Before founding Fram, I worked for an Executive Search business, and indeed for the first four years of Fram’s life we worked an almost exclusively retained model. It’s a business model that has real merits, but we responded to client and market demand and introduced contingent search into our services. I have to say having the flexibility is great, and it’s also better in some ways for a key constituent in the recruitment process – the candidate. Most executive search agreements give the client “ownership” of a candidate until they’ve hired or declined the candidate. This often means that the headhunter can’t introduce that individual to the other firms, even if the candidate wanted them to. In many ways, it’s right. The client has paid upfront for a search consultant to build a shortlist for them, and not for their competition. However, this is one of the reasons why recruitment firms should have flexibility in their model. In many instances, search isn’t right or necessary to solve the problem the client is facing. That said, in boom times like these search firms won’t work without being retained, and in down times - they are more humble.
I’ve never not completed an executive search. In short, it’s because I only ever take things on I know I can complete, and it’s also process. Some would say I need to push myself more (I’d disagree).
Identifying those in the market, not just on the market
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Data & reporting
Detailed candidate profiling
Appointing the right panel of interviewers
Your search consultant can help you define the right process to put candidates through, and the best people to sit on the hiring panel. If you need to hire a CEO with a marketing background, then you need someone in the process who knows what “good” looks like.
Executive search can seem expensive and a brave step to take. However, like in any recruitment assignment, you are paying for the Consultant’s time. For someone experienced, to dedicate their time to your assignment and to helping you get the right person. Over the longer-term it will help you save money. Therefore, if you have a challenging or strategically important appointment to make, I couldn’t recommend it more.

About Fram Search
Established in 2010 by Simon Roderick, a recruiter with 20 years City recruitment experience, Fram Search is a specialist financial services recruitment consultancy. We focus on permanent and interim recruitment in the UK & internationally.
We provide high quality contingent and retained recruitment to boutiques and global brands. We have long established relationships and access to deep talent pools. Fram takes a highly consultative approach, and we have a quality over quantity ethos. We are proud that our contingent fill rate is nearly three the industry average and we augment our retained search methodology with rigorous psychometric testing. Champions of diversity & inclusion, all staff have undertaken unconscious bias training.
Please contact us on 01525 864 372 / [email protected] to learn more.
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