brownie
points. You did well. You warded off the deadly headhunter.
It's
now year two and you still don't know what you should do when the headhunter
calls. You busily work away hard at your job, secure in the fact that your boss
knows you are loyal.The third year of your employment, you over hear a
conversation that your friend and co-worker is having in the next cubicle.
Could your co-worker actually be talking to a headhunter? As soon as your
friend gets off the phone, you look up over your cubical and ask who they were
talking to. She looks back at you and smiles, but tells you it was nothing
important, just a personal business call. A month later, your co-worker and
friend resigns and says she has been promoted to a new position at a competing
firm for $7,000 more a year. When you ask her when this happened, she smiles
and reminds you of the day that you asked her who she was talking to. She says
she was talking to a headhunter.There is a lesson to be learned and a point to
all of this.
What should you do when the headhunter calls? You
should take the call. You should keep the conversation confidential. You should
not tell your boss, nor your co-workers. You should always keep all of your
options open because you never know what the future will bring. Learn what you
should do when the headhunter calls so you will can remain aware of what kinds
of jobs are being recruited for in your industry and what kinds of salaries they
are paying. You should learn to talk with the headhunter because perhaps you
can be helpful in recommending someone else for a position and thus further
build your network. You should build a rapport with several headhunters so that
when the time comes for you to decide to further your career, you will have
access to them because of your past attitude.The retained headhunter works on
specific, exclusive assignments so unless you take the call, you will never
hear about what might be the next best opportunity of your lifetime.
It may
take a few years for you to learn what you should do when the headhunter calls,
but the sooner you learn the better it will be for your career in the long run.
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