Executive Search Recruitment
Delivery and consulting hires
for search firms.
We recruit fee-earning and delivery staff into executive search firms: research associates, delivery consultants, senior consultants and principals. Boutiques through global firms, UK and US. This page covers the experienced end. If you are hiring at graduate or research associate level, that sits on our main search page.
The common mistake
The hire most firms get wrong
Promoting a strong researcher into delivery, or hiring one from another firm, and finding they cannot hold a client conversation. Research and delivery look adjacent on an org chart. They are different jobs. A researcher is judged on the quality and completeness of a map. A delivery consultant is judged on whether candidates take the call, stay engaged through a long process, and turn up to the final panel. One is analytical work with a deadline. The other is persuasion under uncertainty, usually while the client changes the brief.
Plenty of excellent researchers never make that transition, and most firms find out eighteen months and one lost retainer later.
The screen
What we screen for
Whether they have actually pitched, or only mapped
The distinction gets blurred on CVs at boutique firms where everyone does everything. Ask for the number of candidates they personally approached last quarter and what the response rate was.
Client exposure
Have they sat in a briefing? Presented a longlist? Handled a client who did not like the shortlist? Some firms keep delivery staff away from clients entirely, and a consultant who has never defended their own work is untested.
Sector depth versus sector breadth
A consultant who has covered industrial for four years brings a network. A consultant who has covered six practices brings adaptability and no network. Both are useful, and you should know which one you are hiring.
Process completion, not assignment count
How many searches did they carry to placement rather than participate in? Boutique CVs often list assignments the firm delivered rather than ones the individual drove.
Why they are leaving
Researchers move at 14 to 18 months, and consultants at two and a half to three and a half years. Someone moving well inside those windows has a reason. It is often reasonable, and it is always worth asking.
Boutique and global are different hires
A consultant from a global firm arrives with process discipline, research support and brand access, and may have never sourced their own candidate list or won their own work. A boutique consultant arrives having done everything, including the parts the global firm has a team for, and may struggle with governance and reporting.
Moving in either direction is common and works. It fails when the hiring firm assumes the candidate's last environment looked like theirs.
Compensation
What these roles pay
No reliable public benchmark exists for research associate, delivery consultant, senior consultant and principal compensation in the UK and US. We hold compensation data across 20,000 search professionals and will benchmark a specific role on request. Send us the level and the firm type.
How we work
We recruit into search firms only
Which means we understand what billing looks like at each level and what separates a strong researcher from a consultant ready to own client relationships. Two and a half interviews per placement. More than 80% of our search-firm work comes from firms that have hired through us before.
Hiring for your search firm?
Tell us the level, practice and whether it's delivery or fee-earning
We'll come back with a view on the market and who is moving. Back within 24 hours.
FAQ
Common questions
Hiring for your search firm?
Tell us the level, the practice and whether the role is delivery or fee-earning.