Headhunting software, finally conversational

An executive search firm rarely fails on sourcing. It fails on portfolio composition: too many mandates open at once, several of them with a client who is not really committed, and a couple that have been running for five months without anyone deciding to close them.

Making that visible is worth more than any additional sourcing channel. A weekly view of open mandates with their age, the stage they are stuck at and the fee at risk turns an intuition into a decision, and usually the decision is to drop two searches to finish three.

The asset of a headhunting firm is a network of executives who take the call, and that network decays through silence. A candidate contacted only when there is something to sell learns to read the pattern, and the response rate drops precisely with the profiles worth most.

The maintenance is unglamorous and cheap: recording the outcome of every conversation, when the person expects to move, what would make them listen, and scheduling the next contact at the moment they themselves suggested. Six touches a year without a vacancy attached is what makes the seventh one work.

Most friction in an executive search comes from silence during the weeks when there is nothing conclusive to report. The client interprets silence as inactivity, and the fourth week without news is when the mandate starts being questioned internally.

A short scheduled update — market mapped, profiles approached, responses received, calibration questions — costs fifteen minutes and changes the tone of the relationship. It also forces the consultant to look at their own progress on a fixed rhythm, which is where most stalled searches get caught.