The rules
Fifteen of them. They exist so the bench stays true.
- Every profile is a real person, verified against LinkedIn, with a CV on file. No agencies listing under a person's name.
- Available now means exactly that. If you're not taking calls this month, switch it off. It expires after 30 days anyway, so the green badge is never stale.
- Your rate is your rate. getoperators takes no commission, so never route a deal through us and never pay anyone a placement fee.
- Reply within three days or the request expires, we tell the company, and your availability switches off. Ghosting is the one thing that kills a directory.
- Companies: the details you leave are shared only with the operators you contact, and an operator who applies to your role sees nothing of you beyond what you posted. Use a work email; operators check.
- No reselling contact details, either direction. First offence is removal.
- Rates are day rates or monthly retainers, never hourly. This is executive work, not freelancing.
- Claim only what your CV supports. We spot-check, and misrepresenting experience is removal.
- Take disputes to each other first. The deal is yours, not ours. We'll remove bad actors, but we don't arbitrate contracts.
- Available now is a status, not an endorsement. It means you said you're taking calls this month. Verification is free and equal for everyone. Nobody can buy their way up this bench.
- Paid shortlists are ranked on fit alone. When a company pays us to run a search, the three names we put in front of them are chosen on fit to the brief: sector, stage, seat, availability and verified track record. No operator can pay to be on that list, to rank higher on it, or to break a tie, and there is no plan that changes it. Somebody paying us to find the best three has to get the best three, not the best three who paid us.
- getoperators takes no commission on anything booked from the bench, ever. Separately we sell Operator Search, a paid recruitment service the company pays for: a fee to run the search, and one success fee if they hire somebody we introduced. Both come from the company. An operator never pays us anything, at any point, for any reason.
- Fractional, interim and permanent. Fractional and interim we run ourselves. Permanent runs through our retained search practice, delivered with our search partner, on a full retained process. On a permanent hire the partner's fee is the only fee, agreed with you in writing before anything starts, and we never add anything on top of it.
- Reviews come only from real bookings. A company can review an operator only after hiring them through the bench, from a single-use link. Reviews publish after a check, and operators can't buy, trade, or write their own.
- Posted roles are real roles. Every role a company posts is checked before it goes live, and it must be a seat that is genuinely open. No fishing for CVs, no roles already filled, and close it once it is. The board is fractional and interim work; a permanent hire goes to Retained instead. Reading it takes an account, because a brief names the seat a company cannot fill and what it will pay, and that is theirs to control. Posting and applying are both free, and whoever you hire, we still take nothing from what you agree.