How a retained search actually runs.
A stage-by-stage guide from SYMPHONI HR, a Mumbai-based retained executive search firm, est. 2003 — 5,000+ C-suite and senior mandates run from one office.
From the outside, retained search can look like a black box — a fee goes in, a shortlist comes out. Inside, it is a sequence with a fixed order, and each stage exists to de-risk the next. Here is what actually happens, and what you should expect to see at every step.
The brief comes first.
A search does not start with sourcing; it starts with a written brief. Not the job description — a success profile: what this seat must have delivered in twenty-four months, what the leader will inherit, why the seat is open, and which three or four outcomes are non-negotiable. One accountable consultant owns the mandate from this document to joining day. If a firm starts sending profiles before a brief is agreed, they are searching their inbox, not the market.
Mapping, then calibration.
Research maps the market before anyone is approached — the companies where this leader plausibly sits today, named and sized. Approaches begin only once the map is agreed, so coverage is a decision rather than an accident. The first profiles you see are calibration: early candidates shown quickly to test the brief against reality, because the brief is a hypothesis until the market answers back. Our research practice runs this with 250+ Search Specialists and 15+ Research Analysts, and our average time to a calibrated shortlist is 68 hours — ten profiles per shortlist.
| Stage | What you should see |
|---|---|
| Brief | A written success profile you sign off — outcomes, scope, non-negotiables |
| Mapping | The market named and sized before a single approach is made |
| Calibration | Early profiles that test the brief — and sharpen it |
| Shortlist | Interviewed, compared candidates with a written case for each |
| Offer | References done, counter-offer risk surfaced, one steady channel to close |
Interviews and references.
A shortlist is not a list of CVs; every candidate on it has been interviewed by the consultant, and arrives with a written case — for and against. Referencing happens before the offer, not after the handshake, and it is done by the people running the search, because the questions that matter come from the brief. Through interviews, the consultant stays in the room: managing candidate doubts, reading signals both sides are too polite to say aloud.
The last mile.
The offer is where searches are won or lost — resignation, counter-offer, a long Indian notice period. A retained firm earns its fee here: counter-offer risk was surfaced in week one, expectations on compensation were tested at calibration, and someone stays in the conversation every week until the leader walks in. Across our mandates, offer acceptance runs at 82% — that number is made in the last mile, not the first.
If you are planning a leadership hire, bring us the outcome you need — we will show you the map, the calendar and the arithmetic before you commit.
We don’t just discover talent. We unearth the exceptional.
SYMPHONI HR · EST. 2003 · MUMBAI