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Industry Reports16 min readMarch 1, 2024

Best Headhunters for Tech: How FAANG and Startups Find Their Next Leaders

S

Sarah Chen

Head of Tech Recruiting

Tech Executive Search: From FAANG to Startups

Technology executive search is the most competitive recruiting vertical in existence. The top tech leaders receive 50+ recruiter messages per week. They ignore 95% of them. The other 5% come from headhunters who have already earned their trust through years of relationship building. This is why choosing the right tech headhunter is not just important - it's existential for your hiring success. The wrong headhunter gets ignored. The right one gets their calls returned. What separates elite tech headhunters from the rest: - Technical credibility: They can discuss system design, architecture tradeoffs, and engineering culture with candidates as peers - Network depth: They have genuine relationships with executives at Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Stripe, and top startups - Market intelligence: They know who's about to leave their current role, who's unhappy with a recent reorg, and who's looking for their next challenge - Speed: They can present qualified candidates within 5-7 days because they maintain warm relationships, not just a database - Discretion: Many tech executive searches are confidential replacements or new positions. A trustworthy headhunter protects both client and candidate confidentiality absolutely

Matching Tech Headhunters to Your Needs

The tech headhunter landscape is vast. Here's how to narrow your search: By company stage: Early-stage headhunters source builder-operators who can code AND lead. Growth-stage headhunters find scaling experts. Enterprise headhunters source executives comfortable with bureaucracy and organizational complexity. By function: Engineering headhunters are different from product headhunters, who are different from go-to-market headhunters. Don't use a sales recruiting firm for your VP Engineering search, even if they claim to "do tech." By geography: Tech talent pools vary dramatically by location. Silicon Valley, New York, London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Bangalore, and Singapore each have distinct talent ecosystems. Your headhunter should have deep presence in your target geography. By technology stack: A headhunter who specializes in cloud infrastructure hiring may not be the right choice for a mobile-first company. Match the headhunter's technical network to your technology domain. HireHunter's tech vertical is our largest, with 150+ specialized tech headhunters across every sub-sector, function, stage, and geography. Our platform shows you each headhunter's specific strengths so you make the right match.

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