The executive search process, stage by stage, with what you hand over at each one

A retained executive search process runs in eleven stages, from the pitch to the end of the guarantee period, and most firms plan three to four months from signed terms to an accepted offer. Each stage ends in a document the client can hold: a role specification, a target list, a longlist, a set of candidate reports. This guide walks through all eleven from the search firm's side of the table.

Executive search timeline: how long a search takes

Ask ten partners how long an executive search takes and most will say "three to four months to an accepted offer, then the notice period". That is convention, and it holds when the client keeps diaries open. The chart below is one illustrative plan for a sixteen-week search. Yours will bend around holidays, board calendars and the one stakeholder who is always travelling.

Two things move the dates more than anything the firm does. The first is how fast the client can get interviewers into a room in weeks 9 to 13. The second is the candidate's notice period, which sits after the search and is often longer than the search itself at senior level.

Stage, deliverable, owner

If you are moving from contingent to retained work, this table is the biggest change. In contingent recruiting the CV is the product. In a retained search you are paid for a process, so every stage needs something the client can read and keep.

The executive search process steps, one by one

Durations below are what practitioners commonly plan for. None of them is a rule, and a firm that hits every one of them has an unusually obedient client.

1. Pitch and termsbefore week 1 · partner

   You are usually one of two or three firms asked to pitch. The client wants to know who will do the work, where you would look and which companies you cannot touch. AESC's Professional Practice Standards say the terms should be in writing and cover the lead advisor, scope, timing, fees and payment schedule, deliverables, and terms such as guarantees and off-limits.

   Deliverable: a proposal, then a signed engagement letter. Nothing starts until it is signed.

2. Briefing and role specificationweek 1 · partner and researcher

   Interview everyone with a vote: the hiring executive, the chair or investor, HR, sometimes a peer. Ask what the person must have achieved eighteen months in, why the last incumbent left and what the client would trade away. Then write it up as two documents. The role specification is for the client's file. The candidate brief is the version you can send to a cautious candidate, and it has to sell.

   Deliverable: role specification and candidate brief, signed off by the client. Every later assessment is scored against this page.

3. Search strategy and target listweeks 1 to 3 · researcher

   Decide where the right people sit: which competitors, which adjacent sectors, which functions one level down in bigger companies. The market map names target organisations and, where you know them, the people in the relevant seats. Mark the off-limits companies on it so the client sees the gaps before they ask.

   Deliverable: the target list, agreed with the client. They will often add two names and strike one.

4. Research and approachweeks 2 to 7 · researcher and associate

   The long middle. Identify, approach, qualify, and ask every source who else you should be speaking to. Record why people decline. "Not interested at that salary" from six strong candidates is market intelligence the client is paying for, and it belongs in the weekly report.

   Deliverable: a weekly status update (there is a copyable one below).

5. Longlist reviewaround week 4 · partner presents

   A working meeting. You show ten to twenty names with a paragraph on each: who is interested, who is thinking, who said no and why. The point is calibration. A client who reacts to real people tells you things the brief never did, and it is far cheaper to hear "nobody from consulting" now than at shortlist.

   Deliverable: the longlist document, plus a short note of what the client decided.

6. Interviews and written candidate reportsweeks 4 to 8 · partner

   The partner interviews each serious candidate against the specification, usually for ninety minutes or more, and writes the assessment personally. A shared interview scorecard keeps two partners' notes comparable when a search is split between them.

   Deliverable: one candidate report per shortlisted person. See the structure further down.

7. Shortlist presentationaround week 8 · partner

   Three to five candidates, presented in person or on a call, with the pack sent a day or two ahead. Every report uses the same house format and the same section order, so the client compares people instead of layouts. Tell the client who you would see first and why. They hired you for a view.

   Deliverable: the shortlist pack: a cover summary and the confidential candidate reports.

8. Client interviewsweeks 9 to 13 · associate coordinates, partner debriefs

   Usually two or three rounds, and the stage most likely to drift. Brief both sides before each meeting, take feedback from both within a day, and keep a log. Candidates at this level are judging the client's process as closely as the client is judging them.

   Deliverable: interview schedule, pre-meeting briefs and a feedback log.

9. Referencing and due diligenceweeks 12 to 14 · partner

   References are taken by the partner, by phone, from people who managed, reported to and worked alongside the candidate, and only with the candidate's permission. Qualification and background checks sit alongside. What can be checked, and how, depends on the country, so take local advice.

   Deliverable: written reference reports and a one-page verification summary.

10. Offer, resignation and counter-offerweeks 13 to 15 · partner

    You have known the candidate's package and expectations since stage 6, so the offer should hold no surprises. Agree it verbally through you before paper goes out. Then rehearse the resignation conversation, including what the candidate will say when their employer offers more money to stay.

    Deliverable: an offer terms summary for the client and a resignation plan agreed with the candidate.

11. Onboarding follow-up and guarantee periodfrom acceptance · partner

    Stay in touch through the notice period, when counter-offers and cold feet arrive. After the start date, check in with both sides at agreed points. Most retained terms carry a guarantee: if the appointee leaves within a set period, commonly six to twelve months, the firm repeats the search for expenses only. The exact wording lives in your engagement letter.

