No Stupid Questions

My experiences with these kinds of headhunters has been "mixed", trending toward "poor". Most were useless. They would show up with "opportunities" then I'd never hear from them again. These people/companies typically, as I understand it, work "in bulk". They're just harvesting as many resumes as they can, throwing buckets of them at employers and hoping something sticks. They aren't really going to put any meaningful effort into helping you.

That said, a rare few have really stepped up. The last one I worked with back around 2012, really went out of his way to get me in with a company and secure me a good offer. So they do exist. But, in my experience at least, they are rare.

You're in a tricky position. You're looking for a relatively senior position. You'll be up against a fair amount of competition for somewhat rare roles with very specific requirements. There's just not going to be a ton of those director+ level roles out there at any given time. But don't give up and don't give up hope. Those recruiters do exist, as do those jobs. Good luck!

Not really. The problem is that headhunters earn a lot of money on their end and the market wouldn't bear having employees give months of their salary for job placement.

An external headhunter would probably be a better choice for what you want.

External recruiters often get paid more after you have been with a company for a year. Furthermore, both you and the employer have to accept the other (do remember, particularly after entry level, interviews go both ways).

They are fairly motivated to get you where you need to be.

Yes, but.

They can do certain things for you, like giving advice, or help you to brush up your resume.

But most of them don't go all the way for you, because that's not their business model: they make most of their money from "the other side".

There are more specific staffing agencies where I live, for finance, medical, IT. I actually had really good experience using those, my brother did too. Yes they try to fit the person to the job and vice versa, but that helped.

Its like the way realtors used to be. Keep in mind that ideally they want to connect the best fit for the job to the employer which is also good for the job hunter and although its up to the job hunter to only take adequate compensation it is in the interests of the employer to not lose employees due to low compensation (although im not sure if any employers are still doing those calculations). I was just thinking this is a good example of people who fear ai. If AI can't sift through and find the best employee for a position out of the posted online resumes then its not going to eat all the lunches.

Never had a good experience with headhunters, mainly the few I worked with used a bait and switch strategy. Get me hyped up for a vacancy then switch it to a different company which is shit. Maybe I was just working with the wrong people. I've had better success staying loyal to the company and working with internal recruiters.

Yes, that's how I got my current job. They polished my cv and contacted dozens of companies every week. I couldn't have done that nearly as efficiently.

Like an agent? Actors and sports players have them. People who get paid in the millions. So they can hire people to act on their behalf to get them work while they sip martinis by the pool.