Executive Search: Pay Peanuts, Get Muppets (Welcome to the Corporate Talent Circus)
Welcome to the logic-defying world of executive hiring, where companies stand at a crossroads. Do they:
✅ Invest in a real search firm that uses deep market mapping, rigorous assessment, and actual human intelligence to secure a perfect-fit leader?
❌ Or do they throw caution (and common sense) to the wind, post a job on LinkedIn, and wait for the avalanche of “Results-Oriented, Self-Motivated, Highly Experienced Leaders” (translation: unemployed, indiscriminately applying to everything, and nowhere near qualified)?
Most companies, in their infinite wisdom, choose Door #2. Why pay for a search when you can just hope that the right candidate magically appears? Why work with specialists when your internal HR team can “see what’s out there” and spend the next six months filtering through a pile of “Dear Hiring Manager” cover letters?
Yes, yes, it’s all fun and games until your new CFO turns out to be a LinkedIn Thought Leader with zero operational acumen and a passion for AI-generated motivational posts. Sure, let’s keep pretending hiring isn’t that serious. After all, gut instinct has never gone wrong before.
But what do we know? We just do this for a living.
Everyone Wants a Rolls Royce Search… Until It’s Time to Pay for It
Retained search is one of those luxury services that everyone adores in theory but suddenly finds deeply offensive when it comes with an actual price tag.
Oh, they love the idea of an elite, white-glove, intelligence-driven executive search. They nod enthusiastically at words like strategic advisory, market mapping, passive candidate engagement, and rigorous assessment frameworks. They insist that they want the hidden gems, the game-changers, the visionaries who will take their company to the next level.
Until, of course, they see a price attached to this level of effort. Suddenly, their passion for "top talent" transforms into a deep commitment to cost-cutting at all costs.
They want:
✔️ A high-caliber, methodical, scientifically assessed, relationship-driven search.
✔️ Candidates who aren’t being spammed by 500 other recruiters.
✔️ A partner who prioritizes them instead of juggling 20 contingency searches at once.
They also want:
❌ To pay absolutely nothing until a hire is made.
❌ The whole process to be wrapped up within two weeks because they “just need to move fast.”
❌ A guarantee that they’ll see top-tier candidates immediately... but, you know, no exclusivity.
❌ Some magical method where senior executives are just sitting around waiting for cold InMails.
In what other industry would this make sense?
Would you demand a half-decent lawyer work on a "win first, then I'll pay" basis? Would you expect an architect to design your entire building for free, hoping you might decide to pay if the final structure doesn’t collapse? No? Then why do companies assume executive search should work like that?
Because contingency firms have completely wrecked expectations.
They've made companies believe that search is just about finding people, as if identifying candidates is the real challenge. It’s not. That part is easy.
The actual work?
Persuading top talent who wasn’t even looking to consider your role.
Vetting them properly so you don’t accidentally hire a brilliantly polished liability.
Making sure they’ll actually deliver results rather than just interview well.
But sure, keep thinking this is just a matter of scrolling LinkedIn and firing off job descriptions. Sounds like a solid plan.
“Just Find Me the Right Person”
Companies demand the best candidates on the market but clutch their pearls the moment they’re asked to invest in the process that actually delivers them. It’s the hiring equivalent of:
💰 “We want a Michelin-starred meal, but can we pay McDonald’s prices?”
💰 “We want a world-class marketing campaign, but our budget is $37 and an old PowerPoint template.”
💰 “We want a Ferrari, but only if it costs less than a used Toyota Corolla.”
And yet, these same companies act genuinely confused when their bargain-bin hiring approach doesn’t yield elite, high-performing, long-term leaders.
Let’s clarify something painfully obvious but somehow still widely ignored:
🔹 Top-tier executives are not unemployed.
🔹 They are not browsing job boards in their pajamas.
🔹 They are not waiting by the phone, hoping a random recruiter slides into their DMs.
They are running companies, driving revenue, and actively ignoring recruiter spam.
So how do you get their attention? Certainly not by blasting out a generic job description and expecting them to drop everything. You need:
✔️ A methodical, relationship-driven engagement strategy that properly sells the opportunity.
✔️ A rigorous vetting process to ensure they’re not just a shiny resume but an actual high-impact performer.
