From Contingency Recruiting to Executive Search: Learning the Business

A strong work rate can take a recruiter a long way. Moving into executive search also requires a different understanding of the client, the assignment and the value we are there to provide.

I am Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of Aspiring Partners. Over more than 20 years in executive search in Japan, I have helped build search firms, led recruiters and owned and run a business. I have seen people make this transition exceptionally well. I have also seen how much they had to unlearn before they could do it.

A low barrier to entry can produce a cycle of shallow learning

Recruitment is relatively easy to enter. My concern is that too many people then learn a narrow version of the job in which activity targets become the business model: take a requisition, search the database, send whoever is available and move to the next assignment.

I call that “paint by numbers” recruiting. It is order taking. When a business rewards that approach, someone can stay busy and earn fees without developing much understanding of what the client actually needs to achieve.

The cycle can perpetuate itself as those habits are passed to new hires or carried into internal talent acquisition and executive search. Some recruiters make the transition to deeper advisory work. Others keep applying the same approach to a very different problem.

This is a criticism of the habits and incentives I have encountered. There are thoughtful contingency recruiters and capable talent acquisition professionals. A job title or fee model does not tell me whether a person has learned to understand a business.

Two recruiters who needed a year, and then became exceptional

At RGF Executive, I remember two recruiters in particular who came from pure contingency shops. Both took about a year to understand how to do executive search. As I recall it, neither billed anything in that first year.

Once they understood the work, both became million-dollar billers. Their work rates were already extremely high. When that effort was combined with a better understanding of executive search, their ambition took over and they ran like the wind.

One now runs her own company, and it was lovely to catch up with her recently. The other built a similarly exceptional billing record at RGF. I am leaving both unnamed here.

The first year was not evidence that they lacked ability. It showed how substantial the change in the work was. Their later results are individual examples from my experience, rather than a promise about what every recruiter will achieve.

The starting point changes from a vacancy to a business problem

In a transactional assignment, the recruiter may receive a defined requisition through HR or talent acquisition. An executive search often requires us to work with a CEO, CRO or regional leader to understand what the role must accomplish before we can judge who fits.

Why does the business need this leader? What is underperforming? What needs to be built? What authority, resources and support will the person have? What would success look like after a year?

A title and a list of requirements rarely answer those questions. The client needs confidence that we understand the commercial challenge and can turn it into a credible search.

Talent acquisition can be an important partner in that work. The senior business conversation and the recruitment process need to be connected, with useful information moving between them.

You must help the candidate understand the opportunity

A senior opportunity is not always immediately obvious, even to a highly capable candidate. Our job is to explain the mandate accurately and help them decide whether their capabilities and ambitions match it.

That includes the attractive parts and the difficult parts: the starting position, expectations from headquarters, the team they inherit, the resources available and the risks they would be accepting.

“Selling” the opportunity should mean helping someone understand why it could make sense for them. It should never mean talking them past a concern that deserves an honest answer.

Sending a CV is one small step. The work also involves testing evidence, developing a recommendation, maintaining momentum and helping both parties reach a well-informed decision.

Why I expect AI to put pressure on the volume model

My view is that AI will absorb a substantial share of routine, volume-driven recruiting work over the next three or four years. That is my prediction, not an established timetable.

We are already putting my knowledge and working methods into our TalentHub platform. I can see the scope for AI to support research, organise information and prepare material that previously took a recruiter considerable time.

A service built mainly around retrieving available profiles and forwarding CVs will, in my opinion, become harder to differentiate. The more valuable question is what judgment, business understanding and responsibility the recruiter adds.

Executive search will change too. We have to check sources, question outputs and improve our methods. The opportunity I am building towards is to give capable recruiters stronger tools while developing the advisory ability that clients trust.

What I would encourage a contingency recruiter to learn next

• Learn the business behind the brief. Understand the client’s customers, commercial model, competitive position and reason for hiring.

• Practise speaking with business leaders. Ask questions about outcomes and trade-offs, and come prepared to discuss the answers.

• Build an evidence-based recommendation. Explain why someone fits, what remains uncertain and what should be tested.

• Represent the opportunity honestly. Help candidates assess both the mandate and their own readiness for it.

• Measure useful progress. Activity matters, but it needs to improve what you know or help the search move forward.

The two RGF recruiters showed me what can happen when effort and ambition meet a deeper understanding of the work. That is the development I find exciting, and the kind of executive search business I want to build.

Read how I help recruiters win business and deliver →

Read the standards I look for in recruiters →

If this is the direction you want to take your career, let’s talk.

Written by Murray Clarke, Founding Partner of Aspiring Partners.

The role that helps you become great

I am looking for recruiters who want more than a job. I want people seeking the role that helps them become successful and excellent at their craft: work that challenges them, develops their judgment and meaningfully improves their lives.

Earning a living matters. What excites me is the ambition alongside it: wanting to learn, take responsibility and build a career you can be proud of. If that is what you are looking for, contact me and take a look at what we are building.