The most common way that companies hire is through referrals. The New York Times stated in an article that “the referred candidates had a 40 percent better chance of being hired than other applicants.” The site LinkedIn has allowed companies to look up multiple referrals through the internet; without even contacting another person. It has become the new hiring landscape for many businesses. LinkedIn has digitally replaced the tasks provided by headhunters. Headhunters can also be extremely expensive for companies; so cutting this cost is beneficial and headhunters even use LinkedIn too.

However, now headhunters have another job; their roles have switched to become more exclusive and expensive. Headhunters wouldn’t still be in existence if LinkedIn took over all of the recruiting efforts. Most of the time the applicants that the distinguished companies are looking for already have jobs and aren’t even searching for another position. One interview with Dan Martineau, conducted by the Business Insider stated, “Most of the time – probably 85 percent- we recruit people who don’t want to leave their jobs.” All the different sites that are currently available are simply tools for the recruiting process. Recruiting still relies on some sort of human interaction and building relationships; companies need to take advantage of that. The reason why some companies still pay the high cost of headhunters is because they can provide results that LinkedIn can not.