Are you getting tired of the old grind? Longing for new career adventures, or just to step up the old corporate ladder? Then just register with one of several local recruitment websites and that exciting big job might come a-calling - literally.

Well, not quite, and professionals in the job search business would certainly not want to give anyone that impression. But it is a fact that recruitment companies, which have always been called on to go the extra mile in shortlisting candidates so their clients don’t have to, are using the Internet and their expanding private databases to match people with jobs. many of which might never be advertised in the newspaper.

According to Katrina Sam, a director of Caribbean Catalyst Inc., “We have been doing quite a lot of recruiting at the executive level, and we only advertise (in the press) if our client has the budget for it, or needs to reach the largest pool of people in the shortest possible time, or if we have exhausted our database.”

Ms. Sam says that anyone who thinks they’ve noticed a lot of ads for top level positions appearing in the newspapers in recent times is probably right. “We have been seeing a wave of executives retiring over the past 12 months and new people being recruited,” she points out noting the trend seemed to be nothing more than a “generational thing” and not planned expansions of businesses.

Peter Downes, managing director of Profiles Caribbean Inc., agrees that many of the top vacancies were probably due to retirement of the incumbent and says his company sees its role as an intermediary between the client and the candidate. It can be much more of a job than matching people on your database, or who reply to a published ad, with the potential employer.

“Our job is to sell the job to the candidate, and some may have questions which they might not want to put directly to the client,” he notes. The third party’s role is to “soften” the whole process of interaction between the two sides. “A lot of people are registering quietly on our website and we can call them” if they seem fitted to an opening, he notes. However, while the person might be interested in the job,  they might want to negotiate for a better package, and the intermediary can feel out the client to see if there is any room for manoeuvre.

Another reason why “search and selection” has grown in popularity, says Mr. Downes, is that putting an ad in the newspaper requires giving people time to apply, and if done directly by the prospective employer, can result in a large pile of applications arriving on the company’s doorstep, which must be processed, and some of which may have no relevance to the job advertised.

However, Mr Downes makes it clear that even the best intermediary can’t always close the deal by satisfying both candidate and client, “but we always say it’s not the qualifications that are the most important thing, it’s the fit.”

Finally, Ms. Sam notes that of all the people in the Caribbean, Barbadians are the ones least interested in going to another country in the region to take up a job.“In Barbados, we find that executives at a certain level don’t want to move around too much, except perhaps those in the finance area, like the CFOs.” She recalled one colleague telling her that “Bajans are like fine wine - they don’t travel well.” •