Judge the record, not the claim.
Every firm claims a track record, and the numbers underneath prove less on their own than they appear to. So ask about a search in your discipline instead, and you will get the specifics: what the role needed, who we approached and why, what we got wrong, how long it took, and where that person is today.
Retention is a three-year rolling average, measured at 36 months, across all senior-level placements.
Three candidates presented. Two hired, both vice presidents.
A solar integration, design and construction management company moving from early stage to growth needed a VP Engineering — to fold a newly acquired design firm into project management, construction and the manufacture of solar components and battery storage, in a volatile market with a short runway to take share. We vetted five inside two weeks and presented three, on a 60-day exclusive. They appointed an engineer with twenty-five years across consulting, EPCM and power, then hired a second candidate from the same shortlist as VP Project Management. Four years on the company was acquired by an American buyer; both stayed through the transition.
One recruiter, from the intake call to the start date.
“A senior search is decided in about four conversations, and I am in all of them. I take the intake, I make the approach calls, and I am still there the week your person starts — there is no researcher between us and nothing gets handed down. It is also why I carry a small number of these at a time. I would rather turn a search down than run it thin.”
What the intake covers
A company has a problem it cannot solve internally. The person who could is gainfully employed, busy, and was not thinking about a move. Nothing happens until someone gives them a reason that is compelling — scope, challenges worth owning, and a legacy they can point to later. Captivating the reason to listen and move is the work.
Your business
What you sell, how you win work, and where the margin actually comes from.
What is working, and what is not
Said plainly, early. An intake built around the version everyone agrees on produces the wrong shortlist.
The strategic mandate
What the company has to achieve over the next two to three years, and what is in the way.
What this opening contributes
The part of it this hire carries — which is what the person is really being hired against.
The part nobody can research
Access to people who are not looking, credibility from the opening sentence, the language of the discipline, and the ability to sell the opportunity without overselling it.
And the part after the shortlist
The longlist you will never see
Every credible person at that level in your market, mapped by hand — including the passive candidates already known to us, and the ones reached by introduction.
The approach
At this level the first two minutes decide whether there is a third. It is made by the person who will run the search, not delegated to a researcher working from a script.
Offer, counter-offer, and the conversation at home
The stage where most senior searches are lost. Managing a counter-offer and a relocating family is most of the work, and it is not administration. A candidate who has been countered can get cold feet after giving notice; we stay with both sides until the start date holds.
Beyond the first ninety days
We stay engaged from onboarding to performance reviews, because the hire only succeeds once the person does — and that is what the fee is really for.
What a retained firm does, and what we do instead.
Almost everything an enterprise retained search firm does for a single search, we do too. The difference is when the invoice arrives, and who is carrying the risk until it does.
RIQIndex™ — Recruitment Health Index
A senior vacancy is the most expensive point in the system, and rarely the only thing wrong with it. Most mid-market companies cannot say which part of their recruitment is actually costing them — so the open seat gets treated as the problem, when it is usually the symptom that finally cost enough to notice. RIQIndex scores nine markers of recruitment health — from time to hire and candidate loss to compensation pressure — and tells you which gap is the expensive one.
Free for the founding cohort, confidential, and the report is yours to keep — whether or not we ever work together.
Executive search with PHM, answered.
Do you work retained or on contingency for executive search, and how does that differ from a global firm?
Our model is exclusive contingency. Enterprise firms charge a large upfront retainer, often at higher total cost, and guarantee neither a date nor a hire. You get the same exclusivity, reach and rigour as a retained executive search, for a fee paid only when you hire — typically inside a shorter timeline, with the delivery risk on us.
Is there a search you would turn down?
Yes, and we will say so early. Work running in several countries at once, or where a board wants a name it already recognizes attached to the process, are better served by an enterprise retained firm. We would rather tell you that than take it on.
What does an "exclusive" search mean, and why does it matter?
It means PHM is your sole partner on the role. That commitment is what lets us do the deep research, market mapping, and candidate engagement that level of hiring demands — the reason we can hold that standard on contingency terms. It aligns us fully with your outcome.
When do we pay, and where does the risk sit?
You pay on a successful hire, and nothing if priorities shift before one is made. The delivery risk sits with us: we’re paid to deliver, not to bill.
How long does a senior search take?
Timelines vary with scope, but the model is built to move: we are accountable for the result, not to a retainer clock, so first conversations start in days rather than weeks.
How confidential is the process?
Fully. We run these discreetly to protect both your organization and the leaders we approach — most of whom aren’t actively looking.
It begins with a conversation, not a mandate.
An advisory discussion about the leadership roles ahead of you — what they need to deliver, and where the right person is likely to come from. You do not need a live role: succession, a confidential replacement, or a compensation read are all reasons people call.
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