Why Job Descriptions Fail as Search Definitions
Job descriptions describe what an executive will do. They do not describe what a successful executive in the role will look like, what decisions will define their first year, what the team situation requires, or how the hiring panel will evaluate candidates consistently. Searches defined by job descriptions routinely produce misaligned shortlists, disagreements at evaluation, and offer failures — because the definition of success was never established clearly at the start.
The Executive Search Canvas Structure
The Executive Search Canvas is structured around five questions: What does success look like 18 months into this role? What are the specific challenges this executive will need to navigate? What qualities in the candidate are non-negotiable? What qualities are preferred but not essential? What will cause this hire to fail? These questions are answered by all key stakeholders before sourcing begins — surfacing alignment gaps that would otherwise emerge destructively during the search.
Using the Canvas to Align Stakeholders
The most expensive alignment failures in executive search happen late in the process — when a finalist candidate is rejected because two stakeholders had fundamentally different views of what the role required. The Executive Search Canvas is designed to surface these disagreements before the search begins, when they can be resolved at minimal cost. Majhi Group facilitates the canvas session as the first step of every retained engagement.
From Canvas to Candidate Profile
The output of the Executive Search Canvas is a specific, agreed candidate profile — not a generic job description, but a precise definition of the person the company is looking for and the criteria by which they will be evaluated. This profile guides every sourcing, assessment, and evaluation decision in the search.