▲ Photographed by Choi Jiyoung

A man who appears to be in his 50s goes to work in the morning with a slight smile on his face. Nowadays, when it is hard to be employed even for young job seekers, he has obtained a new job thanks to a headhunter.

For some people, a headhunter might be an unfamiliar job because it is somewhat difficult to infer what a headhunter does from the name itself. In the midst of overall unemployment, a number of potential employees have difficulty finding a job. However, a lot of employers make considerable efforts to find an appropriate employee, especially for CEO (Chief Executive Officer), CFO (Chief Financial Officer), or other positions which are difficult to fill through open recruitment. At this moment, a headhunter, or recruiter, recommends the right man to the employer. Being curious about this job, The Granite Tower (GT) met Kim Sang Hyun (59, Seoul), a headhunter specialized in financial fields.

The main duty of a headhunter is to recommend the proper employee to an employer. Kim said, “We start the task when a firm requests us to find the right person. Based on its job description, we find the person from our broad database, personal network, and other various channels.” Nearly 99 percent of their target employees are experienced professionals. Supply of new recruits is already saturated through open recruitment. The competition is so high that they have to come through a competition of more than 100 to 1 to get the job. However, both demand and supply of experienced professionals are few and not specific for employers and employees. Thus, headhunters do not need to enter the market of new recruits, but experienced ones.

Sometimes there can be complaints over whom a headhunter recommends. Being successful at work is not only dependent on the employee’s capacity but also the distinctive environment or atmosphere of each company. Even though a potential employee had worked excellently in his or her previous job, he or she might not adapt to the work well, leading to dissatisfaction of both the employer and the employee. In that case, there is a guarantee period in which a headhunter replaces the worker with another person within six months after the recommendation. Kim added, “Even after six months, I often feel morally responsible for it when both sides are dissatisfied, so I often voluntarily replace them for free.”

For Kim, becoming a headhunter was not the original or ultimate goal of her life. She had worked in the financial field for about 30 years. During the six months after retirement, she contemplated what she could do for the rest of her life, and looked back on her career. Kim recalled that, “I realized that I have frequently matched suitable employers and employees among my acquaintances throughout my career. Most of the recommendations have been successful, so I decided that headhunting is the proper new job for me.”

Most headhunters start their career based on enough experience in a certain field, just like Kim. Prior experience helps the headhunters discover a talent from an extensive human network. They can also easily be aware of what specialized qualifications are required for the certain position of each firm. Besides, the right people described by companies are different from each other. It is hard to properly catch such things without actual experience in that field. Not all headhunters, however, are experienced people in the field. Some people have their first job as a headhunter without any field experience. They are recruited and then get some training to be a headhunter. Kim suggested, however, “Such people’s career is somewhat limited. Previous experience in the field is so helpful that inexperienced headhunters could be at a disadvantage due to lack of experience.”

According to Kim, there are some required capabilities to be a headhunter. As mentioned, discovering proper employees for the right position, and experience during a certain period are important. More fundamentally, respect for people is the most crucial point; headhunters must not consider humans as a kind of commercial product, but as human themselves. In the long-term perspective, a relationship between a headhunter and an employee is not a one-off interaction. It can be a continuing rapport based on sincere communication.

Headhunters usually feel achievement from both satisfied employers and employees. Kim mentioned, “A few years ago, I met a young man who sought an appropriate job. Even though he was young, and had little experience in the financial field, I recommended him to a firm having requested an old, experienced person. At first, the firm declined my proposal but finally accepted due to my confidently continuous recommendation. Eventually, the firm acknowledges his quality with full recognition, and he is satisfied as well.”

This is one of the best experiences she had, for one more reason. Kim continued, “Even after the transaction, he has often visited my office and tried to get some consulting from me based on our deep relationship. This is valuable because I put importance on it as a qualification of headhunters.”

Being a headhunter is not always interesting but often challenging. Kim said that though she had enough field experience, the trend is always changing, with diverse emerging products. For instance, risk management has been a popular area after the Korean IMF (International Monetary Fund) crisis in 1997. It is somewhat difficult to catch up with fast-changing times.

Despite such challenges, a headhunter is a socially beneficial job in that it alleviates severance of employment of highly educated professionals. Employment of such professionals is not open recruitment so it is hard to obtain information from the perspective of job seekers. Finding proper people for the proper position is the socially meaningful duty of headhunters.

Toward many undergraduates hoping to become headhunters, Kim delivered a message. Kim mentioned, “Some young people often blindly envy headhunters in that they can earn hundreds of millions of won by transferring high-quality human resources from one firm to another firm. However, they had better consider what they really want to be fundamentally. Also, it is important to contemplate whether they have the required talent to be a headhunter. After this reflection, and with enough field experience, everyone can potentially be an excellent headhunter.”