What a well-run search looks like, from brief to start date

When a senior hire goes well, it can look easy from the outside. In practice, a well-run search is a sequence of decisions, and most of the problems I see come from skipping one. The market has also changed in the last few months, which changes where the risks sit.

The KPMG and REC UK Report on Jobs for September 2026 showed permanent placements rising at the strongest rate in four years, while the supply of permanent candidates grew at its weakest pace since September 2023. Private-sector permanent vacancies improved for the first time in over two years. In plain terms: more employers are hiring again, and the pool of available people isn't keeping up.

The people you want are also more open than they look. Russell Reynolds' spring 2026 Global Leadership Monitor found nearly two-thirds of leaders are open to moving to another employer, and only 29% believe their career aspirations will be met where they are. That points to something useful for any search: senior people move for where a role will take them, not just for money.

Everything depends on the brief, and a job description isn't one. I want to understand the business, the team, the reporting line, what success looks like after a year, and why the role is open now. I also want the things that don't go into a job description: whether the board is aligned on the role, whether there's an internal candidate, what would make the hire fail.

By the end of this stage you should have a written summary of the role, the profile, the target organisations and the timeline. If your search partner can't play the role back to you clearly, they don't understand it yet.

Next comes a map of the whole relevant market: the organisations where the right person might be, the people in comparable roles, and adjacent sectors where the same skills are used. The map tells you how many credible people exist, where they are and roughly what they cost. Sometimes it shows the brief needs to change. Better to know that in week three than in week twelve.

Most strong candidates aren't applying for jobs, so this stage is about discreet, personal approaches. I explain the opportunity honestly, difficulties included, and never send a CV anywhere without the candidate's agreement. Interested candidates get a proper interview covering judgement, motivation and how they work with people, not just track record. The output is a short shortlist with my honest view on each person.

This is also where to deal with money. CIPD's 2026 survey of UK employers found only 56% of private-sector employers think candidates have realistic salary expectations, and 18% renegotiate offer terms always or mostly. Agreeing the package range early saves a failed offer later.

The counteroffer is changing shape. CIPD found the share of UK employers using counteroffers to hold on to staff fell from 28% in 2024 to 20% in 2026, and the share saying candidates often accept an offer and then back out fell from 13% to 8%. A quarter still report problems with counteroffers or dropouts after acceptance.

The bigger risk now is inertia. Gartner reported that only 48% of candidates accepted their most recent job offer in late 2025, down from 54% a year earlier and 85% in late 2023, and that 30% of employees would stay put even if offered a better job. A senior candidate can like everything about a role and still not move.

The answer is the same in both cases: understand each candidate's real reasons for moving early, and test them before the offer, not after.

Once an offer is accepted, a senior hire often has three to six months' notice to serve, sometimes more. Many hiring timelines leave that out. The US benchmark from SHRM, for example, puts the median time to fill an executive role at 45 days, but it stops at offer acceptance.

From brief to start date, six months to a year is realistic for a senior appointment. That's why the search needs to start earlier than most businesses think, and why I stay in touch with the new hire throughout their notice period.

Few employers measure the whole journey. CIPD found only 31% of UK organisations track time to hire and 33% collect candidate experience data. In the US, SHRM found only 20% measure quality of hire. A well-run search sets one timeline from brief to start date, and judges itself on whether the hire is still delivering a year later.

Whether you work with me or someone else, a well-run search should give you:

• A clear brief played back to you in writing within the first week or two.
• A view of the market, including the honest news if the profile or budget needs to change.
• Regular updates without you having to chase. The industry's own standard, the AESC Client Bill of Rights, commits search firms to ongoing communication about the market's response and any challenges.
• A short shortlist with a real opinion on each candidate, not a pile of CVs.
• One person accountable from the brief to the start date.

If you're planning a senior hire and want a realistic view of the timeline, I'm happy to talk it through.

• KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs, October 2026 (September data; survey of around 400 UK recruitment consultancies).
• Russell Reynolds Associates, Global Leadership Monitor H1 2026, August 2026 (2,700+ leaders, 70+ countries).
• CIPD and Omni RMS, Resourcing and talent planning report 2026, September 2026 (1,014 UK HR decision-makers, YouGov, April to May 2026).
• Gartner, "48 percent of candidates accepted job offers", June 2026.
• SHRM, 2025 Recruiting Executives Benchmarking, 2025 (US only).
• AESC, Client Bill of Rights, October 2025.