Why Your Job Search Is Worth $50,000

How are you going to find that CMO job you really want? Follow the money.

You’re a C-level executive, probably a chief marketing officer. Or maybe you’re reading this website because you’re bucking for a CMO job.

You’d just love to have a headhunter find you that job, wouldn’t you? Of course you would because who wants to conduct their own job search? It’s a lot of trouble. It’s frustrating. Been there, done that, right? And job hunting is a process prone to failure. (This kind of thinking, by the way, is what career scammers rely on to take your money: “Executive Career Marketing: Is It Worth It?”)

But contrary to what most people believe, headhunters aren’t in business to find anyone a job. They’re paid by employers to find, steal, cajole, seduce the right people to take jobs with their clients. So their duty is to their clients who pay the bills—and that’s why they don’t return your calls.

If a headhunter does call you with a juicy opportunity, it’s because he found you through a series of trusted professional contacts, not because you reached out. And if he’s a really good headhunter, he probably did not find you on LinkedIn or any other job board. The $50,000 fee an employer pays a headhunter to fill a $150,000 job demands an actual search for the right candidate , not a lot of scrolling through databases and profiles.

So—how are you going to find that CMO job you really want?

Follow the money.

An employer can buy thousands of LinkedIn profiles for a few bucks. It can post a position on Indeed for even less. But at the C-level, an employer often goes to a headhunter and pays that huge aforementioned fee. That’s what filling that position is really worth to the employer.

So what are you doing to find that CMO job yourself? Follow the money. If you’re not investing in the vicinity of $50,000 to land that $150,000 position, headhunters who are will eat your lunch. They’ll make sure their candidates get those jobs—not you. They’re doing tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of work to earn that fee. Why aren’t you doing that kind of work yourself?

Now let’s get to the brass tacks. What does that $50,000 really represent? For example, what do headhunters who specialize in marketing management jobs do to earn fees like that?

Here’s a loose list of what goes on behind the scenes before a headhunter submits a candidate for the job you’re pursuing—and it’s why the headhunter’s candidate is likely to win while you lose.

• Headhunters know everyone that matters. (Do you?)
• The best headhunters devote years to cultivating relationships. (It’s far more than what you know as “networking”—those mercenary calls you desperately make to your “contacts” when you need a new job.)
• Headhunters attend industry and professional events all the time.
• They spend loads on airfare and gatherings where they’ll meet not only marketers (possible candidates), but CEOs who at some point will need to hire a CMO.
• They stay in touch with movers and shakers in a broad range of industries.
• When they read about some hot marketing project, they call the CMO at that company to ask about it. That’s how they make friends in marketing. It’s also how they land new clients and find candidates.
• They consume marketing publications ravenously—because that’s where the names of opinion makers in marketing are.
• They buy a lot of breakfasts and dinners, where they share information and gather intelligence.
• They go to the trouble to introduce marketers and other C-level executives to one another—because that makes a headhunter a hub of professional contacts that everyone wants to be in touch with.

Add up the value of all that activity and ask yourself, do you do $50,000 worth of work to be an insider that others turn to when it’s time to fill a CMO position? Because that’s how headhunters find candidates, and it’s how they learn about top positions long before they’re announced.

Now here’s the little nugget in this column. Read that list of what headhunters do again. There’s nothing in it that you can’t do for yourself to advance your career or to cultivate top marketers you will need to hire. There’s no mystery or magic in what headhunters do. It’s just good business.

Follow the money. The difference between a headhunter and you is about $50,000 worth of activity. The headhunter does the work to earn that fee—every day. If you don’t do it, too, the headhunter will fill that CMO job you want before you even know it’s available.

So what’s your job search really worth?

(For more insights about executive career moves, see “2015 Executive Jobs: It’s Time To Put Your Ear To The Ground.”)