James Conley 9/21/26 James Conley 9/21/26

Inside the executive search process: What happens before a candidate ever reaches you

Most people picture a database. A firm gets the call, pulls up a list, sends over a stack of resumes, and waits to see what sticks. Which, honestly, is one way to do it. It is just not the way that tends to find the person you really want.

The first calls that we make on a new search are not to a candidate. It is to someone who has a perfectly good job, is not thinking about leaving it, and will almost certainly pick up the phone and tell me exactly that. Politely, usually. That call, the one that starts with no, is where the search begins.

Most retained searches are won or lost long before a name ever reaches the client. Understanding the executive search process means understanding what happens in that window.

Before the search starts, there’s a conversation worth having

The first thing we do after an agreement is signed is not go looking for candidates. We sit down with the client, the whole team, and we ask a lot of questions.

We call it a launch meeting, and it is where the search actually takes shape. We want to see the org chart, understand who this person reports to, who reports to them, and where the role sits inside the larger organization. If it is a replacement search, we want to know whether the client is looking to fill the hole exactly as it was, or whether there is something the last person was missing that now is the time to fix it.

That second question matters more than most clients expect. A seat that has been open for a few months has a way of revealing itself. You start to see what went wrong, what was never quite right, and what the organization needs now versus what it needed three years ago. We want that conversation on the front end, before we go looking for anyone.

We also ask something that tends to catch people off guard: why would someone want to work here? Tell me what is exciting about this company. Tell me about the culture, the trajectory, and what you do to build the team. It sounds simple, but it goes a long way. When we are on the phone with a candidate who has a perfectly good job and no particular reason to leave it, we need something honest and specific to say about why this seat is worth a serious look. That answer has to come from the client first.

The launch meeting is the foundation the rest of the search is built on, and getting it right is most of the job.

The long list nobody sees

Once the launch meeting is done, we go to work on something the client will never see in its entirety: the long list.

This is where we map the market. We are looking at the competitive landscape, the adjacent industries, the firms where someone with the right combination of experience is likely sitting. We build that list by name. In a search, we might identify people worth a serious look, and the vast majority of them have no idea we are about to call.

That is the point. The long list is a judgment call made by people who know the category well enough to recognize the right profile when they see it, even when that profile does not come with an obvious title or a tidy resume. Sometimes the person we are looking for has done both halves of the job in two separate roles, and nobody has put them together yet. We do that work before the first call goes out.

It takes about two weeks to build real traction from the launch meeting. Two weeks of outreach, conversations, and early interviews before anything worth presenting starts to take shape. That window is how long it takes to reach people who were not expecting to hear from us and give them a reason to keep talking.

Most of those people are employed, settled, and not thinking about leaving. The outreach is direct, usually a brief LinkedIn message from a name the industry recognizes, and the response rate speaks for itself. In a category this narrow and this relationship-driven, that response doesn’t happen by accident. It’s fifty years of knowing who to call and how to have that first conversation. What happens after someone agrees to talk is where the real work begins.

What we know before you meet anyone

By the time a name reaches a client, it has already been through a lot.

We interview every candidate ourselves, usually two or three times before we present them to anyone. The first conversation tells us whether someone is worth a deeper look. The second one is where we start to find the edges, the things they were a little vague on, the pieces of their experience that need more pressure before we can stand behind them. Sometimes a third conversation is what it takes to get there.

What we are listening for goes beyond the resume. A non-compete nobody thought to ask about, maybe a spouse whose career cannot relocate, a compensation expectation that was never going to clear. These are the things that blow up a search at the offer stage, when everyone’s time is already spent. We go looking for them early, on purpose, so they are questions we can work through rather than surprises that end the process.

The sorting, the vetting, the hard conversations, all of that stays on our side of the table so your time goes toward the decision. That is what it means to have a partner on a search rather than a vendor running one.

Getting to yes, and making it stick

Once you have met the candidates and the field narrows, we stay in it.

We work with you on the offer, the compensation structure, and the language of the agreement. We are on the phone with the candidate through that process too, making sure nothing falls apart over something that could have been handled with a conversation. A search that ends at the offer and hands off there is a search that leaves the hardest part to chance.

The candidates we present have been interviewed multiple times, prepped for their meetings, and are genuinely excited about the role by the time an offer is on the table. We spend weeks having honest conversations with them about what this move means for their career, what they would be giving up, and whether this is the right seat at the right time. When they say yes, they mean it.

Historically, the right candidate comes out of the first or second round. That is not a guarantee, but it is what fifty years of running this process looks like in practice. We calibrate after every round, go back to the market where we need to, and keep going until the search is successful.

A retained search is not a faster way to find resumes. It is a different process entirely, built for the hires that are too important to leave to a posting and a prayer. The launch meeting, the long list, the vetting, the conversations that happen before you ever meet anyone: all of it exists so that when the right person walks in, you already know they are right.

If you are weighing a senior hire in publishing or ed tech and want to talk through what the process would look like for your search, we are happy to have that conversation.

Jim Conley, BDES

James Conley 8/24/26 James Conley 8/24/26

The Candidate Who Wasn't Looking

A few years ago, we called a CFO who did not want to talk to us.

He was polite about it. He had a good job, a good title, and no reason to pick up for a recruiter. The search was for a growing company preparing to go public, one that needed a CFO who had actually been through that process and understood what it does to an organization. He told us he wasn't interested, thanked us for thinking of him, and started to say goodbye.

We kept talking.

We didn't pitch him. We asked questions. What he liked about the seat he was in. What he'd be giving up if it stalled out in a few years. What "next" looked like if he stayed, and what it looked like if he didn't. Twenty minutes in, the conversation had changed. He wasn't saying no anymore. He was thinking out loud, turning the thing over, working through his own options.

