GUEST COMMENT: Do headhunters really hunt?

Before I joined banking, I had no idea what a head-hunter was or how to deal with one.

At university, I was told that what should concern me the most was getting onto a banking graduate program in the first place. Then once I had done the time - maybe in ten years - I would get a secretive call from a headhunter promising me a plush corner office.

Little did I know that six months into my career I'd be deluged by calls from recruitment 'consultants' telling me I had enough experience to move on. The fact that I hadn't really grasped investment banking didn't seem to be an issue.

A few years' on and I do now have the requisite experience, but I still have my doubts about the recruitment consultants who continue to plague me with calls. All too many times they don't really seem to know much about the position they're recruiting for; nor do they really understand my experience or what I have to offer.

Rather than assisting me in finding a position that suits my skills and aspirations, most recruiters operate a 'bums on seats' approach, in which all that's important is the commission that goes into their pockets.

It's also curious that even after speaking to these same headhunters for months on end, whenever I call their office I still have spell my name and they still can't remember what my experience is. Don't get me wrong - I'm not expecting my ego to be massaged, but after I've spoken to you on the phone every day for the past week, I would expect a flicker of recognition.

Instead, that 30 second initial awkwardness on the phone, as the headhunter frantically searches for your details on their database, makes me question how much they really care about the people they place and where they place them? How refined really is their approach to really placing the right people in the right jobs?

The first time I was placed in a new role by a headhunter, I received a call from him four months later. He said he'd found me the perfect opportunity. Once I'd explained that he had placed me in my current role and I was still an infant finding my way in the new firm, he proceeded to tell me that the company no longer had the same vision they had four months previously, and that this new company would be what I really wanted!

Joshua Blackburn is a pseudonym