What executive headhunter firms actually do, what separates a retained search firm from a contingency recruiter, and the criteria to judge one on before signing. Every firm named below is described using only what its own site publishes.
An executive headhunter firm is a search firm a company engages to identify, approach and assess senior leaders who are not applying for jobs. Most operate on a retained, exclusive basis, and choosing one comes down to five checkable things: mandate fit, who actually runs the search, the firm's off-limits policy, written engagement terms, and how candidates are assessed.
Key numbers
An executive search firm's job is not job posting and applicant screening. It is finding people who are not looking, most of whom are currently employed and doing well where they are, and making the case that a specific role is worth their attention.
That work has three parts. First, defining the mandate precisely enough that a search can be run against it: what the role owns, what "good" looks like at six months and eighteen months, and where the company actually sits relative to competitors it will need to recruit against. Second, mapping the market: who holds comparable roles today, at which companies, and which of them are realistically reachable. Third, approaching, assessing and closing candidates who were not applying anywhere.
That third part is the one that separates search firms from job boards and most in-house recruiting. A well-defined mid-level role with real applicant flow does not need a headhunter. A role where the right person is not applying, is not on LinkedIn actively job hunting, and needs to be found and persuaded, does.
The single most important distinction to check before signing anyone is whether the firm works retained or contingency, because the incentives are different.
AESC's own Professional Practice Standards state it plainly: "AESC member firms operate on a retained and exclusive basis for executive search, providing expert advice from the beginning to the conclusion of each assignment. This exclusive, client-centered model of operation combined with deep expertise is a key to quality" (AESC Professional Practice Standards). Retained means the firm is paid for the engagement itself, not just for a hire, and exclusive means the client is not running the same search through three other firms at once hoping one of them lands someone first.
Contingency recruiting runs on a different logic. Investopedia describes a headhunter as "a company or individual that provides employment recruiting services on behalf of an employer," and states that headhunters typically "do not get paid unless their candidate is hired," earning "20% to 30% of a new hire's total first-year salary" (Investopedia, What Is a Headhunter?). Nobody is paid for the work of defining the role, mapping the market, or turning down a bad-fit candidate. They are paid for a placement, and only if theirs lands first.
Neither model is wrong on its face. Contingency makes sense for roles where a decent-sized pool of active candidates already exists and speed matters more than exclusivity. Retained search makes sense for roles where the pool of qualified people is small, most of them are not looking, and the cost of a bad hire (SHRM's $35,879 average cost per hire for an executive role, against $5,475 for a nonexecutive one, gives some sense of the stakes) is high enough that the client wants one firm fully committed rather than several firms racing.
For a fuller breakdown of what retained search commits a firm to, see what retained search is and how it stacks up directly against the contingency model in retained vs contingency search.
A retained search, run to AESC's own standard, generally moves through a consistent sequence, though the specific steps and language vary by firm:
The order matters. A firm that skips straight to sourcing without agreeing the mandate first is building a shortlist against a target that has not been defined, which is exactly the failure mode AESC's standards on written engagement terms exist to prevent. For a closer look at how this plays out end to end, including what each stage typically costs, see executive search: how the process works and what it costs.
Fee structures vary by firm, model and region, and none of the large firms named later in this piece publish a specific percentage on their own sites, so the table below draws only from the two market conventions that are sourced.
| Model | Who pays the fee | When it's owed | What's published about it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contingency recruiting | Employer | Only if a candidate from that recruiter is hired | Investopedia states a typical range of 20 to 30 percent of first-year salary |
| Retained executive search (AESC member firms) | Employer | Paid across the engagement, regardless of outcome, under an exclusive, single-firm arrangement | AESC's standards describe the model as retained and exclusive; individual firms do not publish a fee percentage on the pages cited here |
| Recruitmint Full Search | Employer | A launch fee plus a success fee on placement, owed as a single-firm engagement | Pricing is available on request; fees vary with role seniority, search complexity and hiring volume |
| Recruitmint Embedded Partner | Employer | A monthly fee for ongoing capacity plus a reduced success fee | Pricing is available on request |
The gap in average cost per hire between executive and nonexecutive roles ($35,879 versus $5,475, per SHRM's 2025 Benchmarking Report) is the reason firms and clients alike treat a mis-hire at the executive level as a materially different kind of risk than a mis-hire further down the org chart. It is also the reason retained search exists as a category: the fee is structured to buy sustained attention on a single mandate, not a race against other firms working the same role. For a deeper look at what a Full Search actually involves, see executive search fees: what retained search costs in 2026.
