I've been meeting a lot of recruiters over the last few weeks as I plan for 2027. We end up talking about how the market splits between retained, exclusive and contingency work, and about RPO, which has always been my answer for the open contingency end of the market.
One topic from those conversations is something I also raise with clients. Several times this year a client has told me they're thinking about giving a business-critical Country Manager or startup go-to-market leader search to several agencies at once. I tell them not to, even when they're not going to use me. The candidates have a bad time, and the hire usually gets harder.
How the race works
In open contingency the same job goes to several agencies, and the fee goes to whichever one introduced the person who gets hired. If two agencies put forward the same person, the client normally goes with whoever submitted first.
So every agency tries to reach the obvious people first and get their OK to be put forward. In my experience candidates tend to stay with whoever brought them the opportunity first. That's fair enough, but it means the first call decides a lot. The first call isn't necessarily from the best recruiter, and it doesn't necessarily carry the best message, or even the right one.
I've always described it like this. Let every dog out at the top of the street and they all race to mark the same lampposts. The candidates are the lampposts.
What it's like for the candidate
Think about it from the candidate's side. A leader who's doing well gets a call about a role. The next day a second recruiter calls about the same role, with a slightly different story and a different pay range. Then a third. Sometimes their CV has gone to the client before anyone has properly asked them.
By the third call they're wondering what's wrong with the company, and why nobody seems to know what it wants. The people you most want are the ones most likely to drop out at this point, because they have the most to lose by moving. I've had candidates complain to me about being called by me and by another agency about the same role, which doesn't do the client any favours.
It's worse on a succession search. Ten of the fifteen searches I've worked on this year were succession searches at established companies. Those searches need to stay quiet, and with four agencies calling around the market they don't stay quiet for long.
Why the message matters more now
A lot of established software companies are changing their business because of AI. The product, the pricing, the buyer and the sales model can all be changing at the same time. When we tracked 24 listed software firms in SaaSpocalypse 2026, half were up this year and half were down.
Candidates in Japan mostly know these companies as they were before that started. If the first recruiter to call reads the old job description and pitches the old company, the candidate hears a mature business that needs a safe pair of hands. A builder who'd be right for the real job says no in the first five minutes, and you never find out.
Getting the message right takes time with the client before anyone calls the market. You need to know what's changing, why, what the Japan leader has to rebuild and what the risks are. In a race to be first, nobody has that time. Plenty of recruiters won't see why it matters, and they'll take the old message to the market. Once a candidate has said no to the wrong story, it's hard to get them back for the right one.
What I recommend instead
Give the search to one firm, retained or exclusive. If you're not sure which firm, talk to two or three and pick one. Give them a set period with clear milestones, such as a market map by one date and a shortlist by another, and ask how they'll show you the work. If they don't deliver, change firms. If procurement insists on several suppliers, ask for an exception for leadership roles (more on that).
One firm can take the time to understand the business before it calls anyone. Each candidate hears the same story from one person, and you see the whole market, including who said no and why. That improves the odds on the hire.
One search I picked up shows the difference. A company hiring its first Japan Country Manager had the search run from outside Japan, with several contingency agencies working on it. After several months they made a hire, and that person didn't turn up on the first day. I contacted the APAC president about one person, and within a few weeks we'd introduced several candidates, including the person they went on to hire. The right people had been in the market the whole time. The in-house recruiter had been handed a leadership search with the setup they'd normally use for a sales hire, which happens a lot when a company has no executive recruiter.
Open contingency still has its place. For a sales hire, or a role where you need someone good in the seat quickly, the noise is a fair price for the coverage. On a Country Manager or startup go-to-market search the pool is small and most of the people in it aren't looking, and they talk to each other.
If you're a recruiter
Most recruiters in Japan have been one of those dogs at some point. If you'd like to work the other way, I'm hiring. Aspiring Partners is an executive search firm, not a contingency agency, and I have more Country Manager searches than I can run on my own. I'm looking for Partners who can take over clients and build a practice, and Associate Consultants who want to learn senior search. Below that level we run hiring for clients as RPO on our own platform, not open contingency.
If your clients and candidates work with you because of you, and not your firm's brand, have a look at the roles or book a call. The page is also in Japanese: 日本語の採用ページ.
