What search firms actually do — and what you can replicate.
A retained search firm charges between 20 and 33% of first-year compensation for a senior hire. On a CTC of 40 lakh, that is 8 to 13 lakh rupees. The question is not whether the service is worth something. For many searches it is. The question is what, specifically, you are paying for — and which parts of that service you can credibly run yourself.
Search firms do six things well: they define the specification rigorously, they map the universe of candidates rather than just the ones who are looking, they approach passives discreetly, they run a structured assessment process, they manage the offer and negotiation, and they provide a guarantee period. Of these, the first five are replicable in-house with discipline. The sixth is what you sacrifice if the hire is wrong.
Start with a precise specification.
The most common reason senior searches fail is an underspecified brief. “We need a strong VP of Sales” is not a brief. A brief answers: what are the three or four specific outcomes this person must deliver in the first eighteen months? What does the organisation look like when they have succeeded? What is the team they will inherit, and what does it need from them? What are the non-negotiables on culture, and what are the genuine flexibilities? What has made previous people in this role succeed or fail here?
Spend two to three sessions with the relevant stakeholders — the hiring manager, the CEO, the functional peers — building this specification before you source a single candidate. The document it produces is the brief you would give a search firm. It is also the scorecard you use to evaluate everyone who applies.
“A great search starts with a great brief. Most companies spend ten hours interviewing and thirty minutes on the spec. The ratio should be reversed.”
Map passives, not just actives.
LinkedIn, Naukri, and inbound applications reach the candidates who are actively looking. Senior leaders who are performing well in their current roles are rarely actively looking. To reach them, you need to either approach them directly or reach them through trusted intermediaries.
Build a long list of 30 to 50 people who are doing a version of this job well, in companies of relevant scale and sector. LinkedIn is adequate for this. Then identify which of them are reachable through your own network — board members, investors, founder peers, alumni communities. A warm introduction from a trusted source converts at a far higher rate than a cold InMail, and most founders underestimate how large their reachable network actually is when they map it deliberately.
Run a structured process, not a series of conversations.
Senior hires fail when the selection process is a series of interviews that assess whoever the interviewers happen to like. A structured process has defined stages, defined evaluators, defined criteria, and a debrief format that produces a decision rather than a feeling.
A practical structure for a senior search: an initial 45-minute conversation to assess fit against the brief, a deep-dive interview with the hiring manager, a case or presentation exercise relevant to the actual challenges of the role, reference calls (conducted by the hiring manager or CEO, not HR), and a final conversation with the founder or board. Each stage should eliminate candidates against the scorecard, not simply move everyone forward.
Reference calls are not a formality.
Most reference calls in India are treated as a box to tick. The right people are not called, the right questions are not asked, and the output is not acted on. A reference call done properly tells you things that no interview can: how the candidate performs under pressure, how they manage people who are difficult, how they respond to feedback, and whether their description of their achievements maps to what their former colleagues actually observed.
Call at least three references. At least one should be a former direct report, and at least one should be a former peer. Ask open questions. Ask for specific examples. Ask what the candidate would need to continue growing. Then listen carefully to what is said — and what is not.
The offer and the close.
Senior candidates at the shortlist stage are evaluating the opportunity as carefully as you are evaluating them. The close is not a negotiation about salary. It is a conversation about whether this is the right next chapter for them. Be direct about what the role offers — the scope, the team, the upside, the founder’s vision. Be honest about what is hard. Senior people who join on an honest brief stay. Senior people who join on an oversold pitch leave at the eighteen-month mark, and the cost of that is enormous.
