Executive Search Firms near you

The first stage is the specification, and it is worth more time than anyone gives it. The firm interviews the chair or chief executive, the people the role will work with, and often a departing incumbent, and produces a written brief covering the mandate, the first-year objectives, the reporting relationships, the reward range and the cultural constraints. Everyone signs it. Later disagreements about the shortlist almost always trace back to a brief nobody argued about.

The second stage is research and approach: building the map of target organisations and individuals, then approaching people confidentially. Progress reporting should be on the map, not on the number of candidates. Ask for the long list and the reasons people were excluded, because that is the product you are paying for.

The third stage is assessment, referencing and closing. Structured interviews against the specification, formal referencing with the candidate's consent, and often psychometric or leadership assessment. The firm should stay involved through offer and resignation, which in Australia frequently includes managing a counter-offer and a long notice period.

Contingent recruiters are paid only if you hire their candidate, so they work fast, work several roles at once and present people who are already looking. That is efficient for roles with an active candidate market and poor for roles where the right person is employed, well paid and not reading job advertisements.

Retained search is paid in stages regardless of outcome, typically an engagement fee, a fee at shortlist and a completion fee. That structure funds research time and gives you a claim on the firm's attention. It also means you pay even if you decide not to hire, so the specification stage carries real weight.

For most Australian organisations the honest test is whether the role can be filled from people who will respond to an advertisement. If it can, a good exclusive contingent arrangement is cheaper and quicker. If it cannot, contingent recruitment will simply produce a slower version of the same advertisement.

Off-limits is the promise that the search firm will not approach people it has placed, and often not approach anyone in your organisation, for a defined period. It is genuinely negotiable and firms differ widely. Get it in writing, defined by entity and by period, and check whether it binds the whole firm or only the office that did your search.

Restraint of trade clauses in the candidate's existing contract need looking at before an offer, not after. Australian courts enforce restraints only so far as they are reasonable to protect a legitimate business interest, and the assessment is fact-specific, so the candidate should take their own legal advice rather than relying on a view from either side's recruiter.

Senior notice periods in Australia are commonly long, and deferred incentives often lapse on resignation. Both are part of the negotiation, not an afterthought. Establish early what the candidate walks away from, because a buy-out changes the cost of the hire significantly.

Most retained firms offer a replacement search if the placed executive leaves within a defined period. Read what triggers it. Redundancy, restructure, a change of strategy or a material change to the role usually void it, and those are common reasons a new executive leaves in the first year.

Check whether the replacement search is genuinely free or whether you pay expenses and a reduced fee. Check whether it is a replacement or a refund, since a refund is worth more when you have decided the role itself was wrong.

Check how many replacements you get. A one-off guarantee is standard; an unlimited one is not. And check the interaction with the off-limits clause, because a firm that replaces a departed executive by approaching someone else in your organisation has not helped.

The most common cause is a specification that described the person rather than the mandate. Twenty years of experience and strong stakeholder skills describes nobody. A brief that says the person must close two underperforming sites and rebuild a finance function in eighteen months can actually be searched against, and can be assessed against.

The second is an unresolved internal candidate. If someone inside believed the role was theirs, and nobody addressed it, the new executive arrives into a situation the search firm cannot fix. Deal with the internal candidate honestly before the external search reaches shortlist.

The third is authority that does not match the title. An executive recruited to lead a turnaround who cannot approve spend or change their own team will leave. Settle the delegations during the specification stage, and put them in writing in the offer.