How To Make The Most Out of a Headhunter Agency

In this article, we'll share insider tips on how to maximize your Shepherd experience — from the things you can prepare to shorten the timeline to insightful questions that’ll lead you to the perfect candidate.

Ready to make the most out of a headhunter agency? Here’s what you need to know:

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First, know how a headhunter agency works

Being familiar with the agency’s hiring process — as well as its scope and capabilities — allows you to unlock a ton of benefits. It also helps you set the right expectations.

For example, a headhunter agency like Shepherd is different from a business process outsourcing (BPO) company. We don’t charge monthly fees or manage talent — we simply find the best candidates that fit your hiring needs. We’re a great choice if you’re looking to nix the middleman and fully integrate remote Filipino assistants into your company.

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Here's a refresher on our hiring process:

1. Let us know about the positions you’re hiring for by sending us a message. Once we iron out the details, we’ll assign a project manager who will be your point of contact throughout the search process.

2. Next, we’ll kick off a search. Our talent scouts will find, screen, and test candidates based on the job description.

3. We’ll then present a shortlist of candidates. You can schedule an interview to get to know each applicant better.

4. Pick the best one for the job. Once you hire the candidate, we’ll hand the relationship over to you. You can then integrate your new assistant into your team.

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Learn more: The benefits of using a headhunter agency

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Be clear on the positions you’re hiring for

Here’s a common dilemma among business owners: they know they need to outsource tasks, but they’re not sure if they need to hire a general VA or a specialist.

Sounds familiar?

Unfortunately, having only the vaguest idea of who you need to hire can delay the search process. Our talent scouts are pretty good at finding top Filipino talent, but even their superpowers won’t be enough if they don’t know what they’re looking for.

“It’s vital that you know what you need and want for the role,” shares Chanel, one of our client relationship coordinators.

The good news is it’s easy to solve this problem. To determine the right person for the job, zero in on the tasks that you should be delegating.

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Here’s what you can do:

• List down all of the tasks that you do in a week.
• Review the tasks and ask yourself: which ones can be delegated to someone else?
• Once you’ve narrowed your list down, see if you can find a theme.

If the tasks fall under a certain skill category like accounting, marketing, or operations, hire a specialist for the job. But if you need help with administrative, clerical, or just day-to-day tasks, then a general virtual assistant is your best bet.

Once you’re clear about the positions you’re hiring for, the next steps will be much smoother!

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Learn more: What tasks should you delegate?

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Use this guide to create a detailed job description

Another way to maximize the headhunter agency experience is to prepare a comprehensive job description before kicking off a project.

A job description is a document that outlines the position you’re hiring for, the roles and responsibilities, as well as the ideal candidate’s qualifications.

It’s essential that you make your job descriptions as detailed as possible. “Don’t be vague about it,” shares Kla, one of our client relationship managers.

“Knowing your negotiables and non-negotiables will really help shorten the timeline.”

Not sure how to create a perfect job description? Here’s a guide to help you create a comprehensive job description that will attract the right candidates to the job.

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CHEAT CODE

If you’re still having trouble putting together a job description, our team will be more than happy to assist you! We’ve got lots of templates that you can use.

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PRO TIP

According to Kla, offering competitive benefits is a great way to attract candidates. Make sure to include the benefits you’re willing to offer when making your job description!

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Related: What benefits can you offer remote Filipino employees?

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Let our project managers know about your availability

Our team will be working closely with you throughout the hiring process. To make sure that everything runs smoothly and that they can always reach you when needed, let them know about your preferred meeting times and availability from the get-go.

For example, if you don’t like taking meetings before 10am or prefer to have interviews after lunch, let them know. Since the applicants are based in the Philippines, it’s also helpful to indicate your US timezone to make sure our calendars are synced!

At the same time, our team will also do their best to respond to your inquiries as quickly and efficiently as possible.

