How a Retained Search Works

Stage 1: Engagement and Intake

The search begins when the engagement letter is signed. At that point, Majhi Group conducts a structured mandate intake session — a 60–90 minute conversation with the hiring CEO that establishes what the role actually requires, what success looks like, what the organizational context is, and what the evaluation criteria will be. The output is a written intake brief that is shared with the client before sourcing begins.

The first third of the retainer fee is due at signing. This structure aligns incentives: Majhi Group is committed to the search from day one, and the client is committed to the process. Contingency-only engagements don't carry this mutual commitment — which is why they produce lower-quality searches.

Stage 2: Market Mapping and ICP Definition

Before the first outreach is sent, we map the addressable candidate market and define the Ideal Candidate Profile. This stage typically takes 3–5 business days. The output is a sourcing strategy document that identifies the candidate population, the channels we'll use, and the expected response rate. The client reviews and approves this before sourcing begins.

Stage 3: Search Execution

Outreach begins against the approved ICP and channel strategy. Every candidate who responds is evaluated against the intake criteria. Candidates who don't meet threshold are not presented — regardless of pipeline pressure. This stage is where most of the work happens and where most searches are won or lost. The quality of outreach, the relevance of the ICP, and the speed of follow-up determine whether the best candidates engage.

Stage 4: Shortlist Presentation

When we have 3–5 candidates who meet the scoring threshold, we present the shortlist. Each candidate comes with an Evidence Dossier — a structured brief documenting our assessment across all four evaluation dimensions, including risk flags. The second third of the retainer fee is due at shortlist submission.

The shortlist presentation is a working meeting, not a document drop. Majhi Group walks the client through each candidate — their strengths, their risks, the tradeoffs between them. The goal is for the CEO to leave the meeting with a clear view on which candidates to advance and why.

Stage 5: Assessment and Interview Process

Majhi Group coordinates the interview process — scheduling, briefing, and collecting structured feedback after each stage. We manage candidate communication throughout to prevent disengagement. The assessment stage is where many searches stall: if the interview process is slow, the best candidates — who are typically being approached by multiple firms — disengage quietly. We compress the assessment timeline without compromising the quality of evaluation.

Stage 6: Reference and Offer

Before an offer is extended, Majhi Group conducts structured reference calls — not the checkbox references candidates provide, but independent references from people who have worked closely with the candidate and can provide direct behavioral assessment. The reference stage frequently surfaces information that changes the offer decision or offer structure.

Majhi Group advises on offer structure and manages the offer conversation. The final third of the retainer fee is due at placement.

Stage 7: Onboarding Support and Guarantee

Our engagement doesn't end at the accepted offer. Majhi Group provides onboarding support in the first 90 days — primarily as a resource for the hiring CEO and the new executive if either needs a sounding board. If the placement doesn't work out within 90 days for any reason, we conduct a replacement search at no additional charge. This guarantee is unconditional — it doesn't require the client to prove fault.

Retained Search Timeline: Week by Week

The typical Majhi Group retained search closes in 30–45 days. The industry median for executive search is 65–90 days. The difference is not speed of execution — it is eliminating the strategy failures that cause most searches to stall in weeks 4–8.

What Drives Timeline Variance

The difference between a 30-day close and a 60-day close is almost never search effort. It is almost always one of four factors:

Intake quality. Searches that begin without a written, agreed-upon intake brief drift. The ICP shifts during execution. Candidates who would have been qualified in week one are disqualified in week three because the hiring manager's view of the role has changed. The intake session and brief are not administrative steps — they are the primary driver of search speed.

ICP accuracy. An ICP that was designed around the role the company aspires to have, rather than the role that needs to be filled, produces a candidate pool that fails at shortlist. Rebuilding the ICP in week four adds 3–4 weeks to the search minimum.

Assessment speed. The best candidates in any executive search are simultaneously being approached by other firms. A two-week delay in scheduling assessments — or an interview process that runs across six rounds over five weeks — results in candidate disengagement that is rarely recoverable. The search that moves from shortlist to offer in 14 days wins the candidates the search that takes 35 days loses.

Offer decisiveness. Searches that arrive at the offer stage without internal alignment on compensation, start date, and equity structure lose placed candidates at the final step. Majhi Group's fee structure — with the third payment due at accepted offer — creates a natural forcing function, but internal alignment is the client's responsibility to establish before the search begins.