An executive search runs in 6 steps: aligning on the role, going to market, calibrating every week, vetting candidates, interviewing, and closing the offer. For a leadership role, expect an offer to reach your top candidate somewhere in weeks 8 to 12. For an executive role, weeks 12 to 16.
A lot of what makes a search fast or slow happens on your side of the table.
First, is this a search at all?
Plenty of hires don't need a search firm. If a role draws a deep pool of qualified applicants, your own team or a contingent recruiter can usually fill it.
Retained search is worth paying for in 4 situations: a seat that's critical, candidates who are already employed elsewhere, a hire that has to stay quiet, or a previous attempt that stalled. If you're still deciding, start with when to bring in an outside recruiter.
Step 1: The Bullseye Meeting
Before we go to market, everyone with a say in the hire sits down together. We call it the Bullseye Meeting, because the goal is to define the center of the target before anyone starts looking for it.
We settle the role, the compensation, what success looks like, the cultural profile, and who has the final say.
Misalignment at the start sinks more searches than anything else, and it's rarely dramatic. The partners each picture a slightly different person.
Or a new interviewer joins in week 6 and wants to reopen the profile. Either costs weeks if it surfaces late, and far less to settle now.
What we need from you: the people who will make the decision, in the room, saying what they actually think. If someone with veto power is missing, the profile isn't finished.
Step 2: Going to market
With the profile set, we go out and find people. Most of the leaders worth hiring are already running something well and aren't on job boards, so we contact them directly. That includes people who would never answer a job ad.
Those conversations only work if the person calling knows the trade. It's the reason we stay in the industries we know, and a superintendent with 20 years in the field can tell in a single phone call whether you understand the work.
Weeks 1 to 3 are calibration. Early market conversations test the profile against reality, starting with whether the compensation is competitive and whether the experience you asked for exists where you expected to find it.
What we need from you: openness. If the market says the range is light or the profile is too narrow, that's useful information, and week 2 is a far better time to hear it than week 10.
Step 3: The weekly call
From the first week to the last, the search runs on a standing weekly call. We bring what the market is telling us, and you react to the target candidates we've found.
Each week the picture of who you need gets sharper, and course corrections happen while there's still time to make them.
Skipped calls add up. After a few missed weeks, the strongest candidates start to wonder whether you're serious.
What we need from you: the call on the calendar and treated as fixed, plus fast feedback on the candidates we share.
Step 4: Vetting
We vet every candidate before they reach your interview room, for capability, character, cultural fit and whether they're ready for this particular role.
We weigh character and fit as heavily as capability. A leader who can do the work but doesn't fit how your company operates usually ends up costing you a second search.
Recommendations start arriving around week 4 and continue through week 8. Each candidate comes with a written overview covering their background and track record, why they'd consider a move, how they lead, and their assessment results.
We choose who advances, so you only meet the strongest few. Usually that's 2 to 4 people, and the number moves with the search.
What we need from you: read the overview before each interview. An interviewer who walks in cold tells a candidate the company isn't serious, and strong candidates notice.
Step 5: Your interviews
This is the part only you can do.
Keep it tight. Momentum stalls when interviews are spread weeks apart or when there are more rounds than the role needs.
Prepare every interviewer, and settle before the first interview who interviews and who decides. Those are rarely the same list.
The best candidates have options, and they're evaluating you while you evaluate them.
The fastest searches belong to clients who move as soon as the right candidate shows up. Waiting to see if someone better comes along is how good candidates end up accepting other offers.
What we need from you: interview slots you can offer quickly, and a decision-maker who's ready to act.
Step 6: References, the offer and acceptance
Once you've chosen, we handle the parts that tend to go wrong at the finish line. After we've agreed with you on the full package, we run reference checks and carry the negotiation and the offer.
Then comes the counteroffer. A strong leader's current employer will often try to keep them, and that conversation goes better when it's planned for. We work through it with the candidate so the acceptance holds.
What we need from you: agreement on the full package before the offer goes out. Changing the compensation or the negotiation approach late is one of the fastest ways to lose a candidate you've already won.
After the offer
We stay involved once the offer is signed. We call you and your new leader separately about a month after they start, then talk with both of you again at the 90-day mark.
We've written up what those first 90 days should look like.
Every FireSeeds placement is guaranteed: if it doesn't work out within the agreed period, we run the search again.
What it costs
A deposit launches the search. After that you pay nothing until you hire, then a payment at hire and a final payment 30 days after the offer is signed.
The fee depends on the role, and you'll get a straight number in the first conversation.
Weigh it against what a wrong hire would cost you. Our cost calculator runs that number for your role, and the retained search page lays out the full engagement.
Before you start
The 6 things that stall searches most often each get a page in our Six Momentum Killers playbook, with what to do about each one.
If you're getting ready to hire a leader, the first step is a conversation. Start a search.