Executive Search & Recruitment Consultancy

We’ve written a couple of articles about this, such as the one here. To summarise, aside from the significant cost of a bad hire, the reasons you should partner with a professional firm range from; our extensive networks, access to specialist tools, and expertise in recruiting strategically significant roles – all of which you probably don’t have in-house.

Even if you did have all of this expertise in-house, one huge issue remains: The best candidates for the job probably won’t engage with you directly…

Executive search firms help companies find and hire the best candidates for senior roles, including C-suite search and director level leadership recruitment. They work closely with clients to understand their needs and culture, and then develop a customised search strategy.

Executive search firms gain a deep understanding of the industries and roles they work with, and they have access to a wide network of qualified candidates. They also have the expertise to assess candidates’ skills, experience, and fit for the role and the company.

Executive search firms typically handle all aspects of the hiring process, from developing the job description to headhunting, screening candidates and conducting interviews to negotiating compensation. They can also help with onboarding and other post-hire tasks. Read more about what executive search firms do.

Executive search firms will normally quote their fees as either a percentage or fixed fee for a search. The fee is typically based on a percentage of the candidates remuneration.

For retained searches, payments are generally split into three payment milestones, with the first third falling due on instruction, the second third on delivery of the shortlist, and the final fee following selection of the successful candidate. Read more about retained search fees.

CJPI break each search into the following main phases of our powerful executive search methodology.

1. Research Phase – This is where we really get to understand your organisation, your culture, and your strategic objectives for the role we are searching for. We take this, as well as our own independent research to craft our search strategy. This is also where we produce the materials we will use for the search, such as the candidate briefing pack, ideal candidate profile and role micro-site on our CJPI website.
2. Search Phase – This is where we put our active sourcing methodology into action. This includes traditional ‘headhunting’, data-driven paid advertising strategies, together with other omni-channel strategies to exhaustively address the identified market wherever it may be, globally.
3. Longlisting Phase / Occupational Personality Assessments – Our panel review each candidate generated from the search phase and invite those most closely aligned to the requirements of the role to a panel interview with CJPI. This allows us to really understand them, their experience and skills, and assess how this matches with your objectives, the specification of the role and the culture within your organisation. Candidates are then to complete an Occupational Personality Profile (OPP), our highly sophisticated psychometric. Where appropriate, we benchmark the candidate against an incumbent or a theoretical ideal. We exclusively use senior leadership ‘norm’ in these.
4. Shortlisting Phase – Following the longlist interviews and assessments, we take the highest performing candidates (normally 3-6) and present our shortlist report to you.
5. Final Client Interviews – We will arrange your 1st client interviews with the shortlisted candidates and brief you on each of them. You may wish to see one or more candidates for a 2nd interview, which we will arrange during our 1st interview debrief.
6. Offer Made / Process Conclusion – Once the process has concluded and you have decided on the successful candidate, we will work with you to transition them into their new role.

As part of our research phase, we create our timeline and deliverables document which sets the pace of the search. The timescales we set depend on the specific role, industry and the talent pool identified within our research phase to ensure that the search is optimal and exhaustive.

However, our focus and team structure means that the majority of our searches are completed within 4-8 weeks from initiation to making an offer to the successful candidate.

Here are some of the key benefits of working with an executive search firm:

• Access to a wider pool of qualified candidates
• Expertise in assessing candidates for senior roles
• Customised search strategy that aligns with your company’s needs and culture
• Objective and discreet counsel
• Reduced time to hire
• Access to specialist assessment tools to reveal insights unavailable to employers directly

We cover all sectors and functional areas. Our winning search methodology is industry-agnostic and we don’t rely on a recycled database of sector-specific candidates.

The talent market changes constantly so we research the market with a fresh perspective for every search to make sure we look at every potential candidate out there at that point in time.

This means we are able to work with the most unique and specialist leadership roles as well as all major functional areas. We are known for bringing a creative approach to exhaustive mapping and addressing talent markets.