✔️ A recruiter who isn’t juggling 12 other roles, rushing to fill yours for commission.
But if you’re feeling lucky, go ahead and trust the contingency recruiter who only gets paid if they make a placement. Yes, any placement. They’ll be sure to send you someone quickly, because that’s the goal, right?
Speed over quality. That always works out well.
The Myth of “Low-Risk” Contingency Hiring
Contingency hiring is the talent acquisition equivalent of “buy now, pay later”, except instead of a new sofa, you’re getting a rushed, poorly vetted hire who may or may not implode in six months.
It’s pitched as “risk-free” because you don’t have to pay unless a hire is made. But let’s take a moment to think this through. Since when has not paying upfront meant no risk? By that logic, gambling is a zero-risk activity since you don’t have to hand over your money unless you lose it.
Let’s talk about actual risk:
🚨 Wasting three months interviewing candidates that a recruiter barely vetted because they’re operating at speed, not depth.
🚨 Hiring the wrong person, onboarding them, watching them crash and burn, and then doing the entire process all over again.
🚨 Damaging your team, losing revenue, and destroying momentum because you took a bargain-bin approach to a critical hire.
But sure, contingency is the “safer” option.
Meanwhile, retained search is viewed as “risky” because you have to pay for the work being done. Shocking. And yet, that fee is exactly what ensures:
✔️ Your recruiter is actually committed to finding the best possible candidate, not just anyone who meets the minimum bar.
✔️ Every candidate is properly assessed, not just keyword-matched from LinkedIn.
✔️ The search isn’t a frantic sprint, but a structured, methodical process designed for long-term success.
But if you prefer to “save money” by hiring someone who won’t last a year, then by all means, contingency is waiting for your call.
The Muppet Recruitment Problem: Why Bad Firms Have Poisoned the Market
Once upon a time, executive search was a respected discipline reserved for elite firms that actually knew what they were doing. Then, an army of résumé-flinging mercenaries arrived, claiming to be "search consultants" while offering nothing more than a glorified Ctrl+F on LinkedIn.
And just like that, the credibility of executive search went up in flames.
Now, companies assume that all recruiters operate the same way because they’ve been burned, again and again, by:
❌ Recruiters who vanish into thin air the moment a bigger client waves a check at them.
❌ Agencies that copy-paste a list of LinkedIn profiles and brazenly call it a “shortlist” (It’s not).
❌ Contingency firms that flood inboxes with candidates; none of whom have been vetted beyond “they have a pulse and a LinkedIn account.”
So when an actual executive search firm comes along that conducts real assessments, applies strategic methodology, and actually understands how to land top-tier talent; what happens?
Clients hesitate. Because after years of dealing with recruiters who treat hiring like a sales quota rather than a craft, they’ve become jaded. They think every firm is just résumé spam with a different logo.
This is why brand equity matters. The SHREK firms—Spencer Stuart, Heidrick & Struggles, Russell Reynolds, Egon Zehnder, and Korn Ferry—get retained searches handed to them on a silver platter, not necessarily because they do better work, but because they’ve spent decades building trust.
And yet, there are boutique firms doing equal or better work without the bloated fees that come from slapping a legacy brand name on a proposal.
If clients were actually discerning, they’d focus less on the biggest name and more on the best process.
But, alas, here we are.
At some point, companies need to decide whether hiring is an investment or a chore. If you believe talent is your biggest competitive advantage, then maybe it deserves more thought than panic-posting on LinkedIn and praying for the best.
If hiring really matters, then stop treating it like a Craigslist transaction. Stop assuming all recruiters are interchangeable, like some kind of human vending machine where you insert a job description and hope a decent candidate pops out. Stop trying to get Rolls Royce results on a tricycle budget.
Great search firms do exist. We know, because we’re one of them. We’re elite, meticulous, and methodical. We don’t rely on smoke and mirrors, and we don’t need a billion-dollar brand name to prove we know what we’re doing.
So, if you actually care about hiring right, not just hiring fast, let’s talk. Let’s build a real, strategic search that delivers the best person, not just the most available one.
If not? No problem. I hear Indeed lets you post jobs for free. Just be sure to block off a few months for sifting through the chaos. Good luck with that.