He took the job. He's been in it for four years.

Here's the part worth sitting with. That candidate was not looking. He hadn't touched a job board, hadn't updated his LinkedIn, hadn't told a single colleague he was open. By every definition the industry uses, he was not a candidate. He was a CFO doing his job well enough that nobody, including him, saw a reason to leave.

That's who we go find. It's the whole premise of retained, passive-candidate search. The person you most want to hire usually isn't looking, and you have to reach them before they've decided they want to be found.

Why the best leaders aren't in your pipeline

Think about how a job posting actually works. It reaches people who are reading job postings, which means, by design, it reaches the ones who are already restless, already unhappy, or already out. It does not reach the person who is good at what they do and has no complaints.

That person is who you want, and in publishing they're often easy to spot from the outside. A strong house or a growing platform, clearly talented, and no room to move because the seats above them are full. They're not job hunting. They're just quietly aware, whether they'd say it out loud or not, that the next rung may be years away. That awareness is where every search begins.

We find them through the industry's tools and through a network built over decades, mapping who's doing the work at the companies that make up the competitive set our client actually cares about. Then we reach out, by phone or in writing, always discreetly. Almost every time, the first answer is some version of "I'm happy where I am."

Good. That's the right answer. It also isn't the end of the conversation.

The work is the conversation, not the database

People assume executive search comes down to the database: a bigger network, better resumes, more names in a spreadsheet. It doesn't. The names are the easy part. Getting a settled, well-regarded leader to seriously picture a different life is the hard part, and it's most of the job.

We don't sell. We ask real questions and we tell the truth, even when the truth is that the move might not be right for them. Sometimes we're the ones who point out that the role is harder than it looks, or that staying put is the smarter play. That isn't a tactic. It's what an honest conversation sounds like, and something shifts when a person is weighing a decision for themselves instead of being sold on it. People stay in a role when they chose it, not when they were chosen. We've learned that difference the hard way often enough to trust it.

The other half of the work is listening closely enough to catch what could break a deal long before it does. A non-compete nobody asked about. A spouse whose job can't move. A number that was never going to clear. Recruiting is a chain, and when one link is missing the whole thing tends to come apart at the worst possible moment, at the offer, when everyone's time is already spent. We go looking for those things early, on purpose, and put them in front of the client while they're still questions and not dealbreakers.

Why this only works retained

None of this fits a fast, transactional model. When the work is measured in resumes delivered, there's no room to spend three weeks helping a happy, well-paid executive think clearly about a decision they never asked to make.

Retained is what buys that room. The client engages us exclusively, which means one search, one client, and a candidate who isn't being shopped to a dozen companies while we work. It also means the people who start your search are the people who finish it. Nothing gets handed to a junior associate the day the contract is signed, and nothing about a confidential move travels any further than it should. That structure is the only one that lets us spend real time on people who were never going to say yes on the first call. We made that choice decades ago and never looked back.

It shows up in the relationships. A client once came back to us after a rough experience elsewhere: too many resumes, not enough judgment, more pitch than search. They tried the next one in-house for a while, then called us. We've run six searches together since. Six. That isn't what you get from a vendor. It's what happens when someone decides you're a partner.

When the profile doesn't exist on paper

Not long ago we ran a search for a company competing head-on with a major streaming-audio platform. They needed someone who understood audio content licensing and platform partnerships at the same time, a combination that does not show up cleanly in any search string or job title.

So we didn't look for a title. We mapped the whole competitive landscape, the direct rivals and the industries next to them, and worked out by name who actually had both halves of that experience. Nearly everyone worth the conversation was employed and content where they were. We reached out anyway, had the real conversations, vetted hard, and put a short, deliberate slate of people we'd stake our judgment on in front of the client. They hired without a second round.

That's the point of the work. The right person for a hard role is rarely the one who's easy to find. Reaching them is a matter of conversations, not queries.

What this means if you're hiring

If you're filling a senior role by posting it and waiting, or by asking your team who they know, you're looking in the one place the best people have already left. That pool gets picked over constantly, and the strongest leaders learned a long time ago not to swim where everyone else is fishing.

The people worth hiring are somewhere else, doing well, not thinking about you at all. Reaching them takes someone willing to have the conversation that starts with no, and then have the next one. That isn't a database. It's a phone call, and then another, until the no turns into something worth listening to.

So if your search has stalled because everyone qualified already has a job, that isn't bad luck. It's the market doing exactly what it always does. It just means the search needs someone calling the people who were never going to answer a job posting in the first place.

Jim Conley, BDES

Insights

Shelby Nork 5/28/19 Shelby Nork 5/28/19

Redefine Success

It All Begins Here

Confidence doesn’t always arrive with a bold entrance. Sometimes, it builds quietly, step by step, as we show up for ourselves day after day. It grows when we choose to try, even when we’re unsure of the outcome. Every time you take action despite self-doubt, you reinforce the belief that you’re capable. Confidence isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about trusting that you can figure it out along the way.

The key to making things happen isn’t waiting for the perfect moment; it’s starting with what you have, where you are. Big goals can feel overwhelming when viewed all at once, but momentum builds through small, consistent action. Whether you’re working toward a personal milestone or a professional dream, progress comes from showing up — not perfectly, but persistently. Action creates clarity, and over time, those steps forward add up to something real.

You don’t need to be fearless to reach your goals, you just need to be willing. Willing to try, willing to learn, and willing to believe that you’re capable of more than you know. The road may not always be smooth, but growth rarely is. What matters most is that you keep going, keep learning, and keep believing in the version of yourself you’re becoming.