Working With Us
Most search firms are vague about process on purpose. We're not. Here is exactly what happens from kickoff to close — deliverables, timeline, fees, and what we do if something doesn't go as planned.
Week by Week
Every search is different, but the structure is consistent. A retained engagement typically moves from kickoff to first slate in 3–4 weeks. Contingent searches are faster to start and move at whatever pace the market allows. The timeline below reflects a retained search — our most common engagement type for senior roles.
Phase 1 — Kickoff
We do not start sourcing on day one. We spend the first week understanding your platform — your capital structure, team dynamics, growth trajectory, and what success looks like in this role 18 months from now. We interview the hiring manager, key stakeholders, and anyone who will work closely with the new executive. We review the financial profile and competitive landscape. The search brief we produce is a working document, not a job description.
Deliverables
Phase 2 — Market Mapping & Outreach
We do not post job listings and wait. We build a target list of 40–80 potential candidates drawn from our active network, our placement history, and direct market research — then reach out personally to each one. The message we send represents your brand. We treat every candidate with care regardless of fit, because the ones who aren't right for this role may be right for a future one, or may know who is right for this one.
Deliverables
Phase 3 — Screening & Qualification
Every candidate we present has been through a minimum of two conversations with us — a discovery call and a structured interview. We assess technical fit, career trajectory, cultural alignment, and — critically — genuine interest in the role and your platform specifically. We also do back-channel reference work during this phase, reaching out to former colleagues and managers beyond the candidate's provided references. By the time a name lands in your inbox, we have done the work.
Deliverables
Phase 4 — Interview Process
We coordinate your interview schedule and prep each candidate before every conversation. We debrief both sides after each round — getting unfiltered feedback that rarely surfaces in the room. We identify concerns early, address them directly, and keep momentum moving. We manage candidate interest actively throughout. If a candidate starts to cool on the opportunity, we know about it before you do and we work to resolve it.
Deliverables
Phase 5 — Offer & Close
Before the offer goes out, we know the candidate's current compensation in detail, their equity situation, their counter-offer risk, and what their current employer is likely to do when they resign. We help you structure the offer to close on the first attempt and reduce the risk of re-trade. We manage the resignation conversation with the candidate and stay in contact through their start date. A search isn't done when the offer is accepted — it's done when the person walks in the door.
Deliverables
Within the first two weeks, you will know what your role looks like to the candidate market — whether the comp is competitive, how the opportunity stacks up against what candidates are being offered elsewhere, and what adjustments would expand or strengthen the candidate pool. This intelligence is valuable regardless of the outcome of the search.
We tell you what we actually think about each candidate — including the risks. We do not present everyone we talk to as exceptional. Our written candidate profiles include a straight assessment of strengths, development areas, and fit concerns. Our value is in the quality of the filter, not the quantity of the submissions.
For every finalist, we conduct back-channel reference conversations with former colleagues, direct reports, and managers outside the candidate's provided list. We ask specific, work-relevant questions and share the full notes with you. Surprises at the 90-day mark are almost always things that were knowable before the offer — if you asked the right people the right questions.
The candidates we approach are your peers and colleagues in a small industry. Every interaction reflects on your organization's reputation, not just ours. We treat every candidate with professionalism and respect — including the ones who don't move forward. The candidate who isn't right today may be your best hire in three years, or may refer you the one who is.
We provide real-time market data on compensation for the role throughout the search — not salary survey averages from last year, but what candidates at this level are actually accepting and declining right now. This data is available to you regardless of whether you engage us for a full search.
We run a small practice by design. We are not managing 40 searches simultaneously across industries we don't understand. Every client relationship we take on is one we intend to maintain for years. The executives we place become part of our network. The market intelligence we accumulate across searches becomes more valuable to you over time, not less.
The single most common complaint about search firms is that they recycle names. Here is specifically how we source — and why the candidate you need is almost never the one who responded to a job posting.
Every executive we have placed over 28 years of combined search experience is a node in our active network. Many have been promoted into hiring positions at exactly the types of companies we serve. We know where they are, what they are building, and who they would recommend when a role opens up at a peer firm. This network is not a database — it is a set of actual relationships maintained through regular conversation.
