When Two Firms Fail: How an Executive Search Recovery Works

The Failed Search Pattern

It follows a consistent sequence. A company opens a VP or C-suite search. They engage a contingency recruiter — or two. 60 days pass. The shortlist is underwhelming. The CEO interviews several candidates and none feels right. The recruiter blames the market. The company considers whether their criteria are too specific. The seat stays vacant. Organisational cost compounds. At some point — usually between day 75 and day 120 — the company decides to try something different.

This is the situation Majhi Group encounters in a significant proportion of new search engagements. The company has already tried and failed. The failed search is not a sign that the role is unfillable — in nearly every case, the right candidate exists in the market. The failed search is a sign that the process was wrong.

Why Contingency Searches Fail at the VP Level

Contingency search at the VP and C-suite level has a structural problem: the incentive is speed, not quality. A contingency recruiter earns their fee only when a candidate is placed — which means their economic interest is in presenting candidates quickly, not in presenting the best candidates comprehensively. For roles where the strongest candidates are not actively seeking — which describes most VP and C-suite positions — this incentive structure is directly misaligned with what the search requires.

The mechanics of a typical failed contingency VP search: the recruiter posts the role on LinkedIn and job boards, receives applications from actively-seeking candidates (who are disproportionately available because they are between roles), submits the most presentable of those candidates to the client, and watches as the client rejects them as not quite right. The recruiter then blames the client's criteria rather than their own sourcing model. Meanwhile, the strongest candidates — who are employed, not actively seeking, and not responding to inbound recruiter messages — never appear in the shortlist at all.

The Recovery Search Diagnostic

Before beginning a recovery search, Majhi Group conducts a diagnostic session with the CEO or hiring manager — typically 45–60 minutes — with four specific objectives: understand what the failed search produced and why none of the candidates closed, assess whether the candidate profile needs to be recalibrated or whether the original profile was correct and the sourcing was simply inadequate, identify the specific candidate sources that were not accessed in the prior search, and establish a realistic timeline and process for the recovery engagement.

The diagnostic almost always surfaces one of three root causes. First, the profile was too broad — the company was searching for a generalist when they needed a specialist, or vice versa, and the failed searches produced the wrong type of candidate rather than the wrong quality. Second, the compensation was below market — the candidates who were in range accepted other offers because the company was competing on price rather than opportunity. Third, the sourcing was too shallow — the search never reached the passive candidate market where the best candidates operate.

How a Recovery Search Is Conducted Differently

The first step of a recovery search is the one the failed searches skipped: comprehensive market mapping. Majhi Group identifies the specific companies, communities, and networks where the right candidate operates — not by posting a job description and waiting, but by building a list of specific individuals whose backgrounds align with the refined profile and approaching them directly through peer-level, non-recruiter channels.

The outreach approach matters significantly. Generic recruiter outreach to senior executives produces response rates of 5–10%. Peer-level, specific, context-rich outreach — referencing the specific company, the specific challenge, and the specific reason this opportunity is relevant to this person — produces response rates of 30–40%. This is not a technology advantage. It is a process discipline and a message quality advantage.

What Changes When the Process Changes

The case that established Majhi Group's recovery search track record was a $275K executive search that two firms had attempted over 60+ combined days without a placement. The role: a senior leadership position requiring a specific combination of alternative investments experience and operational leadership. The prior searches had produced candidates who matched one dimension but not both.

The Majhi Group recovery search began with a profile reset — specifically clarifying which dimension was primary (the operational leadership) and which was secondary (the investments domain knowledge). This recalibration opened a meaningfully larger candidate pool. The market mapping identified candidates the prior searches had not approached. Peer-level outreach produced a 38% response rate. The shortlist was presented at day 26. The offer was accepted at day 41.

The 41-day outcome was not faster because the search used different technology. It was faster because the pre-search diagnostic prevented the false starts that extended the prior searches, and the sourcing model reached candidates the prior model had missed.