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Find the best match with these insightful interview questions

What’s the key to finding the best match? Aside from the candidate’s skills and experience, Kla mentions that checking the potential hire’s behavior can help you find a good match.

Interviews are a great way to gauge candidate behavior. Video calls allow you to observe an applicant’s communication skills, body language, and overall personality — things that you can’t really assess just by looking at a resume.

Now, the interviews are only as good as your questions, so make them count! The following questions can help you uncover a lot of insights from prospective hires.

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Try some of these questions on your next interview:

• What can you tell me about yourself? Something that's not on your resume.
• How would you describe a typical day in your life?
• What led you to apply for this role and what do you know about it?
• What are your areas of expertise?
• When are you available for work?
• What tools or resources do you use to perform your job effectively?
• Can you provide some examples of people you've worked with and how they would rate your performance on a scale of 1-10?
• What are your strengths as a VA?
• What are some challenges or tasks that you're not comfortable with or not very good at?
• Can you share a specific example of a difficult problem you've faced and how you approached it to find a solution?

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Learn more: Interview best practices and tips

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Be ready to answer applicant questions, too

An interview is a two-way street. Applicants who ask questions during the interview are usually more invested in the role, so keep an eye out for them.

Answering applicant questions is also a great opportunity to clarify important details that you might’ve missed in the job description, such as:

• Your preferred work style
• The time zone
• Your holiday and leave policies
• Your meeting cadence
• Rate negotiations, if any
• How often they’ll get paid —
• — and the payment channels you use

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Use Shepherd to find unique or senior roles

Filling highly technical or niche positions can be a headache if you’re using generic job boards. It’s hard to find people with the right skills or experience when you’re casting a wide net.

You won’t encounter that problem with Shepherd. Since we use professional talent scouts, we can present a list of hand-picked candidates that meet your specifications. Over the past couple of years, we’ve helped clients hire a bunch of unique and hard-to-fill roles like keto coaches, experienced architectural drafters, and software developers.

Another great use case for Shepherd is hiring leadership roles. Our thorough process ensures that you only get candidates with years of practical experience. Use this to your advantage and hire leadership roles like operations managers, call center operators, and in-house recruitment heads.

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Check it out: 12 unique roles we’ve hired for our clients

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Trust the process

Our vetting process can take anywhere between 2-3 weeks. During this time, each candidate will go through a rigorous screening process that involves the following steps:

• resume screening and review
• online grammar and reading comprehension assessment
• skills assessments
• background checks

We've had a couple of years to fine-tune our processes. While it's far from being perfect, it's also helped us hire more than 1,000 Filipino talents — and serve a bevy of satisfied clients.

Here's what some of them have to say:

"Trust the Shepherd process," Chanel advises. "We only want to provide quality candidates for you."

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Hit the ground running with a solid onboarding process

After the waiting period, the hiring process can wrap up pretty quickly. Avoid getting caught off-guard by preparing a solid onboarding process.

Here’s what you need to prep:

• Your SOPs. These are essentially “user guides” that show new team members how to do specific tasks within your company. Getting your assistant up to speed will be much smoother and faster when you have SOPs ready.

• Your info and preferences doc. As the name suggests, this document is a personal dossier that contains important personal info like your email addresses, your preferred calendars, meeting times, and VIPs.

• Your expectations. Onboarding and training your new team member can take at least a week. Be mentally prepared for the challenge! One of the most common mistakes we see founders make is falling into the “it’s faster if I do it myself” trap. Steer clear of that. Instead, try to be patient and carve out time to train your assistant today, so you can save a lot more time later.

Wanna learn more about remote employee onboarding? Cop this tried-and-tested guide.

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Make the most out of your Shepherd experience

And there you have it: 9 ways to make the most out of your Shepherd experience. We know that using a headhunter agency to hire Filipino talent isn't super common, so we hope that you found this useful and informative. Don't forget to use these tips to make your next search faster and easier!

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FAQs about using a headhunter agency to hire remote Filipino staff

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