Backed by over 25 years of experience, the firm has proven particularly effective when it comes to securing the highest caliber professionals, from key individual contributor through senior management to VP levels, for many of the world’s best known companies.

At the same time, the firm believes in providing a high level of personalized attention to both clients and potential candidates.

What it comes down to is time and commitment. Retained and contingent search firms have no monopoly on time, but the Client’s upfront financial commitment allows the retained firm to spend much more time digging deeper on fewer assignments at any given point, simply because the retained firm knows it is being paid for its efforts. Meanwhile, the contingent firm, lacking such a financial commitment, is forced to spend much less time on many more assignments at any given point, because it never knows for sure which Client assignment will ultimately end up in a paid placement.

The result is that the retained search firm can afford to conduct and complete in-depth and professional searches at every stage in the process, yielding more robust candidate slates and timelier fulfillment. Meanwhile, the contingent firm’s business model forces it to take a more superficial, volume approach to achieve its own business goals, often at the expense of candidate quality and commitment to completion.

To offer an analogy, retained search is like deep sea fishing for marlin; contingent search is like casting a net for minnows.