300+ active placements in network
The best candidate for your role is almost certainly employed and not looking. We build a target list of 40–80 individuals who fit the profile and reach out to each one personally — not with a boilerplate InMail, but with a message that explains the opportunity specifically and demonstrates that we understand their background. The response rate on a well-crafted direct approach is meaningfully higher than any other sourcing method.
~4 resumes presented per hire — we pre-screen, not you
We work exclusively in finance and accounting leadership across four sectors. We follow capital raises, leadership changes, company milestones, and talent movements across all four continuously. When you engage us, we already know who recently left a role at a peer company, who just vested out of a promote structure and might be open to a conversation, and who the market considers the top performer at a comparable firm. That context is not available from a generalist.
Real Estate, Private Equity, Financial Services, Healthcare — exclusively
Strong candidates refer other strong candidates — but only when the recruiter has their trust. Because we treat every candidate with professionalism regardless of outcome, we receive a high volume of unsolicited referrals within our network. When we launch a search for a VP of Finance at a PE-backed real estate developer, we often hear about the right person from within the first 10 calls — before the broader market research is even complete.
The majority of finalist candidates come through referral, not direct search
We are transparent about how we charge. Most clients ask about fees early and appreciate a direct answer. The framework below covers most situations — specific terms are set at engagement and vary based on role level and scope.
Retained Search
25–33% of first-year total comp
Contingent Search
20–25% of first-year total comp
The Speed Argument
60 Days
A Head of Development making $500K contributes roughly $2,700 per business day in value. Filling the role 60 days faster than an unassisted process pays for the search fee before the executive completes their first month.
The Insurance Argument
3–5×
The cost of a senior mis-hire — severance, re-search, productivity loss, team disruption — is typically 3–5× the executive's annual salary. A search fee is inexpensive insurance against a $1.5M–$2.5M mistake.
The Access Argument
~85%
Roughly 85% of senior finance executives are not actively looking at any given time. A search firm with active relationships in your sector is the only reliable way to access that population. The right person almost never applies to a job posting.
We have a 100% fill rate on retained engagements. That means every retained search we have ever taken on has resulted in a placed executive. That record matters more than any guarantee language — but here is exactly what happens in the unlikely event something goes wrong.
If a retained placement departs within 12 months of their start date for performance-related reasons — meaning reasons that were knowable during the search process — we conduct a full replacement search at no additional fee. You cover direct expenses only (travel, background checks). The replacement search has the same priority and resources as the original.
If a contingent placement departs within 90 days for any reason — including a resignation the candidate initiates — we conduct a replacement search at no additional fee. We ask only that you share what we need to know to find a better fit the second time.
If an executive departs because of a material change at your company — a sale, restructuring, strategy pivot, or reduction in scope — the guarantee does not apply. Similarly, if a departure is driven by compensation changes or reporting changes made after the offer, the guarantee terms are addressed case by case. We will always try to help, but we will also be straight with you about what happened.
After every placement, we schedule check-in calls with both the client and the placed executive at 30 and 90 days. We want to know early if something is off — before it becomes a problem. In our experience, most situations that could become exits are correctable in the first 60 days if someone is paying attention.
A note on what guarantees actually mean. No search firm can guarantee that a hire will work out — that depends on the candidate, your organization, and circumstances neither of us can fully control at offer time. What we can guarantee is that we will do the work thoroughly, tell you what we actually think throughout the process, and stand behind our results. If something goes wrong on our watch, we will be the first to say so and the first to fix it.
We have run enough searches to know that most bad outcomes are traceable to one of three things: a comp offer that was too low to retain the candidate's attention, an interview process that moved too slowly and lost the finalist to a competing offer, or a mismatch between what the role was described as and what it actually turned out to be. We try to prevent all three. If one of them happens anyway, we'll be honest about which one it was.
Tell us about the role. We'll give you an honest assessment of the market, a realistic timeline, and exactly what it would cost to run the search right.