What to have ready before the kickoff
- Why now. The event that created the seat: a departure, a round, a stage the company has reached. Candidates will ask and the answer sells the role or kills it.
- What the seat owns in year one, as outcomes rather than responsibilities. Three to five of them.
- Who decides and who approves. Founder, board, investors with consent rights, and when they next meet.
- The package, as a range with the equity component defined: pool, strike, vesting, and what the board has already approved.
- The no-go list: companies not to approach, people not to contact, and why.
- The reporting line and the team, including anybody inside who is a candidate or expects to be.
- The real timeline, including the notice period you can tolerate and who covers the seat until then.
What a good firm asks back
| They ask | Because |
|---|---|
| What would make you not hire the perfect candidate? | It surfaces the constraint nobody wrote down, usually money or a board member |
| Who is the best person who ever held this seat, and why did they leave? | It calibrates the brief against a real person |
| Can we see the numbers the candidate will see? | A search that hides the runway from the firm will hide it from candidates, and candidates find out |
| Who has already turned this down? | It saves a month of approaching the same people |
What to agree in the engagement letter
The fee base, in writing: base salary only, or base plus bonus, or total first-year earnings including the value of equity. The percentage matters less than what it is charged on.
The stages and what triggers each invoice, the replacement guarantee and its length, the off-limits period for the firm approaching your people afterwards, and whether a fee is due if you hire somebody the firm did not find.
Who the consultant on the search is. A firm sells a partner and often delivers an associate, and the brief should name the person who will make the calls.
Common questions
What should an executive search brief include?
Why the role exists now, what it owns in year one, who decides and approves, the package including equity, the no-go list, the team and reporting line, and the honest timeline. A job description alone is not a brief.
How long should the briefing stage take?
One to two weeks for a well-run search, including a session with the board or investors where they have a say. Skipping it to start approaches faster usually costs a month later when the brief changes.
Should I brief more than one search firm?
For a retained search, no: two firms approaching the same market for the same seat confuses candidates and makes the company look disorganised. For contingency recruitment, several firms is normal, which is one reason the two models reach different people.
More of them, on hiring, contracts and what a fractional engagement costs, on the fractional executive FAQ.