Good retained search has a shape. Not a formula — every mandate is different — but a structure that lets the work be done with the depth it requires. Below is how an engagement runs at Fact Personnel: how we frame the brief, approach the market, calibrate the shortlist, and transition the appointment.
Every search we run moves through four phases. They are not invented for marketing; they are the actual structure of how retained search works. The detail varies by mandate — a board search runs differently from a CEO succession, which runs differently from a market mapping engagement — but the discipline does not.
At each stage, we are accountable to two things: the client we are retained by, and the candidates we are approaching. Both relationships extend well beyond the search itself, and the work is calibrated accordingly.
Every mandate starts with understanding what the role really is — not the job description, but the appointment. We spend more time at the start than most clients expect: meeting the board, the incumbent where appropriate, the team the new leader will inherit, and where relevant, the founder. The goal is to understand what success looks like in this seat, in this business, in this moment.
At the end of the framing phase we agree a written specification with the client. Not a generic job description but the version of it that reflects the real conversation we have just had. The specification becomes the reference point for everything that follows — and we return to it openly when the market is telling us something we did not anticipate at the start.
With the specification agreed, the search opens. Our research function maps the relevant candidate universe — first the obvious population, then the layer beyond it that contingent firms and platforms cannot reach. The mapping is structured but goes wider than the brief suggests; the strongest candidates are often adjacent rather than central.
Approach itself is a craft. The conversations we have at this stage are confidential, careful, and personal. We are not selling the role; we are testing the candidate's interest, their fit, and their availability — and answering their questions honestly, including the ones the client may not have considered. Many of the leaders we end up presenting were not on the market when we first reached them; the work of the approach is to earn the right to that conversation.
From the approach phase emerges a shortlist — typically four to six candidates the client meets, with detailed written assessments on each. The assessments are honest: we say what we are confident about, what we are uncertain about, and what we recommend testing for in the next conversation. Confident reports are easier to write but less useful.
References are not transactional. We do them ourselves, with people we know, in conversations that are not just confirmatory. The picture that emerges is layered, sometimes contradictory, and always more useful than a positive box-tick. We share that picture openly with the client, including the parts that complicate the decision — because the parts that complicate the decision are usually the parts that matter most.
Closing the appointment is its own discipline. We help the client structure the offer, the announcement, the messaging to the existing team, and where helpful, the conversation with the candidate's outgoing employer. Many searches stumble in the closing weeks; we work to keep that from happening.
After the appointment, we stay close. Where engaged, we provide structured onboarding support for the new senior hire in the first ninety to one hundred and eighty days. The first six months of a senior appointment are often where the success of the search is actually decided, and the support we provide is calibrated to that reality. The relationship outlasts the engagement.
The four phases describe how a search moves. The constants describe how we run it. Each mandate is owned by a senior consultant from start to finish — no handoffs, no client-handling layers between you and the work. Confidentiality is the default in every conversation. We take one mandate at a time per consultant, because the cost of overcommitting on a search at this level is felt by the client, by every candidate we approach, and by the integrity of what we recommend. And the relationship — with both client and candidate — outlasts the search.
Retained search takes time. A typical senior mandate runs ten to fourteen weeks from kickoff to offer accepted; a more difficult one can run sixteen to twenty. We are honest about this from the start, and resistant to the temptation to compress at the cost of quality.
If a client's timeline genuinely cannot accommodate a real retained search, we will say so, and recommend they make a different choice. The cost of saying yes to a timeline we cannot meet well is borne by the client — and by the candidate who is appointed in haste. Neither is acceptable to us.
Every enquiry is handled in confidence. Tell us about the role, and we will tell you honestly whether it is one we can do justice to.
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