Headhunter

A headhunter is an external recruiter, also called an executive search consultant, who is paid by an employer to locate and persuade qualified professionals to consider a specific job. The term is most often used for searches targeting senior management, technical specialists, or hard-to-fill positions where the best candidates are not actively job-hunting.

Headhunters typically operate in one of two commercial models:

• Retained search: the client pays a fee (commonly around one-third of the role's first-year compensation) in installments regardless of outcome. This model dominates C-suite and board searches.
• Contingency search: the recruiter is paid only if their candidate is hired. This is more common for mid-level roles.

The industry includes large global firms such as Korn Ferry, Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles, Egon Zehnder, and Russell Reynolds Associates—sometimes called the "SHREK" group—alongside thousands of boutique and sector-specialist firms. In the policy and international affairs world, headhunters help think tanks, multilateral organizations, NGOs, and government-relations firms recruit directors, fellows, and senior analysts.

For early-career researchers and MUN alumni, it is useful to understand that headhunters work for the hiring organization, not for the candidate. They are paid to find a match for a specific brief, so they will not market a generalist CV broadly. Building a relationship still matters: recruiters maintain long-running databases, and a candidate who is not right for today's role may be contacted years later for a better-fitting one.

Headhunters also play a quiet role in policy circulation—moving senior staff between governments, international organizations, consultancies, and the private sector—which contributes to the so-called revolving door phenomenon. Ethical search firms follow professional codes such as those of the AESC (Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants, founded 1959), which sets standards on confidentiality, off-limits agreements, and candidate treatment.