🕵️ To recruit directly 🕵️ A talent search 🗡️ To take heads

headhunt

6.7

Looking for and hiring a skilled person for a senior job

noun
/ˈhɛdˌhʌnt/

: caza de talentos

The company decided to initiate a headhunt to fill the vacant management positions.

Examples

During the annual conference, several headhunt firms showcased their strategies for recruiting top talent.
Some seem to feel that agencies are still on the cutting edge, especially search/headhunt agencies.

Blog text (26)
He found these chores an oddly satisfying way of passing the time while the headhunt went on.

Fiction book (1991)
The organization's latest headhunt aimed to attract experts in renewable energy technologies.

Synonyms

vsheadhunt

∞ 1.0

An act of looking for something or someone

is specifically about actively recruiting people not general searching

hiring process

vsheadhunt

6 2.5

A set of steps a company uses to choose new workers

focuses on one proactive act of finding and hiring senior specialists

headhunting

vsheadhunt

1 4.0

Searching for and recruiting very skilled people for important jobs like managers or executives

is the same activity but named in base verb form

How Active

poaching

Jargon

7 6.3

headhunt

6.7

recruitment

70 3.0

want ad

9 2.9

Surface Forms

headhunt singular

headhunts plural

Morphology

headhunt = head + hunt (semi-transparent) = head + hunt

The components 'head' + 'hunt' are recognizable, but the specialized metaphorical meaning 'search for qualified people' is an industry-specific extension rather than a purely literal compound.

Etymology

Headhunt comes from the simple image of head + hunt: imagine 'hunting' for the best 'head' or leader. So a headhunt is a planned search to find and hire a top person for a job.