Search Status That Reflects Reality
Every active mandate carries four separate statuses instead of one: how much of the market is covered, how many candidates are genuinely engaged, whether the client is current, and whether the commercial side is clean.
- Tier
- Foundational
- Build order
- 1st of 7 for executive search
- Shape of it
- 6 steps
- At launch
- Runs supervised, with you approving what goes out
The problem this solves
Every platform in this trade offers a single search status field, and a single field cannot describe a search. So "active" simultaneously means the research is running, the client is deciding, the candidates are waiting, and nothing is happening at all.
The practical consequence is that a partner cannot answer the only question that matters at a Monday meeting: which of these searches are waiting on us, and which are waiting on the client? Nobody can answer it, so research continues on searches the client has effectively paused, and payroll is spent on work that cannot progress.
How it works, step by step
Every wait, threshold and branch below is a value we set with you during the build, against your stages and your language. None of it is a default we impose.
- What starts it
Step 1Trigger
Every mandate carries four statuses, updated by events rather than by opinion:
- Market status. How much of the agreed target universe has been researched and contacted.
- Candidate status. How many people are genuinely engaged, as distinct from identified.
- Client status. Whether feedback and decisions are current, or overdue, and by how long.
- Commercial status. Mandate signed, invoiced, collected, and inside or outside guarantee exposure.
Step 2
A fifth flag: risk. Off-limits conflicts, compensation mismatch, counteroffer exposure, an unavailable interviewer, competing processes.
Step 3
Status changes come from real events: a name contacted, a candidate confirming interest, a slate sent, a client responding, an invoice raised.
Step 4
"Client action required" is a first-class status, not a note. When the client owes a decision past its deadline, the search moves into it and stops consuming research hours.
Step 5
A weekly view shows every mandate by which status is blocking it.
Step 6
Nothing in the view is self-reported by a consultant.
How it gets built
Built inside what you already run
- Clockwork
- Invenias
- Thrive
- Loxo
- Bullhorn
- Crelate
- PCRecruiter
- or whatever your office already runs on
Nothing to log into and nothing to license. If a system needs a record your platform does not hold, we add the field to your platform rather than starting a second one beside it.
This is the actual build order, in the phases its own steps fall into. It runs in supervised mode first, with you approving what goes out, until you are happy with the tone.
- 1
Agree
Agree the four status definitions with the partners. This is a commercial conversation, not a configuration one, and it will surface genuine disagreement about what "shortlist" means. That disagreement is the value.
The thresholds, the wording and the names are yours. We write them down with you and get the consequential ones signed off.
- 2
Agree
Define the events that move each status.
- 3
Build
Build "client action required" and agree what it triggers: research pauses, the partner is notified, the client is contacted.
Built inside the software you already run, against your stages and your language.
- 4
Build
Build the weekly view.
- 5
Prove
Run it in parallel with the existing status field for three weeks before replacing anything.
It runs with a person approving what goes out until you are happy with the tone. Nothing sends unreviewed on day one.
What changes after it goes live
How it runs today
Every platform in this trade offers a single search status field, and a single field cannot describe a search. So "active" simultaneously means the research is running, the client is deciding, the candidates are waiting, and nothing is happening at all.
After this one is live
The Monday meeting changes character. Instead of each consultant describing their searches, the partner opens one view and asks about the ones where the client is overdue. Research stops being spent on paused searches. And the firm can say, for the first time, what share of its active pipeline is actually waiting on somebody else.
How to measure whether it worked
Your arithmeticRun with your numbers, not ours
Run it on the firm's own numbers. Take the last twelve months of completed and abandoned searches, and estimate the consultant and researcher hours spent while a client was overdue on feedback. Value at the firm's own loaded cost per hour. Most partners have never calculated this and the number is usually large enough to end the conversation about price.
We agree the baseline before anything is built, and we do not take credit for things that were going to happen anyway. There is no figure on this page claiming what we have produced for somebody else, because there is no verified figure to publish.
What we will not do
This is from the same delivery document as everything above it. It is on the page because a supplier who has not thought about it will not tell you, and you would find out later.
This trade carries no clinical or insurance regulation, but it handles personal data about senior individuals who have not applied for anything, which is its own serious exposure.
Candidate data.
- Candidates in a search are almost always passive and confidential. Their current employer must not learn they are in a process. Any automation that could reveal a candidacy, including a misdirected message, an over-broad notification or a shared calendar entry, is a career-level harm to a real person.
- No candidate name, current employer or compensation detail in any demonstration, template or marketing asset. Synthetic data only.
- Reference checks are conducted with the candidate's explicit permission and at the point in the process they agreed to, never automatically.
- Records must support deletion and correction requests. Several US states and most other jurisdictions the firm may work in grant those rights, and a search database is exactly the kind of record they apply to.
Client confidentiality.
- Mandate details, compensation ranges, org structures and the fact of a search existing at all are frequently confidential, sometimes contractually.
- Off-limits agreements are contractual obligations, and a breach is a commercial and reputational event. System 5's automated off-limits check is a compliance control, not a convenience.
Messaging.
- Automated outreach to candidates and clients sits inside the TCPA for calls and texts, and inside CAN-SPAM for email. Classify service and marketing separately, honour opt-outs immediately, and keep suppression synchronised across every system.
- Candidate outreach in particular should default to a human sender, because a senior executive who realises they received an automated approach will not engage, and may tell others.
Nothing here is legal advice. Employment law, data protection law and contract terms with clients can each add requirements, and firms working across borders carry more.
Nothing here is legal advice. Rules in this area have moved more than once recently, and every template that states a commercial term or a guarantee goes to your own counsel before it goes live.
Seven systems forexecutive search.
We build one at a time and prove it moved before starting the next. The tiers are the dependency order, not a price list.
Tier 1Foundational
Nothing arrives late or unowned. These come first because everything above them assumes they are true.
- 1Search Status That Reflects Realityyou are hereThe four statuses. Fastest visible change and it reframes every conversation that follows.
- 2Kickoff Discipline & The Feedback WindowKickoff discipline, because it prevents System 3's problem at the only point where prevention is possible.
Tier 2Growth
The recoverable money. These work the pools the foundational systems have made visible for the first time.
Tier 3Flagship
One connected system end to end, plus what the owner reads on a Monday. Only once the pieces are proven individually.
The tiers are the dependency order for executive search, not a price list. Most firms do not start at the first one, because the order is a default and the call is where it gets changed.
A note on sequencing this trade
Sequencing note. Systems 1 and 2 together are the entire pitch for this vertical. A firm that can see which searches are waiting on the client, and that agrees a feedback window at kickoff, has already recovered most of the value in this playbook. Do not lead with the flagship.
Back to the executive search overview for the stage map and where these fit.
Is this the oneyou need first?
Often it is not. On the call we look at what is actually costing you most right now, which is frequently a different system from the one that brought you to this page. If there is nothing worth building yet, we will say so.