A search firm is for the mandate a company cannot define cleanly, cannot reach on its own, or cannot afford to get wrong.
Use one when the role is senior enough that the right candidates are not actively applying, when the internal team does not have direct visibility into who holds comparable roles at comparable companies, when the search needs to run in a market or region the internal team does not have a presence in, or when the cost of a wrong hire (in time lost, team disruption, or a restart) is high enough that exclusivity and dedicated attention are worth paying for.
Do not use one for a well-defined role at a level the internal team already hires successfully, where applicant flow is real and the team has the interview capacity to run the process itself. Posting the role and running interviews in house will usually get there faster and more cheaply than engaging a firm to do work the team can already do. This also holds for specialized but well-scoped mandates, such as cleared roles tied to a specific program requirement, where the harder problem is often mobilization speed rather than candidate discovery; that is a narrower question worth working through separately (see government contractor recruiting for how contract-award timing changes that calculus).
AESC's standards state that engagement terms should be in writing and cover "the lead advisor who will be serving the client, the scope of the project, the timing, the fees and payment schedule, deliverables, and specific terms related to the assignment that might include guarantees, off-limits, conflicts, data management, and other important terms" (AESC Professional Practice Standards). That single sentence is a usable checklist. Here it is broken into rows you can work through with any firm before signing.
| Criterion | What strong looks like | Evidence to ask for |
|---|---|---|
| Mandate fit | The firm has run searches in this function and at this stage of company before, not just adjacent ones | Examples of comparable searches by function, seniority and company stage |
| Who runs the search | The person who sold the engagement is the same person (or a named lead advisor) doing the sourcing, assessment and day-to-day management | Ask directly who the lead advisor is, and whether the work is handed off to a research team you will not otherwise meet |
| Off-limits policy | The firm can state plainly which of its own existing clients are therefore off-limits for approaching in your search | A written off-limits policy, and a direct answer on whether any relevant candidate pool is currently blocked |
| Written engagement terms | Terms cover scope, timing, fees and payment schedule, deliverables, and specific terms such as guarantees, off-limits, conflicts and data management | The engagement letter itself, reviewed before signing, not a verbal summary |
| Assessment method | The firm can describe its evaluation process beyond a resume review: a structured interview format, a competency framework, a reference process | A walk-through of what happens between "shortlist presented" and "candidate assessed," in specific steps |
| Regional reach vs. where the candidate is | The firm's stated offices or regions actually cover the geography the strongest candidates for this role are likely to be in | The firm's own published office list or regional coverage statement, checked against where the role's talent pool actually sits |
AESC also publishes a Client Bill of Rights that sets out baseline expectations for how a member firm should treat a client, worth reading alongside the standards above before signing anything.
Each firm below is described only using what its own site publishes. The order below is not a quality ranking, and every firm is linked to its own site so you can verify the claim directly.
Heidrick & Struggles states it was founded in 1953 in Chicago by Gardner Heidrick and John Struggles, and that "since 1953, we have been building deep relationships with the world's most talented individuals on behalf of the world's most successful companies" (Heidrick & Struggles, Our Heritage).
Egon Zehnder states on its about page that it operates in 37 countries with more than 600 consultants (Egon Zehnder, About Us).
Russell Reynolds Associates states, "We are truly global with experienced consultants across 47 offices worldwide" (Russell Reynolds Associates, Office Locations).
Korn Ferry's About Us page describes more than five decades of work designing organization structures, and lists services spanning Board & CEO Services, Organization Strategy, Assessment & Succession, Talent Acquisition, Leadership & Professional Development, and Total Rewards (Korn Ferry, About Us).
Riviera Partners states it has operated "since 2001," has grown "to over 120 team members," has "placed talent in over 25 countries," and specializes in product management, software engineering, IT, AI/ML/Data, security and design (Riviera Partners, About).
