"As a head-hunter I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing my candidates do well and therefore my clients happy. I want to work with clients more as a partner than simply a head-hunter"
About this Quote
There is a small act of reputational jujitsu in Bennett's phrasing: he starts with the blunt, faintly predatory label "head-hunter", then immediately scrubs it with a human feeling - "satisfaction" - and a moral outcome - people "do well". The sentence is built like a value chain. Candidate success creates client happiness, and Bennett places himself not as a mercenary middleman but as the person who engineered a win-win. It's the language of care grafted onto the language of placement.
The subtext is defensive because the job's stereotype invites suspicion: headhunters skim, churn, and disappear. Bennett counters by foregrounding longevity and reciprocity. "Therefore" matters here; it implies he isn't merely closing deals but thinking in outcomes, as if performance and retention are his true product. That move also flatters both sides: candidates are framed as capable, clients as discerning, and Bennett as the grown-up in the room who can align incentives.
Then comes the pivot: "partner" versus "simply a head-hunter". It's a bid to upgrade status and reshape expectations. Partnership suggests shared risk, discretion, and strategy; "simply" concedes the transactional baseline while asking to be judged by a higher bar. Coming from an actor, it reads like a practiced reframe: take a role the audience mistrusts, rewrite the character, and sell the new story with calm sincerity. The intent isn't just to describe how he works; it's to pre-negotiate how he's perceived.
The subtext is defensive because the job's stereotype invites suspicion: headhunters skim, churn, and disappear. Bennett counters by foregrounding longevity and reciprocity. "Therefore" matters here; it implies he isn't merely closing deals but thinking in outcomes, as if performance and retention are his true product. That move also flatters both sides: candidates are framed as capable, clients as discerning, and Bennett as the grown-up in the room who can align incentives.
Then comes the pivot: "partner" versus "simply a head-hunter". It's a bid to upgrade status and reshape expectations. Partnership suggests shared risk, discretion, and strategy; "simply" concedes the transactional baseline while asking to be judged by a higher bar. Coming from an actor, it reads like a practiced reframe: take a role the audience mistrusts, rewrite the character, and sell the new story with calm sincerity. The intent isn't just to describe how he works; it's to pre-negotiate how he's perceived.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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