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[engineer_adrift]

Anyone had any luck with the Dean search companies, such as 'Academic Search?'

I'm looking at a position, but wondering what the role of the headhunter is with respect to the candidate.

Best
E_A

[sibyl]

Search firms serve colleges, not candidates.  They get paid when and if the college makes a hire.  The more candidates they know, the better the chances of leading the college to a hire.  So they may contact you, talk to you, send you job descriptions, and invite you to apply; they may even buy you a drink or a meal.  By all means, do the interviews, accept the food, and apply if you like the job.  If you see a search firm involved in hiring for a job that interests you, go ahead and apply; it's a good way to get your name in front of search firms, and sometimes they will end up giving you good advice.  But the firm doesn't work for you; a contact is no guarantee that you will get an interview, let alone a job. 

Good luck.

[sirkdn]

Headhunters are in the business to make money (obviously).  They make money by being able to run successful searches.  They are successful in searches if they bring a group of qualified candidates to a search committee - one of whom gets hired.  Thus, they want to have a "stable" of good people to display. 

While there is no guarantee that a contact will result in an interview, you have a better chance of getting an interview if you are part of their "stable".  As an aside, Academic Search is one of the "good ones" (IMHO) - while they were not involved in my current position, I worked with them before and they are a class act.

[mtnlover]

I think in today's tough financial times we would not use them to help keep costs down.  I look to our diversity office for guidance more than anything - if we have 20 candidates are they diverse enough to wrap up the search?  These companies don't know your field as well as you do  anyway - you know where to look for people.