Hunt Club states it has run executive search since 2014, has placed more than 5,000 leaders, reports a 95 percent placement rate, and states that 90 percent of its clients are investor-backed (Hunt Club, About Us).
The pattern across these six is worth noticing on its own: the large global firms (Heidrick & Struggles, Egon Zehnder, Russell Reynolds, Korn Ferry) lead with decades of history and office footprint, while the stage-focused firms (Riviera Partners, Hunt Club) lead with function specialization and volume. Neither approach is inherently better; which one fits depends on whether the mandate needs broad geographic and sector coverage or deep familiarity with one kind of company at one stage.
Full Search is the model built for a high-impact or hard-to-fill hire: calibration through candidate assessment, interviews, offer and close, structured as a launch fee plus a success fee owed on placement. Calibration comes first, before any sourcing starts, because the harder part of a search is rarely finding candidates. It is understanding what the business actually needs, how the role fits the wider operation, and who can genuinely perform in that environment.
We search six regions: Western Europe, North America, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Latin America, because the strongest candidate for a role is not always in the most obvious market. For companies with several active roles rather than one, the Embedded Partner model provides ongoing recruitment capacity as an extension of the internal team, structured as a monthly fee plus a reduced success fee.
Pricing for either model is available on request; fees vary based on role seniority, search complexity and hiring volume, and executive-level, highly specialized or unusually complex searches are quoted individually. If it is not clear yet which model fits a given hiring situation, the Hiring Scorecard is a short assessment that scores role clarity, hiring readiness, talent market fit and recruitment capacity, then points to a model. The full list of functions we search most often, from Founding Engineer to Head of TikTok Shop to VP-level appointments, is on the industries page.
The diagram below lays out the three questions worth answering before engaging anyone, executive search firm or otherwise.
An executive headhunter firm exists to reach and assess senior leaders who are not applying for jobs, and most of the reputable ones operate retained and exclusive rather than contingency. Before signing with any firm, check five things: whether it has actually searched this function and stage before, who runs the search day to day, its off-limits policy, whether its engagement terms are in writing and cover fees, guarantees and conflicts, and how it assesses candidates beyond a resume review. A well-defined mid-level role with real applicant flow rarely needs any of this; a mandate the internal team cannot define, reach or afford to get wrong usually does.
Fee models vary by firm. Contingency recruiters typically earn between 20 and 30 percent of a new hire's total first-year salary and are paid only if their candidate is hired, per Investopedia. Retained search firms, by AESC's own standard, are paid for the engagement itself on an exclusive basis, though individual firms do not publish a specific percentage on the pages cited here. Recruitmint's own fees for Full Search and Embedded Partner are structured as a launch or monthly fee plus a success fee, with the exact amount quoted on request.
Off-limits refers to a firm's own existing clients whose employees it will not approach for a new search, even though those employees might otherwise be strong candidates. AESC's standards list off-limits as one of the specific terms a written engagement should cover, alongside guarantees, conflicts and data management. Before signing, it is worth asking a firm directly which of its clients are currently off-limits, since that can materially shrink the pool it is able to search on your behalf.
It depends on what the mandate actually requires. A search that needs broad geographic coverage or deep sector history, the kind Egon Zehnder (37 countries, 600-plus consultants) or Russell Reynolds (47 offices worldwide) describe on their own sites, points toward a larger global firm. A search for a specific function at a specific company stage, the kind Riviera Partners (product, engineering, AI/ML, security and design since 2001) or Hunt Club (investor-backed clients, since 2014) describe on their own sites, often points toward a stage-focused firm instead. Neither is automatically the better fit; the mandate decides.
When the role is well-defined, sits at a level the internal team already hires successfully for, has real applicant flow, and the internal team has the capacity to run interviews itself. In that situation, posting the role and running the process in house is usually faster and cheaper than engaging a firm to do work the team can already do on its own.
What executive search means, the stages a retained search actually runs through, and what the market convention charges for one. Cost figures below are cited market conventions, not a Recruitmint fee.
The pattern a Recruitmint search follows, from calibration through offer and close, described generally rather than as any one client's story.
How a hiring company finds, vets and engages a headhunter, stage by stage, and what a candidate should expect if a headhunter finds them first. Includes the checks that separate a real search firm from a fee scam.
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