Unsolicited headhunting certainly indicates a high point in the business cycle. The question is, how long will the current high last and how long and intense will the next (inevitable) downtown be? My last boss fancied himself as an expert market-timer. About 5 years ago, he laid off 15% of his staff because he thought a downturn was imminent and he needed to "get out ahead of it". The firm quickly had to refill all of those vacancies.

^ ^ what. the. fuck.

We're working with 2 recruiting firms now, because we've been unable to fill a couple specialized positions for almost a year now. We've tried the usual networking and advertising, but in a smaller city we've realized there's nobody already local who can fit the roles - at least nobody who can be bought away from their current positions, and we're not turning up a lot of interest in trying to relocate any known connections - so what else to do? 

"so what else to do?" 

Offer better pay and benefits until you can entice someone away from their current position. Or train someone you already have on staff and find someone to replace them in their current position.

The pay is the best for this position in this region - and certainly we recognize that we may need to go higher based on the scarcity of the expertise. There are no current staff in the firm who have the level of experience in the particular skills we're seeking. The previous people in these jobs both retired, and in hindsight we should have started 10 years ago in developing people to fill the roles.

I have seen the best luck with employee referral bonuses. 10K if you provide a referral that we hire. You can split it with the employee or keep it for yourself. It motivates our staff to help in the search, often courting employees from competitors, it can be a sort of signing bonus, and you find people your current employees trust and want to work with. But we are in a bigger market that might not work in a small town.

Bloopox, asking out of curiosity rather than criticism, what roles are you trying to fill that take 10 years to develop someone to fill them? Specifier comes to mind, but with competent supervision I think a good firm could train a full-time specifier enough to get by on most projects in a year or two. Maybe 5 years before they would feel confident on large complex projects. Finding that person willing to do it full time though, that would be a challenge. 

How did your firm not plan ahead enough for these people's retirements if it really is going to take 10 years to develop someone into that role? If that's the case it seems like you would always want one person (probably more like 2 or 3) developing those skills so you've got some backup if someone quits or something.

We did plan ahead, but then we had to let go of a whole tier of up-and-coming mid-level people a few years ago (somewhat post-recession), and those we'd like back left the region and aren't interested in returning. So it left a gap. Yes one of the positions is a specifier, and the other is a specialist in a type of work we do. I don't think the specialization necessarily takes 10 years but it's also a CA field role and we don't put people less experienced in those. The goal now is to find someone with the CA experience and train them in the specialty.

They don't get a cut of your salary, right? But what they're paid is based on your salary, yes.

do they not, indirectly, get a cut of the salary since the employer is likely to ding the initial salary offer to accommodate for the recruiters' cut?

The employer isn't really likely to ding the salary, at least not if the recruiter is any good as a negotiator. It's in recruiters' best interests to push hard for as high a salary as possible for you, because their fee is usually based on a percent. As I described above, by the time my firm involves recruiters we're very interested in getting a good candidate in the position quickly, and we've already exhausted other methods - and they know that. If they bring us a good candidate, they know they've got someone we want and they're going to try hard to bump that person's salary as high as possible - and they know we're probably not going to pass on that candidate just because of the recruiter's one-time 15% or 20% cut.

If you're something like an expert on a certain specialized type of project, or a good spec writer with 20 years of experience, then it can be in everyone's best interest to involve a recruiter.  But if you're someone more entry-level and interchangeable then you should worry a little about why that firm needs to use a recruiter and is so willing to pay that fee.

Interesting pov Bloop. I recall another member here mentioning the salary deduction a while back.

Dinging salaries seems stupid. If a company is using a headhunter then the company really wants to hire, and the person applying knows the company is a little desperate, so they have no reason to take the job at less than it's worth. Heck they might not have any reason to take the job unless it's offered at more than it's worth. The company can't pretend it's got a line of better qualified candidates snaking around the block or that it's just interviewing to see who's out there. If using a headhunter meant you'd routinely be offered a lower salary then only very bad candidates would ever work with one in the first place and then employers wouldn't work with headhunters because they'd know they'd only get bad employees.

I think the only thing recruiters are good for is finding someone fast. It is the only place your interests naturally align. things like fees based on salary and fees collected over continuous employment are just tools to help improve quality application. every time i have used a recruiter we have seen junk. Foreign nationals, people from across the country, odd neurotic behavior, people who burned bridges or don't know how to network. Xenakis.

So yeah I think it's common to cut the comp to cover the headhunter and have low expectations. It's like tinder. A great service to find someone to screw but not
your soul mate.