We didn't start as a retained-only firm. Early in our history, we worked across both models — retained for some searches, contingency for others. We had the standard justifications: contingency works for certain roles, clients prefer the no-upfront-cost structure, speed matters more than depth in some situations. Over time, we stopped believing most of those justifications. Here's why.
What Contingency Recruiting Actually Optimizes For
Contingency recruiting is a volume business. The economics require it. A firm working on contingency earns nothing unless a placement is made, which means the rational strategy is to work as many searches as possible, move as quickly as possible, and present candidates who are likely to get offers rather than candidates who are likely to be evolutionary. The incentive is to close, not to be right.
This isn't a criticism of contingency firms — it's a description of how the model works. The economics shape the behavior. A contingency recruiter who spends three months doing deep market mapping, thorough candidate assessment, and honest client counsel on a search that ultimately doesn't close has lost three months of revenue. The model doesn't reward that work. So it doesn't get done.
What Retained Search Enables
The retained model changes the economics in ways that matter for senior leadership searches. When a firm is retained, it earns a fee regardless of whether a specific candidate is placed — which means it can afford to tell a client when the first slate of candidates isn't right, when the role definition needs to change, or when the compensation structure is going to limit the candidate pool. That kind of honest counsel is structurally difficult in a contingency model.
Retained search also enables the work that actually produces the best outcomes: deep market mapping to identify candidates who aren't actively looking, thorough assessment that goes beyond resume review, and the kind of relationship-based outreach that gets responses from leaders who would ignore a generic recruiter call. The best leaders in any market are not on job boards. Finding them requires a different approach.
When Contingency Is Appropriate
We want to be honest about this: contingency recruiting works well in specific situations. When the candidate pool is large, the role is well-defined, speed matters more than precision, and the cost of a mis-hire is manageable — contingency can be the right choice. For many mid-level roles, it's entirely appropriate.
For senior leadership roles in financial services and private capital, those conditions rarely apply. The candidate pool for a CFO, a Chief Credit Officer, or a Head of Private Credit is not large. The cost of a mis-hire is not manageable. Speed matters, but not more than getting it right. These are the searches where the retained model consistently produces better outcomes — and where the fee differential is trivial relative to the cost of a wrong hire.
We made the decision to go fully retained basis because we wanted to do the work that actually matters. If you're evaluating search partners for a senior leadership role, we're glad to walk you through our process and why we believe it produces better outcomes for the organizations we work with.
