How Do Top Executive Recruiters Locate Candidates? A Closer Look

On average, corporate job posts receive 250 resumes.

Sifting through hundreds of resumes is no easy task, and that’s part of the reason why many companies hire top executive recruiters. When you hire an executive recruiter for your company, you’re hiring someone with the expertise to locate qualified candidates.

How do top executive recruiters locate candidates? In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at the candidate location process.

Job Boards and Career Sites

While this certainly isn’t the only strategy executive recruiters use to find candidates, it’s a starting point. No matter what point people are at in their career, if they’re ready to switch jobs, they often start by checking out large career sites such as Indeed, Glassdoor, or Career Builder.

Often, executive recruitment agencies will create job postings on these sites to find the right candidate.

LinkedIn is one of the most popular recruiting tools of our day. Executive recruiters will set up recruiter accounts on the site to search for candidates based on their job title, work history, or education.

One of the biggest advantages of LinkedIn is that it allows executive recruiters to find candidates who would otherwise be impossible to locate, as they aren’t actively looking for jobs. Additionally, LinkedIn allows recruiters to reach out to candidates and craft personalized messages to get them interested in the job.

Networking

Executive recruiters will also tap into their current peer network to find job candidates. If a recruiter has been in the business for a while, chances are, they already have a strong network of contacts they can reach out to.

Additionally, recruiters will hit the pavement and attend conferences, job fairs, meet-ups, and other industry networking events to find the right candidates. Specific industry-related networking opportunities tend to be the best, as they allow recruiters to make a face-to-face impression with highly-qualified candidates.

In addition to networking with active job seekers, recruiters will also attend these events to meet professionals in the industry they staff for. This way, they can continue to build connections, and they’ll have people to reach out to in the future when the right job opportunity arises.

Networking events are also a chance for recruiters to learn more about positions in the field they hire for.

Employee Referrals

Executive recruiters will also take into account employee referrals to find candidates. Referrals tend to be strong candidates, as they’re reliable and skilled enough that someone will vouch for them.

Even if you’re hiring for an executive position, employee referrals can come from any level of the organization.

Top Executive Recruiters: Time to Act

As you can see, top executive recruiters employ a variety of methods to find the right candidates. A lot of time and energy goes into finding the right candidate for an executive-level position, which is why many companies outsource their executive recruiting needs.

To learn more about recruiting at the executive level, check back in with our blog.