Hang on, are you really a headhunter?
It might be wise not to be too rude to a financial headhunter scoping you out for a job in the GCC - it could be the bank itself in disguise.
EFG-Hermes, a Middle Eastern investment bank, has revealed that it has its own in-house team of headhunters, which it claims is both a cheaper and a safer option.
Declan Ball, global head of corporate human resources at EFG-Hermes, says: "Dubai is full of cowboys. People who call themselves headhunters should in fact be selling double glazing."
He claims that since the firm employed an in-house team of three headhunters last year, they have saved the company $908k.
And EFG-Hermes isn't the only one. Dubai Bank, which has re-invented itself as an Islamic bank and expanded rapidly since 2006, also has a team of internal headhunters.
Clearly there are hefty savings to be made. Costa Papadopoulas, human resources manager at Dubai Bank, says that the firm has employed 460 people through its internal headhunting team - in mainly retail roles - and has saved the company some AED2.4m ($653k).
Generally speaking, a headhunter will charge 33% of the candidate's salary at each stage of the recruitment process - taking on the mandate, conducting the search, and making the eventual appointment.
Ball says that the headhunting team at EFG-Hermes is currently looking for 46 roles: "It can be anything from executive committee members to PAs."
But what would sway a headhunter away from the notoriously lucrative exec search sector to work for a bank's HR department?
Ball says: "They want more responsibility on the corporate side. You can make a lot of money at a headhunter, but with our roles they have total control of management of talent, recruitment policy, requisition process, and they address the executive committee too. It's much more responsibility."
