The best recruiters grow with their candidates; unfortunately, this happens rarely

After more interesting things have been taken out of the equation it's everyone's favourite fantasy: a recruiter who works with you throughout your career, who'll guide you from the darkest days of spreadsheet hell through to the joys of senior management, who knows what you want, and who won't dump you in a business run by an inadequate bully with pretensions to megalomania.

They do exist.

One of them is John Axworthy, head of the investment banking practice at Odgers Berndtson. "I've been placing corporate financiers for 17 years," says Axworthy. "There are people I placed in their first slot as newly qualified accountants and who I've more recently placed in positions running businesses."

However, finding a recruiter-turned-headhunter whose career progresses in line with yours is getting harder to do. Recruiters are switching sectors and falling by the wayside more frequently than they used to.

"If you stick to your market, you grow with your candidates," says another headhunter. "Unfortunately, market conditions have forced me to adapt and to move into new areas. I've done everything from M&A to structured credit and haven't had the consistency that allows you to work with one set of people."

As banks do their very best to fill junior positions in-house, recruiters are also being locked out of junior roles, preventing them from forming relationships with entry-level candidates.

Some headhunters overcome this by making time for associates even though they only place people at the senior end. "I often give advice to talented juniors," says Axworthy. "If an associate at a top investment bank sends me their CV, I will always meet them. It's important to identify the new blood that's coming through."

Rather than finding a single person to nurture you for 20 years as they themselves progress from contingency recruiter to fully-fledged-senior-search-professional, there may, therefore, be an alternative: start cultivating relationships with existing senior headhunters as early as you possibly can.