Executive search and recruitment
are different jobs.
Executive search approaches people who are already doing the job somewhere else; recruitment selects from people who apply or sit on file. That single difference in where candidates come from sets the seniority each method suits, the way candidates are assessed, the time a hire takes, and the fee.
The difference that produces every other difference
Recruitment works with a pool that has already raised its hand. Search builds a pool that has yet to consider the question. Everything else follows from that.
| Executive search | Recruitment | |
|---|---|---|
| Candidate pool | People currently doing the job elsewhere | Applicants and existing database |
| Who moves first | The firm approaches the candidate | The candidate approaches the role |
| Seniority | Board, C-suite, scarce specialist | Mid-level through senior |
| Assessment | Against criteria set before the search opened | Against the job description |
| Typical fee | A quarter to a third of first-year package | Fifteen to twenty per cent |
| Engagement | Often exclusive | Often several firms at once |
Why the passive candidate changes the method
Someone who applies has already decided to move. Someone approached has decided nothing, and the work of the search is largely in that gap.
- They have to be found, which means mapping organisations rather than searching a database.
- They have to be persuaded to take a first call, which depends on who is calling and how discreetly.
- They will weigh the move against a job they are succeeding in, so the case has to be specific rather than generic.
- They are likely to receive a counter-offer, which is why the work continues past acceptance.
That sequence takes longer and costs more. It is worth paying for when the people who could do the job well are all employed, and wasteful when a good field would assemble itself from an advertisement.
What each method actually assesses
Recruitment screens against a job description, which is a list of requirements. Search assesses against criteria agreed at the brief, which is a different document and a more demanding one.
A job description
Describes the role as the organisation imagines it: responsibilities, reporting line, required experience. It is written to attract, so it tends towards the aspirational.
Search criteria
Describe what the appointment has to achieve and what would count as the wrong hire. They are written to discriminate rather than to attract, and they are agreed before anyone is contacted, precisely so they stay fixed rather than being bent afterwards to suit whoever turned up.
Which method suits which vacancy
The choice is usually obvious once the field is described honestly.
- Recruitment. A deep pool of qualified people, a well-understood brief, and a role the market recognises from its title. Speed and throughput are what you are buying.
- Search. A countable population of qualified people, most of them employed, an appointment that carries real consequence, or a vacancy that has to stay quiet. Judgement and reach are what you are buying.
We turn away roles that belong in a recruitment process, and it costs us revenue every time. A search run on a role with two hundred capable applicants is an expensive way to do something a good advertisement would have done in a fortnight.
The hybrid that sits between them
A growing share of senior hiring runs as neither one cleanly. Contingency search approaches passive candidates using search method while charging on placement, which is the model Marquee runs today.
The trade is real. The client carries less risk, paying only for a result. The firm carries more, and has to be selective about which mandates it accepts, because a search that ends empty-handed was worked unpaid. That selectivity is visible in the questions a good firm asks before agreeing to take a role on.
What to ask a firm that offers both
Most firms now describe themselves as doing both, which makes the label useless and the questions essential. Four answers reveal which method a firm will actually apply to your role.
- How will you build the longlist? A firm that begins with its database is running recruitment. A firm that begins by naming the organisations where the work is done well is running a search.
- How many of the people you approach will be employed and settled? A low figure means the shortlist will come from people already looking, which is a different and smaller population.
- What will you send with each name? An assessment against agreed criteria, including where the person falls short, is search. A CV and a covering paragraph is screening.
- What happens after the offer is accepted? Silence there is the clearest signal of all, because the resignation and the counter-offer are where senior appointments most often come apart.
The answers matter more than the fee structure. A contingency firm that maps the market properly will serve a scarce role better than a retained firm working from a database, and the questions above are how you tell them apart before signing rather than afterwards.
Signs a search is drifting
Whichever method you commissioned, the same handful of symptoms show that it has quietly become the other one. All are visible by week three, which is early enough to correct.
- Candidates arrive faster than the market could plausibly yield them. A genuinely scarce role producing six profiles in four days usually means a database was searched rather than a market mapped.
- The profiles carry titles rather than evidence. Where the case for each person is their current job title and employer, the assessment step was skipped.
- Everyone presented is available immediately. The strongest people in most markets are employed. A shortlist of people between roles describes who was reachable rather than who is best.
- The criteria have moved. Requirements agreed at the brief quietly softening to fit the candidates found is the clearest sign a search stopped working the market and started working the pipeline.
The remedy is the same in each case: return to the criteria agreed at the brief and ask for the reasoning behind each name in writing. A firm running a real search will have it already. A firm that has drifted will need a week to produce it, and that week is the answer.
This is worth doing even when the shortlist looks strong. A good outcome reached through a weak process is luck, and luck is a poor basis for the next appointment.
Comparing the true cost
Fee percentages make recruitment look cheaper, and on the roles it suits, it is. On roles it suits badly the comparison inverts once the missed hires are counted.
- A vacancy left open costs whatever the role was meant to produce, every week it stays open.
- A mis-hire at senior level commonly costs a multiple of salary once severance, lost momentum and a second search are added.
- A shortlist assembled from applicants alone, for a role where the best people stay out of the applicant pool, produces a hire from the wrong half of the market at a competitive-looking fee.
The useful question is what the appointment is worth rather than what the process costs.
Frequently asked questions
Where the candidates come from. Search approaches people already doing the job elsewhere. Recruitment selects from people who apply. Seniority, method, timeline and fee all follow from that.
On roles where the strongest candidates are employed, yes. Elsewhere it is overspending. Weigh it against the cost of the appointment going wrong, which at senior level commonly runs to a multiple of salary once severance and a second search are counted.
Some can, and the label matters less than the method. The questions worth asking are whether they map the market or search a database, whether they approach passive candidates directly, and whether the assessment is written against criteria agreed before the search opened.
A quarter to a third of the appointed candidate’s first-year total compensation. Recruitment agencies more commonly charge fifteen to twenty per cent. Scarcity, confidentiality and seniority all push the search figure towards the upper end.
Recruitment commonly four to eight weeks; executive search eight to sixteen. Search takes longer because persuading someone content in their role is part of the work. Marquee reaches an agreed shortlist in about eight days and a closed offer in about fourteen.
The informal name for an executive search consultant. It describes the defining activity: identifying a specific person already in a role and approaching them directly, rather than waiting for applications.
Rarely, and it tends to produce a worse outcome than either alone. Running both signals that speed matters more than fit, and it encourages every party to favour candidates who can be placed quickly over candidates who are right.
They act for the employer, which pays the fee, and that is worth understanding as a candidate. A good consultant will still be straight with you about the role, the organisation and whether you are a realistic fit, because their standing with candidates is the asset that lets them make the next approach. Treat evasiveness on any of those three as information.