    Deliverable: check-in notes, and a closed file with every declined candidate thanked.

Longlist vs shortlist

The two get confused by clients new to search. A longlist is a research document: people who look right on paper and have been at least approached. A shortlist is an advisory document: people the partner has interviewed, assessed and is prepared to recommend. The funnel between them looks something like this.

Contingency vs retained search (and the container in between)

The three models differ in when the firm is paid, and that drives everything else. AESC, the trade body for retained firms, describes the split this way: a retained firm charges a fee at the start and works exclusively, while a contingency agency is paid on hire and the client may brief several at once. The container, also sold as engaged search, is the hybrid that many boutiques use on the way from one to the other.

The fee itself is usually set as a share of the appointee's first-year compensation in all three models. Published figures vary: Wikipedia's executive search entry gives 20% to 35% of first-year base salary or total remuneration for contingent recruiters and says retained recruiters are typically paid in three stages. Around a third is the figure most often quoted for retained work, though it is a convention and firms negotiate it, cap it or replace it with a fixed fee.

Retained search fee: how the three instalments work

The usual executive search fee structure splits an estimated fee into three invoices. The first is always on signing. The other two are either tied to milestones (commonly the shortlist and the accepted offer) or to the calendar, at thirty and sixty days. One search firm's published sample schedule uses signing, candidate slate delivery and offer acceptance, on a fee of 33% of first-year total cash compensation. The final invoice is normally adjusted once the real package is known.

Put your own numbers in:

What goes in a candidate report for the shortlist

The candidate report is where a search firm's work becomes visible. It has two voices and they must stay apart: the partner's assessment, signed, and the candidate's career history, in their own words. Here is one for a fictional finance search.

A full report usually runs three to six pages once education, board roles and the complete career history are in. The assessment takes the partner's time, and it should. The career history should take almost none, yet it is where the evenings go: four candidates send four differently built CVs, and somebody has to get them into one layout without changing a date. Our candidate profile template has a copyable structure if your firm does not have a house format yet.

Confidentiality and off-limits conventions

Senior candidates talk to you because they believe their employer will never hear about it. Many searches are confidential on the client side too, when an incumbent is still in the chair. A few working rules cover most situations:

• Consent before presentation. No name goes to the client until the candidate has agreed to be put forward for this specific role.
• Code names for undisclosed clients. "Project Heron" on documents and in email subject lines until the candidate is far enough along to be told.
• Blind profiles when the candidate asks. At longlist stage a candidate may want their name and employer withheld. A blind CV template shows what to remove and what to leave.
• Need-to-know distribution. Agree with the client who receives the pack. A shortlist forwarded to a wider leadership team is how news travels.
• Sources and referees are confidential too. AESC's standards say information from candidates, sources and references is never shared beyond the scope of the assignment.

Off-limits is the other half. By convention a retained firm does not recruit out of a client organisation for an agreed period after an assignment, and does not approach an executive it placed there. The scope (whole group or one division) and the length are negotiated and written into the terms. Two practical consequences follow. Tell a prospective client at the pitch which of their obvious target companies you cannot approach. And keep your own off-limits list current, because a boutique with ten good clients in one sector can quietly lose the ability to search that sector.

Candidate data in the EU and UK falls under GDPR, and executive search has its own wrinkle because you hold data on people who never applied for anything. AESC says its data protection guidelines are aligned with GDPR standards. This is not legal advice; ask your own adviser how notices and retention should work for your firm.

A weekly client status update you can copy

During research the client hears nothing unless you tell them, and silence reads as inactivity. Send the same short note on the same day each week. It takes ten minutes and it is the cheapest deliverable in the whole retained search process.

Subject: Project [code name] · weekly update · week [n] of [planned]

1. WHERE WE ARE
Stage: [research and approach / longlist / interviews / ...]
On plan?  [yes / [n] days behind, because ...]
Next milestone: [longlist review] on [date]

2. THE NUMBERS
Organisations on target list:   [n]
People identified:              [n]
Approached:                     [n]
In conversation:                [n]
Interviewed by us:              [n]
Declined, with reason:          [n]

3. WHAT THE MARKET IS TELLING US
[Two or three sentences. How the role and the company are landing,
recurring objections, anything on compensation, competitor news.]

4. CANDIDATES IN PLAY
[Name or initials] · [current role] · [status] · [next step]
[Name or initials] · [current role] · [status] · [next step]

5. WHAT WE NEED FROM YOU
[Decision, diary slots, feedback outstanding, with a date.]

6. RISKS
[Anything that could move the timeline, and what we are doing about it.]

[Partner name] · [Firm] · Confidential

Section 5 matters most. A search that is waiting on the client should say so in writing, politely, every week.

Common ways searches stall

Very few searches fail because nobody suitable exists. They slow down, the best candidate takes another job, and the shortlist goes stale. These are the usual causes.

Questions about the executive search process

Where to go next

For the tools that hold the target list, the status reports and the candidate records, see our comparison of executive search software. For the document side of stage 7, candidate presentation: from raw CVs to client-ready covers how to get a shortlist into one format, and the blind CV template covers confidential searches where names are withheld.