There’s a difference between executing a retained search engagement and being a retained search consultant. And as consultants, we thoroughly explore the business problem you are trying to solve through initiating this search. It may be obvious, but first, your consultant must understand your business to understand your business problem. With decades of experience executing retained search assignments in software and technology, we do. By engaging in this thorough exploration, we may find that to really solve the business problem, the person or the role needs to be different than originally conceived. In fact, the role may not need to be filled at all. Regardless, it’s important to fully delve into why you believe this specific role is crucial to your organization at this moment in time.

We bring passion to the heavy lifting required to deeply understand your business, your strategic goals, your unique differentiation and the value you bring to the marketplace. The necessary time is taken to understand what you want to accomplish and your commitments. We’re cultural scientists who develop a holistic view of what’s most important and assist you in clearly defining what success will look like after the finalist candidate joins your team. ​ This deep drill-down into your company, culture and strategic goals becomes the basis for our pre-launch phase.

Because we have taken the time to deeply understand your organization, the problem you are trying to solve, what you want to accomplish and your value proposition, we bring insights to the research strategy which precisely define where we will find your ideal candidate and what they will respond to. Our outreaches are customized and bring forth aspects of each candidate’s unique career journey emphasizing how this journey meshes so nicely with the opportunity at hand – getting them genuinely excited about the prospect of joining your team. ​ While we have a large and vibrant network of senior executives who we know well, we excel at engaging candidates who are at the top of their game and deluged with multiple outreaches from other recruiters. It is typical to hear, “I don’t respond to these types of outreaches, but I felt compelled to respond to yours.”

Once engaged, we put candidates through the most rigorous exploration of their careers in the executive search marketplace. Our proven vetting methodology discovers the details of what someone has done, how they did it, their thought process and value set that influenced their decisions and subsequent actions, and the congruencies/incongruencies between how they think and what they value - not just the outcomes of their decision-making process. We listen for not only what is said, but what is not said. And if it isn’t said, we delve into understanding the reasons why not. This is key to gaining full knowledge of a candidate and determining their fit with you and your company. A significant amount of time is invested in this rigorous screening, ensuring that your time as a client is well spent by only interviewing candidates you would hire. Depending on the seniority of the role, we spend 3 to 6 hours in direct candidate interviews and an additional 3 to 6 hours engaged in analysis, organization and presentation of the information collected for each candidate. While investing this much time does not automatically result in a quality analysis, it is certainly true that you cannot deliver a quality analysis without spending this much time. We do invest the time. We do deliver that quality analysis.

We provide analytical tools to our clients so that they may compare candidates across a varied set of criteria ensuring that the most objective decision is made on a finalist, mitigating an interviewing team’s natural biases. Ultimately, we deliver better, more detailed and meaningful information about every candidate presented, directly impacting your ability to make the right hiring decision.

We have an unparalleled understanding of compensation spanning different vehicles of equity and long-term incentives. We present finalist candidates with the ability to dynamically adjust equity valuation projections based on different criteria. This way, every finalist candidate is empowered to make a fully-informed decision to join your company. These tools facilitate a deep understanding of both the impact their role has on your organization’s growth, and the relationship between achievement of goals and personal wealth creation. We are your true partner in driving an offer negotiation process to successful completion. We bring it home.

Just as we go deeper in the diligence, interview, assessment and offer negotiation processes, we have elevated reference checking to a new level of thoroughness. We know the critical importance of validating our collective experience of a candidate by receiving direct feedback from both supplied and non-supplied references. We do not stop until we have developed a true 360° view of a candidate – which means speaking with between seven and twelve references - spending up to an hour with each person, obtaining their direct feedback on the candidate’s accomplishments, areas of strength and weaknesses, and where they could still grow and develop within their career today.