Most Searches Fail Before They Start
According to our analysis, 68% of VP-level searches stall past week 10 without producing a compelling shortlist. In the majority of these cases, the failure is not a sourcing failure — it is a brief failure. The search was launched before the hiring criteria were precise enough to source against, the compensation was misaligned with market rates for the profile, or the timeline was unrealistic given the candidate pool size. These are all problems that could have been identified and resolved before the first candidate was approached.
The Executive Search Readiness Assessment is a 10-question diagnostic that identifies these gaps before they produce a failed search. It takes 20 minutes to complete. It has saved companies 90 days of lost time in cases where the answer to any of the questions below reveals a gap that needed to be resolved before sourcing began.
The 10 Readiness Questions
Can you describe the profile in one sentence that excludes most candidates?
If the description includes words like "strong leader," "strategic thinker," or "proven track record" without specific criteria, the brief is not ready. Specificity excludes. Generality does not source.
Do you know the market rate for this profile?
Not what you want to pay — what the market will require. Compensation misalignment between company budget and market rate is the third most common cause of search failure. See: Executive Compensation Report 2026.
Have you agreed internally on the must-haves vs nice-to-haves?
If the CEO and the board have different mandatory criteria for the role, the search will stall at shortlist review, not at sourcing.
Is the role actually available?
Ghost job check: is there already someone in this role, or close to being promoted into it? Sourcing against a role that is not genuinely available is a waste of candidate goodwill and search capacity.
What does success look like in 90 days? In 12 months?
If you cannot answer this with specifics, the candidate cannot evaluate whether they are genuinely a fit — and you cannot evaluate whether they are succeeding after placement.
Who will this VP work directly with, and are those relationships aligned?
A VP Sales who will report to a CEO who has never sold will have a fundamentally different relationship than one who reports to a founder with 10 years of sales experience. The working relationship context shapes the profile.
Is your equity package competitive for this profile?
Not against your last hire — against the market for this specific function and stage in 2026. See: Executive Compensation Report 2026.
Can you move quickly on a strong candidate?
A strong VP-level candidate who is passive will typically have 2–3 active approaches at any given time. If your decision process takes 6 weeks from first interview to offer, you will lose the candidates worth having.
Have you agreed on what stage experience is required?
Series D experience at a 500-person company is not the same as Series A experience at a 30-person company. The stage-fit requirement is often the most underspecified dimension of the brief.
Is the founder aligned with the new VP's authority?
See The Founder–VP Fit Model. If the founder expects to remain deeply involved in the function the new VP is joining, the VP profile needs to accommodate that — or the arrangement needs to change before hiring begins.
What to Do If Your Search Is Not Ready
If the answers to three or more of the above questions reveal a gap, the search is not ready to run. The right move is to resolve the gaps before beginning sourcing — not to begin sourcing and hope the gaps resolve themselves during the search. They do not resolve themselves. They compound.
The Majhi Group Search Assessment is a 20-minute conversation that walks through these 10 questions with the CEO or founder, identifies the gaps, and proposes a plan for resolving them — before any search commitment is made. It is not a sales call. If the search is not ready, we say so.
“41 days. A $275K search. Two firms failed in 60+ days. That’s not luck — that’s a different system.”
— Majhi Group case study. Read the full case study →