Knowing how to evaluate an executive recruiter before you sign is the difference between a leadership hire that compounds for a decade and a six-month detour that ends with a board asking why the CFO seat is open again. Most hiring sponsors — a CHRO, a President, a P&L owner staring at a critical vacancy — evaluate the recruiter the way they evaluate a caterer: they listen to the pitch, like the person, and sign. The pitch is not the product. The product is a completed search, a leader who is still in the seat two years later, and a process you could defend to your board. What follows are the questions I would ask any search consultant across the table from me, in the order that actually exposes whether you are hiring an operator or a resume-forwarder.
I run these questions myself. Below each one is what a real answer sounds like, and what the dodge sounds like.
"What is your completion rate on retained searches?"
Ask this first, because it is the one number that quietly contains everything else. A completion rate is the percentage of accepted assignments that end in a placement the client actually hires. Reputable retained firms complete 85 to 95 percent of what they take on. If a recruiter cannot state a number, or waves it off as "we don't really track that," you have your answer — they track it, and the number is bad.
The reason the figure matters is structural. A retained search is paid across the engagement, not on delivery, so a serious firm will not accept a search it does not believe it can finish. That self-selection is a feature: it means they decline unwinnable mandates instead of taking your money and disappearing. A contingency recruiter, paid only on placement, has the opposite incentive — start twenty searches, finish whichever three fall in their lap, and quietly abandon the rest. When you ask a contingency shop for a completion rate, they often quote a placement count instead. Different metric. A firm that ran 60 searches and filled 18 is not a 30-percent success story; it is a posting board.
Follow the number with: "How many of your placements in the last two years are still in the role?" Completion tells you they closed. Retention tells you they were right.
"How many searches are you personally running right now?"
This is the load question, and it is where polished firms get uncomfortable. A single consultant can carry roughly five to eight active retained searches at real depth. Beyond that, something gives — usually the sourcing, always the calibration calls, and eventually your search. A recruiter who cheerfully tells you they have "twenty-plus open right now" is not busy in a good way. They are running volume, and volume is the tell of a contingency model wearing a retained suit.
Push on it: "Of those, how many are at the same level and in the same function as mine?" If your CFO search is competing for attention with their VP of Sales and Director of Ops assignments, you will get a generalist's effort. If they are running three finance-leadership searches concurrently, that is a different signal — they are calibrated on the market you are buying in right now, seeing the same passive candidates, and reading comp in real time. Depth in your lane beats a light load across many.
"Who actually does the work on my search — you, or someone I haven't met?"
The most common quality failure in this business has a name in the trade: bait-and-switch. A senior partner charms the room during the pitch, wins the engagement, and then hands the actual sourcing, screening, and candidate development to a junior researcher you never interviewed. The partner reappears for the finalist presentation and the invoice.
So ask directly. "Walk me through who touches this search and what each person does." A straight answer names the people, distinguishes the researcher who builds the market map from the consultant who runs the candidate conversations, and commits the senior person to the calibration and the closing. There is nothing wrong with a research team — that is how deep mapping gets done. There is everything wrong with a senior consultant who vanishes after the kickoff. Get the staffing in writing, and get the name of the person who will be on your weekly call.
"How deep is your network in my sector — and can you prove it?"
Every recruiter claims sector expertise. The way to test it is to make them show, not tell. Name three companies you consider direct comparables for the talent you want and ask who they know inside each — not names on a list, but relationships. A consultant genuinely embedded in industrial and manufacturing leadership, or in finance and accounting executive search, can tell you who the strongest controllers-turned-CFOs are in your revenue band, which of them are quietly open, and which two you should not waste a call on and why.
Sector fluency shows up in vocabulary. A recruiter who understands mining and minerals leadership talks about permitting timelines, offtake exposure, and the difference between a builder and an operator running a mine. A recruiter who understands SaaS leadership knows the gap between a Series B finance chief and one who has taken a company through a real audit. If the answers stay generic — "we place great leaders across many industries" — you are buying breadth where you need depth. Before you sign, it is worth reading a broader framework on how to choose an executive search firm so the sector question sits inside a full evaluation, not on its own.
"What is your off-limits list, and does it block the talent I need?"
This is the question almost no sponsor thinks to ask, and it is the one that quietly determines whether the best candidate is even reachable. Retained firms operate under off-limits — sometimes called hands-off — obligations: they contractually will not recruit executives out of their own active clients, typically for 12 to 24 months. It is the right ethical posture, and the AESC Code of Professional Practice treats client protection as a baseline standard.
