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I am looking for some suggestions.

A friend of mine is looking for an IT job.

But it's not the kind of resume that one would put out
on Dice or Monster. 

My friend is an expert in a particular type of
engineering software.  He's not just in the top ten
in this particular niche, he's probably the only one
who has actually mastered this particular problem space
and come up with innovative solutions.  It's very
critical software in that particular industry. 

Just naming the actual type of software in a public
forum would be outing this person to the current employer.
No name would be needed.

There are maybe three large well-known companies in the
world that would want that expertise, and my friend wants
to target one particular company.  But this person is
definitely not going to send a letter to HR. 

My question is -- Are there any specialty recruiters out
there that can tackle this type of placement?  To target a
specific company and find that particular manager with the
ability to understand this skillset?  It would probably be
a big payday for the headhunter.....

Are there any real high-end IT recruiters out there?

Ideally, your friend should have contacts inside of that company that he can use.

But I question the premise.  If he is really that good, and they have a big need, it seems the would have contacted him by now.  Perhaps he needs to become more public to get poached?

You're not looking for an IT headhunter. You're looking for a firm that finds senior executives, like managers of 200-strong business divisions and above.

If your fried is really as special as you claim, then his pay packet should be at a similar level as that of a senior executive. That is, $180,000 to $1 million.

Firms that find senior executives don't work on margins like IT firms. They require upfront payments from the employer, usually, after which they conduct a search and do interviews.

If your friend really wants to find a new job, such a firm would be suitable to diplomatically sound out the likely employers. But he would have to cough up a search fee of $20,000 in advance.

I'll assume your friend is an expert in annealing algorithms and holds key patents.

I agree he needs a contact inside the company. This is very hard to deal with without being outted. You have to already know the other person so you can trust them not to out you, or decide you are 'untrustworthy'. Has he published articles on his research? That can help a lot because he can expect to get inquiries from the other 2 companies after writing the article. They will write "Great article. Give me a call if you are ever on the market." and enclose a business card.

Maybe he knows other engineers at Company Y through mailing lists? If so, he could email or call and say "I'm coming to Minneapolis on the 3nd - let's get together for a beer!"
 
The current situation where he's looking to make a quick change is not ideal. It would be better to have prepared a couple years in advance for this so that one could use contacts.

This is also a good lesson to everyone how important it is to maintain professional relationships with those in one's field, whether you think you are a sociable person or not.

If the target is that specific, your friend should hit LinkedIn or maybe Jigsaw and get the name of the manager in question, then fire off an e-mail directly. Why bother with a recruiter?

+1 to Meghraj.

In my industry, we know who the major players are and can make very educated guesses on who's working on what. At the same time, it's a fairly small, select group such that we frequently run into each other at conventions and industry specific social events. The original poster cited this as a reason for preserving anonymity (which is a good idea) but it can also be made to work for the candidate.

Rather than look for a headhunter per se, the best thing he can do is show up at these events, give a presentation if appropriate, and generally network. As others have suggested, there are some professional "rules" wherein people trade business cards, maybe even discuss strategic goals but don't outright offer jobs on the spot. As long as this guy plays by the rules, he's unlikely to get into trouble with his company. (If he's not certain, have him talk to his company's ethics department first before attending such an event.)

Most major companies create a short list of president and CEO candidates this way; the board of directors meet someone at a party or otherwise hear about a candidate via his reputation, and then do the research on that guy. "I like his ideas, where does he work? Does he want a new job?"

The "specialty IT headhunters" are really image consultants, they'd groom your friend, teach him how to social network and introduce him to people in his business. They definitely do not send resumes or respond to job ads. (And yes, they get paid up front.)

I don't work directly with any such people, but I have met several of them while escorting my then girlfriend to such events, and yes, I did get "interviewed" on the spot by them.

This somehow doesn't seem right. If your friend is #1 in a specialty area with only three significant employers, he should be able to get a job with a few phone calls, unless he's pathologically introverted.

Or is it that the other employers are unaware of his existance?

"...unless he's pathologically introverted."

I didn't want to say as much, but that's what I think. He just needs to get out there and make other people aware of him and want to work with him.

" he's probably the only one who has actually mastered this particular problem space and come up with innovative solutions. "

That's a very brash statement, but let's just for the moment assume it's true. In that case your friend should already be a known quantity in the field and a personal confidential call to the principle engineer in any other place doing the same work will be well received. Forget the resume, no introductions required.

Here's why that's true. About 15-20 years ago I worked in the field of finite element analysis for electromagnetics. It was a rather small field and all the major players were well known to one another because they all met a few times each year at IEEE conferences where they all published papers on their latest innovations. I was a bit-player, a non-Phd computer scientist in an Phd-rich EE field, but even I got my name on about a dozen papers over the years.

I would have recognized most anyone else in the field by reputation, by having seen their published works or by having spent time slammin back a few beers at a symposium. If someone came out of the woodwork who said they were an expert but weren't known to us from publications or whatever, then they would be highly suspect.

There were people in the field though who were very competent and somewhat unknown but could not publish their works because their companies wanted to keep all their work secret. They would need to prove themselves, be grilled by a panel of rather skeptical engineers who were already recognized experts.

So either your friend is already a known quantity or he'll have to get into a conference room and spew out a whiteboard full of equations to win them over. In either case, a simple phone call to the principle engineer is all it takes to get it started.