UP FRONT: THE BRAIN DRAIN

A TRACKER TO HELP HUNT HEADHUNTERS

    With CEOs biting the dust at a relentless pace, good help is getting hard to find. Worse yet, companies must sort through and choose from hundreds of executive-level search firms to help fill those spots

    Enter the Internet. Businesses from fish markets to auto-parts makers already have online buying sites. Now it’s the headhunters’ turn. Recruiterlink.com, started by consultant Hunt-Scanlon Advisors of Stamford, Conn., offers a database of 400 executive headhunters, from major players like Korn/Ferry and Heidrick & Struggles to the boutique recruiters. All fill jobs with annual pay of $125,000 and up. The searcher plugs in the specialty, geographic specifications, and other criteria to locate the ideal recruiter, whose fees, ground rules and recent assignments are constantly updated. Recruiters pay Hunt-Scanlon a $500-a-year fee.

    Even a headhunter of the magnitude of Heidrick's Gerry Roche, who nabbed Lou Gerstner for IBM, for one, endorses Recruiterlink: “Ultimately, it's face-to-face and flesh-pressing. But this helps get us to that point.” Which is, of course, key to the power of the Net.

Joan Oleck
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