Access for Me but Not for Thee: The Double Standard in Executive Hiring
Leaders want direct access when job-seeking, but route you to HR when hiring. This article explores the leadership double standard in executive search.
In executive search, one contradiction shows up so consistently you could set your watch to it. It’s not a glitch in process, a lack of talent, or some grand organizational inefficiency. It’s something far more human: the way leaders behave when their own access is on the line.
When an executive is looking for a role, the request is simple and direct. They want to speak to people with authority. No forms, no filters, no getting stuck in HR’s polite but sluggish purgatory. They want someone to walk their profile past the velvet rope and straight to the decision-maker’s table.
And you get it. Who wouldn’t want that?
But flip the script, and suddenly, they are the ones with the corner office, the budget, the mandate. You approach them about talent, and now they defer to process. They’ve got a “world-class” internal TA team and no time for external distractions.
This is a full pivot in behavior, conveniently aligned with their own power status. When they needed access, gatekeeping was the enemy. Now they guard the gate. The irony is tidy.
The Jekyll-Hyde Hiring Cycle: From “Can You Help Me?” to “Please Speak to HR”
It’s a familiar cycle for anyone in executive search. One month, you're having confidential, late-night calls with a senior leader discussing how the system is broken and how refreshing it is to “speak directly.” Three months later, that same leader is cc’ing you into an email chain with someone from TA you’ve never heard of. The shift is unmistakable.
When executives are in career transition, they’re tuned in. They’re reflective. Suddenly, relationships matter. There’s humility, there’s urgency, and there’s a genuine openness to partnership. They speak in strategic tones about cutting through noise and making their value visible. And they see the search partner as someone uniquely equipped to help them bypass the bottlenecks they believe are clogging up the hiring world.
In that moment, you’re not a service provider. You’re a guide. A key. An insider in an opaque system.
Then comes the offer. The LinkedIn update. The new role.
Almost overnight, your role shifts. You go from “trusted partner” to “external vendor.” You’re told to circle back after TA has had a go, or to submit profiles through the formal portal. The same leader who once insisted on accessing decision-makers now proudly hides behind internal process.
It’s a strange kind of selective memory; a version of professional amnesia where people forget how the system felt when they weren’t benefiting from it. And that forgetfulness matters. Because when leaders forget what it’s like on the outside, they unintentionally reinforce the very barriers they once tried to climb over.
How Ego, Memory, and Narrative Shape Our View of Talent Acquisition
To really understand why leaders flip-flop so consistently in how they speak about Talent Acquisition, you have to look beyond behavior and into belief. Specifically, the quiet but powerful need to make sense of one’s professional value.
For senior leaders, career progression is about narrative. Identity. The story they tell themselves and others about how they got to where they are. And central to that story is the idea that they were chosen on merit. Not luck. Not politics. Not timing. But competence.
Which leads to a subtle but predictable equation: I am capable. My company hired me. Therefore, my company’s TA team must be excellent.
This is what psychologists call self-enhancement bias. The system that selected me must be smart, because it saw what others may have missed.
But when that same executive is out on the market, applying to roles and not getting callbacks, the logic takes a sharp turn: I am capable. These companies aren’t responding. Therefore, their TA teams must be broken.
The inconsistency is preservation rather than hypocrisy. To maintain a sense of professional worth, the executive must either elevate the system that embraced them or discredit the ones that didn’t. There’s no room in the narrative for being overlooked or misjudged.
For executive search professionals, this dynamic can feel like emotional whiplash. One week, TA is described as a slow-moving obstacle. The next, it’s the gold standard. The shift depends entirely on whether the system is confirming or challenging someone’s self-image.
The Access Economy and the Myth of Reciprocity
This is where the contradiction moves from frustrating to structurally problematic. Because behind the individual behavior is a deeper issue: the uneven distribution of access within corporate ecosystems, and the quiet privilege that governs it.
When executives are between roles, they know that access is everything. They don’t want to be one of 200 applicants. They want the direct line. They want nuance. They want to be understood by someone who can read between the bullet points on a résumé and translate strategic potential into meaningful conversation. And they’re right. Senior-level hiring decisions happen in context, in conversation, in moments of trust.
But once those same executives are settled and hiring for their own team, something changes. Suddenly, process becomes sacred. External partners are redirected to internal channels. Conversations become harder to unlock. Access is closed off, protected by protocol.
This is where the myth of reciprocity comes in. Because despite having benefited from direct access when they needed it, many leaders hesitate to offer the same when the tables turn. The values they believed in as candidates take a back seat to convenience and compliance.
The easier choice is to defer. Let HR handle it. Avoid internal pushback. Stick to “the way we do things.” And yet that quiet avoidance erodes the very principles these leaders once demanded.
True leadership integrity requires consistency. If you believe in access when you need it, you should believe in it when you can offer it. When that belief fades the moment the calendar flips, it reveals something uncomfortable: access is treated as a personal entitlement.
And when access flows only in one direction, the entire hiring ecosystem slows down and narrows. Everyone loses.
What This Reveals About Leadership (and What It Should Reveal)
This pattern of behavior, while easy to brush off as “just how it works,” reflects something more serious about modern leadership. Specifically, the gap between what leaders claim to value when they are vulnerable and what they actually practice when they are in control.
When executives are on the market, they advocate for principles that sound almost idealistic. They want empathy from others. They want hiring to be personal. They want direct access, honest feedback, responsiveness, and a sense that someone sees them as more than just a bullet-pointed CV. And they’re not wrong to want these things. In fact, these are exactly the values that make for stronger hiring outcomes across the board.
The trouble begins when those same individuals step into positions of influence and quietly abandon those ideals. Access becomes gated. Time becomes scarce. Decision-making is deferred to process or passed off to intermediaries. The values they once depended on start to feel optional.
But strong leadership requires memory. It requires the ability to remember what it felt like to be left waiting, ignored, or misunderstood. The best leaders are those who never fully forget the fray.
These are the people who take the call, who give honest feedback, who loop in the search partner instead of sending them down the procurement rabbit hole. They are not more generous because they have more time. They are more generous because they remember what it meant when someone was generous with them.
That kind of consistency is rare. But it is also what separates leaders who merely manage from those who actually lead.
If you expected a search partner to open doors for you when you were job-seeking, then it’s only reasonable to leave a door open when you’re on the hiring side. Not as a transactional return, but as a reflection of the leadership principles you said you stood for.
Consistency matters. If you champion access, agility, and meaningful connection when the stakes are personal, you should uphold those same values when the power dynamic shifts. Leadership is not just about the authority to make decisions. It is about how you treat people when you no longer need something from them.
When a search partner reaches out, they are not just pitching a candidate. They are offering continuity in a relationship that, not long ago, may have served you. Before sending them to HR by default, pause. Ask whether your current action would feel fair if the roles were reversed.
If you only believe in access when you are seeking it, then what you believe in isn’t access. It’s convenience. And that’s not leadership.
Leadership, at its best, remembers. And acts accordingly.
At StratEx - Indonesia Business Advisory we help leaders turn their hiring process into a strategic asset. Contact us if you're interested in aligning the way you hire with the kind of people you claim to want.