You may not believe it, but you may have indirectly given me an interview. My first replies to you had a somewhat sceptical tone towards brandbulding, and although I had heard of LinkedIn, I thought of is as a kind of mixture of Facebook and a job board – doesn’t sound good? Well, I decided to give it a try, nothing to loose (although I live in Scandinavia, not the US), found some old study mates whose contacts were othe more distant study mates, and one of them worked at a company that I had forgotten, but which now is hiring. Did quite a bit of studying on the company, its portfolio etc, called them, discussed their business and my qualifications and am likely going there for an interview next week. Although this was an advertised position, I am quite sure was able to get so far because I took the time to my homework on the company.

So, I hereby officially reconsider LinkedIn!

You also make good points about headhunters. While a headhunter is paid by the client company, the headhunter’s equity lies in the professional community from which he or she recruits. It’s why I lay into headhunters so hard about how they treat the people they recruit. (It’s no surprise that HR departments are guilty of the same thing.) I wonder what would happen if LinkedIn and other online databases didn’t exist. Would headhunters be more respectful, because it would not be so easy (low cost of entry, as you put it) to find?

One thing I disagree with: **The recruiting fee is an expense that directly impacts a successful candidate’s remuneration.**

Not true. Headhunting budgets are almost always part of HR, not the hiring manager’s budget. Consider your logic: We could say that any company that has an HR department that does it’s own recruiting “directly impacts a successful candidate’s remuneration.” It’s all overhead. Of course, if HR departments knew what they were doing when recruiting, such costs would be a lot lower.

In “How to Work with Headhunters” I expose how most headhunters operate. They are simply not worth working with. Job hunters will complain about how they are treated. But what matters is knowing how to work with headhunters, because they’re not going to explain it to you.

As for **I don’t believe headhunters or recruiters should be gleaning résumés off LinkedIn or any other social networking site uninvited.** … I don’t know one social networking site that even pretends to dissuade headhunters from using them. That’s why there are so many “garbage queries” connected to such sites.

There’s nothing wrong with scanning the online job ads once in awhile, just as long as you bypass HR’s automated tracking system (ATS) to locate the person in charge (again, LinkedIn and Facebook can help you with this).

Have a great Thanksgiving!

I strongly urge you to sign up on LinkedIn. In North America, it is the current business networking site, as opposed to Facebook, which people do use for business but is more for family and friends (with a cloudy reputation).

Nick is not going to like what I say next.

Through LinkedIn you can also join professional groups. Great connections are established through interacting with group members. Also great jobs are advertised through those groups of likeminded people.

I landed a gig very recently that way: no need to send bs tweaked résumés into virtual black holes, no bs panel or multi interviews with ridiculous questions, no need for recruiters or headhunters.

There is a proviso. You have to work your LinkedIn and other connections. In the meantime, for a while, job boards and job ads are still around, and there are, of course, headhunters and recruiters. Note I said, “for a while.” It is predicted that within a decade all job boards will be gone. Job searching will be an interactive activity through social networks. For that reason, alone, it is a smart thing to start getting connected sooner than later.

In answer to Nick’s question about which headhunter is doing the better job, I don’t believe headhunters or recruiters should be gleaning résumés off LinkedIn or any other social networking site uninvited.

I am not saying don’t work with headhunters or recruiters. If they produce results, by all means work with them.

That industry is suffering hugely right now. In my view it is in such trouble for five reasons: (1) Recession. (2) Low barrier to entry and fierce competition. (3) Structural and technical revolution. (4) Poor results for candidates. (5) Refusal to view candidates as clients.

With respect to the fifth reason, without candidates, headhunters and recruiters would not be in business. The recruiting fee is an expense that directly impacts a successful candidate’s remuneration. How can candidates be viewed as anything other than as clients, along with the employing companies?

I am no different from anyone else, so thousands/millions of others must feel the same way. I cringe when I see the explicit distinction between clients and candidates on headhunting and recruiting sites when it is the placement of the candidates that pays their mortgage, etc. I doubly cringe when I see instructions on how clients can contact them and instructions for candidates not to contact them. When they treat their candidates that way, they don’t deserve any business.

The question shouldn’t be how candidates should work with headhunters, it should be how headhunters should work with candidates. “Candidates” (executive and otherwise) need headhunters and recruiters less and less, so if headhunters and recruiters want to stay in business, they must offer extraordinary value. As Bill Gates once said, if middlemen fail to offer outstanding extra value in a wired world, then there is no need for them.