The Complete Search System
One connected system from signed mandate to placed executive, so research, candidate management, client communication and commercial terms stay in step.
- Tier
- Flagship
- Build order
- 5th of 7 for executive search
- Shape of it
- 10 steps
- At launch
- Runs supervised, with you approving what goes out
The problem this solves
A search is a long project with many handoffs: partner to researcher, researcher to consultant, consultant to client, and back. Each handoff loses context.
The specific losses are always the same. Why a name was identified. Why a candidate declined. Who in the firm actually knows this person. Whether they are off-limits and under whose agreement. What the client said about a similar candidate three weeks ago. Which of the four systems holds the current truth.
Then a consultant leaves, and a decade of relationship knowledge leaves with them, because it lived in their Outlook rather than in the firm.
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
The signed mandate carries its full commercial terms: fee basis, instalments, exclusivity, guarantee period and terms, off-limits scope, and billing entity.
Step 2
Research runs against the agreed target universe with a disposition reason required for every name, not just for candidates who progressed.
Step 3
Off-limits is checked automatically before outreach, against client agreements, current and recent mandates, and portfolio relationships.
Step 4
Relationship context is recorded on the person, not on the search: who in the firm knows them, how, and when they last spoke.
Step 5
Candidate engagement is tracked as conviction rather than stage: contacted, conversation held, genuinely interested, compensation aligned, agreed to be presented.
Step 6
Client communication runs to a schedule agreed at kickoff, so a search update goes out whether or not there is news.
Step 7
Interview scheduling, feedback and references are tracked as owned items with dates.
Step 8
Offer stage carries the closing risks explicitly: counteroffer exposure, spouse and location, equity understanding, notice period, competing process.
Step 9
On acceptance, the record produces the invoice trigger, the guarantee start date and the onboarding follow-up schedule.
Step 10
All of it stays with the firm when a consultant leaves.
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
Map
Map the current search process with a partner, a consultant and a researcher in the same room. The three descriptions will differ, and the gaps are the project.
Nothing is designed until we have looked at what already exists, including the parts nobody officially owns.
- 2
Build
Build the mandate record carrying commercial terms.
Built inside the software you already run, against your stages and your language.
- 3
Build
Make disposition reasons required at name level, and expect this to be the most resisted change in the playbook. It is also the most valuable.
- 4
Build
Build automated off-limits checking against the sources the firm maintains.
- 5
Build
Move relationship context onto the person record.
- 6
Build
Build the conviction-based engagement model with the consultants who will use it.
- 7
Build
Build the scheduled client update.
- 8
Build
Build the closing risk checklist with the partners.
- 9
Build
Connect acceptance to invoice, guarantee and onboarding.
- 10
Prove
Run one full search supervised end to end.
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
A search is a long project with many handoffs: partner to researcher, researcher to consultant, consultant to client, and back. Each handoff loses context.
After this one is live
The firm's knowledge stops living in individual inboxes. Off-limits stops being a memory test with commercial consequences. A search can be picked up by another consultant without starting again. And the answer to "who knows this person" is in the system rather than in a partner's head.
How to measure whether it worked
Your arithmeticRun with your numbers, not ours
Three numbers: searches that had to be restarted or re-staffed, off-limits breaches and their commercial cost, and the estimated value of relationship knowledge lost when a consultant last left. The third is uncomfortable and is usually the one that lands.
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.
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.
- 5The Complete Search Systemyou are hereThe flagship, once the pieces are proven.
- 6Fee Collection, Guarantee & Client RetentionCommercial close, and it depends on the mandate terms System 5 starts recording properly.
- 7The Partner's Morning BriefOnly meaningful once there are systems to report on.
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.