Here is the trap. A firm that is heavily saturated in your exact sector may be blocked from the precise companies whose talent you covet, because those companies are their clients. Saturation cuts both ways — it can mean deep knowledge, or it can mean half your target list is walled off. So ask plainly: "Given my target companies, is any of them off-limits to you right now?" A candid firm will tell you where the walls are and how it changes the search plan. A firm that says "no conflicts anywhere" either has no meaningful client base in your space or is not being straight with you.
"How do you stand behind the placement if it doesn't work out?"
Roughly 40 percent of newly placed executives are viewed as struggling or failing within their first 18 months, a figure documented in Harvard Business Review's leadership research. That is not an argument against hiring a recruiter — it is the argument for asking how they price their own conviction. A serious firm offers a replacement guarantee: if the placed executive leaves or is terminated within a defined period, they re-run the search. Ask for the length of that period and read exactly what triggers it.
But the guarantee is the floor, not the ceiling. The better question is: "What do you do in the first 90 days to make sure it sticks?" The recruiters worth signing stay involved through onboarding — structured check-ins with the new leader and the sponsor, early-warning surfacing when the integration wobbles. A replacement guarantee protects you after failure. Onboarding involvement is how a real search partner prevents it. If the recruiter's interest ends at the signed offer, you have bought a transaction, not a search.
"Can I speak to a sponsor from a search you completed — and one you didn't?"
Anyone can produce a happy reference from their best placement. The revealing request is the second half: a sponsor from a search that went sideways, was slow, or ended without a hire. How a recruiter handles their own miss tells you more than a wall of testimonials. Did they communicate when the search stalled? Did they refund or restructure? Did they tell the client a hard truth about the comp being wrong or the spec being unfillable?
When you make the reference calls, skip "were you happy" and ask about the search mechanics: How often did the consultant update you? Did the shortlist match the brief, or was it padded with names off a job board? When a finalist pulled out, what happened next? Sponsors who have run a search with a firm know exactly where the pain was. Let them tell you.
Putting the answers together
Run all seven questions and a pattern emerges quickly. Operators answer with numbers, names, and specifics — completion rate, search load, staffing plan, off-limits walls, guarantee terms. Resume-forwarders answer with adjectives — "extensive network," "proven process," "great relationships." The distinction is not about likability. Plenty of resume-forwarders are delightful. It is about whether the person across the table is accountable to a completed search or merely to a first introduction.
One last note on money, because sponsors always ask me about it: how a firm structures its fee is a real question, but it belongs in the engagement-terms conversation, not in a public checklist and not as a proxy for quality. The cheapest search that never completes is the most expensive line item you will book all year — measured in the vacancy months, the interim scramble, and the strategic decisions a leaderless function delays. Evaluate the recruiter on completion, depth, and accountability first. Diligence on the recruiter is the highest-return hour you will spend on the entire hire. If you want the wider view of what an executive search firm actually does before you start interviewing them, read that first, then come back to these seven questions and ask them without flinching.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good completion rate for a retained executive recruiter?
Reputable retained search firms complete 85 to 95 percent of the assignments they accept, because the retained model is paid across the engagement and firms decline searches they cannot finish. A recruiter who cannot state a completion rate, or who quotes a raw placement count instead, is signaling a lower success rate.
How many searches should a recruiter be running at once?
A single consultant can carry roughly five to eight active retained searches at genuine depth. Someone juggling twenty or more open requisitions is running volume, which is the hallmark of a contingency model rather than a focused retained search — your assignment will not get calibrated attention.
What is an off-limits list and why does it matter when hiring a recruiter?
An off-limits or hands-off list names the companies a firm contractually will not recruit from, usually for 12 to 24 months, to protect its own clients. It matters because a firm heavily saturated in your sector may be blocked from the exact talent you want, so ask directly whether any of your target companies are off-limits to them.
Should an executive recruiter offer a replacement guarantee?
Yes. A serious firm re-runs the search at no additional fee if the placed executive leaves or is terminated within a defined period. Because roughly 40 percent of new executives struggle within 18 months, also ask what the recruiter does during the first 90 days of onboarding to prevent failure, not just remedy it.
What is bait-and-switch in executive search?
Bait-and-switch is when a senior partner pitches and wins the engagement, then hands the actual sourcing and candidate work to a junior researcher the client never met. Prevent it by asking exactly who staffs your search, what each person does, and getting the senior consultant's commitment to calibration and closing in writing.