Headhunter

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈhɛdˌhʌntɚ/

Definitions

1. A recruiter who actively searches for and engages professionals to fill job vacancies An expert in locating and recommending qualified candidates for various employment roles A person who scouts talent and facilitates the hiring process between job seekers and employers
2. A professional who seeks out suitable individuals to fill specific employment roles ; a person who hunts other humans typically as a killer for hire or in combat
3. Someone who locates and persuades qualified people for job positions ; an individual engaged in tracking and taking down human targets

Etymology: "Headhunter" is a compound of "head" and "hunter," and the sense that matters most is the one that was already present in its parts: the older meaning was literal. A headhunter was someone who hunted people in order to take their heads, as with the head-taking raiders of Borneo and other parts of Southeast Asia, and the word is still used in that sense for those traditions. The job-recruiter sense is a later development built on the same image. The idea is that a recruiter goes out and seeks out a particular person, often one already in a job, and pursues them for a position, much as a hunter tracks prey. The metaphor is an aggressive one, and it is probably why the term carries a faintly predatory tone even in its ordinary business use.

Synonyms: recruiter, talent scout