What the Guarantee Covers
Majhi Group's 90-day replacement guarantee works as follows: if a placed VP or C-suite executive leaves or is let go within 90 days of their start date for performance reasons, Majhi Group conducts a full replacement search at no additional fee.
The guarantee does not apply if the role is eliminated (company restructuring, acquisition, or funding failure) or if the departure is for reasons unrelated to performance fit. These exclusions exist because a search firm cannot be responsible for a company's ability to retain headcount when the company changes its structure.
Guarantee Terms
Why the Guarantee Changes the Incentive Structure
A contingency search firm is paid when a candidate starts. Their incentive is to fill the role — not to ensure the placement succeeds. A retained search firm with a replacement guarantee has a direct financial incentive to get the placement right: a failed placement triggers a replacement search at their cost.
This is the structural difference between retained and contingency search that matters most for executive roles. See: Retained vs Contingency Search.
How Often Is the Guarantee Invoked?
Across 25+ Majhi Group placements, the replacement guarantee has been invoked once. That single case involved a VP Sales who was placed into a role where the company's product direction changed materially within the first 60 days — shifting the required profile substantially from what was searched against. The replacement search closed within 38 days.
What the Replacement Process Looks Like
Root cause analysis
Before beginning a replacement search, we conduct a structured debrief: what specifically failed, what signs appeared before the departure, and whether the brief needs to be adjusted. Replacing without understanding the failure reproduces it.
Brief recalibration
In most replacement cases, the original brief was accurate but one dimension was underweighted — typically stage fit or working style compatibility with the founding team. The replacement brief is adjusted before sourcing begins.
Expedited process
A replacement search typically closes faster than the original because the CEO has lived the onboarding experience and has a much clearer sense of what they need. The brief is sharper, the feedback is faster, and the decision criteria are more concrete.
What the Guarantee Tells You About a Firm
A firm that offers a 12-month guarantee is not necessarily providing more value than one offering 90 days. The guarantee length is less important than whether the firm tracks its placement outcomes and has a genuine process for understanding and recovering from failures. A firm that doesn't track what happens to its placements cannot improve its process — and a long guarantee from a firm that doesn't learn from failures is worth less than a shorter one from a firm that does.
Related: Executive Search ROI Framework | How Long Does Executive Search Take?
"41 days. A $275K search. Two firms failed in 60+ days. That's not luck -- that's a different system."
-- Majhi Group placement record. Read the full process anatomy