What you can expect from us. In black and white

That is precisely what our method is designed to prevent, before the search even begins. Because we have held the roles we recruit for, we take particular care over the briefing. The real need, the balance of the organisation, the unspoken criteria, the governance environment. A search that is well targeted from the outset produces candidates who convince, and that is the case in the vast majority of our assignments. Should a presentation nonetheless fall short, it always tells us something. A narrower market than expected, a role that needs redefining, a criterion that emerged along the way. We then revisit the briefing note with you and continue the search until the appointment is made, not until a first shortlist. That work is included in the fees quoted, at no extra charge, because an exclusive mandate commits us to the result.

Yes. We put you in touch with two or three clients in a situation comparable to yours. That is the best way to assess us. A firm is judged on what its clients say about it after the assignment, not on what it writes about itself. The figures help to make that judgement objective. 50 % of our mandates come from clients who return to us, and several have trusted us for more than ten years. In sixteen years, our replacement guarantee has been triggered only twice, never for a misjudgement. Those direct references let you check what this page claims. Whether deadlines were met, how sound the candidate files were, how the firm behaved when an assignment ran into difficulty. Ask for them at the first conversation.

Two reasons, both of them verifiable. The first has to do with internal trade-offs. In a large network, partners share out the accounts, and your assignment depends on the arrangement they have agreed between them. With us there is no trade-off to make. The founding partner runs the assignment and answers for it directly to you. The second reason has to do with off-limits. A firm does not approach the employees of its own clients. The wider the network, the longer the list of companies that may not be approached, and the smaller the pool genuinely available. Our list is short. We can therefore approach where the large networks no longer can. On a sensitive role, where the relevant profiles number in the dozens rather than the hundreds, that gap often decides the outcome.

The question deserves a precise answer. It forms part of our first conversation, with our off-limits rules on the table. The principle is simple. We do not approach our clients' employees on behalf of third parties. The rule is written into every mandate and applies for at least two years. It protects your investment in an appointment, and it protects the relationship of trust that allows a firm to work with a house over the long term. That is also why we prefer transparency from the briefing onwards. You know who we work for in your sector, and you decide in full knowledge of the facts. Confidentiality runs both ways, for the assignments we carry out with you as for those we will never speak of.

Nine assignments out of ten are completed in under two months, 35 % within one month, measured from signature of the mandate to acceptance of the offer. The sequence is constant. Weeks 1 to 2, the briefing. Immersion in your context, interviews with the key stakeholders, a briefing note agreed together. Weeks 2 to 6, search and assessment. Direct approach, in-depth interviews, personality testing, reference checks. Weeks 6 to 8, the decision, up to ten weeks for the broadest searches. A reasoned shortlist, and support through to the final negotiation. After signature, integration follow-up continues for a year. The initial briefing, for its part, is never compressed. It is what saves the weeks that follow.

Yes. For every Corporate function, we cover the leadership role and its immediate circle. Head of department, deputy, senior specialist. The standard is the same, because these roles carry the same risks at their own scale. A business compliance manager or an M&A lawyer commits the company as much, at their level, as a director does. Every candidate presented is therefore the subject of the same file. Analysis of the career path, our reading of their interest in your project and of their fit with your requirements and your environment, a full debrief of the personality tests, cross-checked references, and our reasoned recommendation, including the points that call for attention. It is on that file that the decision is made, and it is by its quality that our clients measure ours, whatever the level of the role.