Abstract
Executive Search or Headhunting is defined as an activity provided by specialized human resource advisors which aims to find the best suited candidate for a senior job vacancy in a company. The executive search firms are looking specifically for high-skilled employees to attract staff to change their company. In order to achieve their goals, executive search firms need to have a profound knowledge of the sector they are recruiting from. Besides that, it is essential that an executive recruiter has a reliable network of contacts in the field as well as psychological knowledge of individual motivations or career interests of the candidates. Executive search had its origins in the United States in the 1940s as an offshoot of the large management consultancies Booz Allen & Hamilton and McKinsey & Co. Based on their strategic analysis, the key issues of staffing and implementation became an important opportunity area for these firms and the executive search industry was born. But it should not be until the early 1960s that an American executive search firm opened its first branch office in London. The first European executive search firm was founded in 1964 by Egon Zehnder in Zurich.
