Retained Search
One Role. One Team. All In.
Retained search means we're paid to run a dedicated process for your most important hire, not to race twenty other recruiters to your inbox. Here's exactly how it works.
Why Searches Fail
The Problem Isn't the Talent. It's the Process.
In almost every market, for almost every role, the talent exists. Executive searches don't fail because the right person isn't out there. They fail because the process breaks down: stakeholders who were never aligned on the role. Compensation that shifts mid-search. Interview processes that drive great candidates away. Feedback loops that go quiet.
We've built our entire model around protecting a search from the things that kill it, and we wrote the playbook on what those things are.
What "Retained" Means
What "Retained" Actually Means
In a contingent model, recruiters get paid only when they fill a role, so they juggle dozens of openings, move fast, and hope something sticks. That model works fine for low-level roles with broad talent pools. It breaks down at the executive level, where the people you want aren't on job boards and won't respond to a stranger's InMail. The A Players you want aren't searching, they're already leading somewhere, and reaching them takes credibility, not a job posting.
In a retained model, you engage one firm to run one dedicated search. The fee is staged across the engagement, the work is exclusive, and the incentives flip: we're not paid to be fast. We're paid to be right. Every search comes with a guarantee, if the placement doesn't work out within the agreed period, we re-run the search.
The Process
How a FireSeeds Search Runs
The Bullseye Meeting
Every search starts with every stakeholder in the room. We lead your executive team to define the role, the compensation, the success criteria, the cultural profile, and who holds final decision-making authority, before anyone goes to market. Misalignment at the start is the single most common reason searches fail.
The Search
We go to market with a clear, specific profile, reaching out directly to leaders who match it, including the ones who aren't looking. More than 90% of the executives we place are passive candidates: people we sought out, not applicants. These conversations require credibility and industry knowledge, which is why we only search in industries we actually know.
Identify
Every candidate goes through an extensive vetting process that evaluates capability, character, cultural fit, and readiness for this specific role. We determine who advances to your interviews, so the slate you see is the short list, not the long shot.
The Hire
We work alongside your team through formal interviews, references, offer construction, and counteroffer navigation until the seat is filled. The final decision is always yours. Getting you there cleanly is ours.
Weekly Cadence
You'll Never Wonder Where Your Search Stands.
Every search runs on a standing weekly call. Market feedback comes in, the profile sharpens, and course corrections happen in real time. It's a genuinely collaborative process: every conversation calibrates the shared picture of who you need, so the search only gets sharper the longer we're in it. Whichever week the right leader surfaces, they're the product of that continually refined understanding of the role, your culture, and what a great fit really looks like.
This industry has a habit of collecting retainers and going quiet. We do the opposite, transparent process, honest timelines, weekly communication, and a guarantee that backs it all up.
We needed someone in a niche of a niche. We've never found that through our own efforts. FireSeeds found a passive candidate that we never would have found on our own.
Fees & Timeline
What to Expect
Our fee structure is a differentiator, not fine print. You pay a deposit to launch the search, and then nothing more until you actually hire someone. From there it's a payment at hire and a final payment thirty days after your new leader starts.
Most search firms bill a third up front, a third around sixty days in, and the balance at hire, so you've paid two-thirds before you know whether anyone fits. We'd rather be paid for the result: the bulk of our fee comes after a successful hire, and our guarantee means we re-run the search if a placement doesn't stick. Specific fees depend on the role, and we quote them plainly in the first conversation. No surprises.
The honest comparison isn't our fee versus another recruiter's fee. It's our fee versus the cost of getting this hire wrong, which for an executive role typically runs many multiples of salary.
They 100% understood the assignment. We do a good job of recruiting for most of our roles. When we needed support in a new market, FireSeeds delivered two stellar new team members. The cost was an investment for us, but we definitely got what we paid for.
Ready to Run a Search That Finishes?
Tell us about the role. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right firm to fill it, and if we're not, we'll say so.