Retained search
Retained search is an engagement model.
The word describes how the firm is paid, in three parts across one search. What the first part buys is research, and that is the part the client remembers.
Definition
What retained means
Payment lands in parts across the engagement, and placement is only the last of them. That is what lets the firm do real work before anyone is hired.
AESC, the profession's own body, names the field executive search and leadership advisory. Retained describes the commercial shape of that work: a fee in three parts, each falling due at a milestone.
The brief, the shortlist, the completed hire, in that order. The first part arrives before a single name has been called, which is the whole reason the model exists.
Part one
Engagement
Falls due when the brief is signed. It funds the market work, the comp read and the shortlist logic, all of it done while the seat is still open.
Part two
Shortlist
Falls due when the names are presented, with the reasoning that put each one on the list and the pool each was drawn from.
Part three
Completion
Falls due when the hire signs. Struck against first-year total compensation: max(0.30 × $800K, $100k) foots to ~$240,000 across the three parts on the package worked in our published pack.
The research
Where the research sits
Under part one, and it sets what parts two and three look like.
Every search has one binding constraint, and it is rarely finding qualified people.
It is the width of the comp band. It is a core ring of four people where the job spec implied forty. It is a licensing rule that makes the obvious pedigree the wrong screen.
Find that constraint in week one and the search runs to plan. Find it in month two and the firm has been learning the sector on the client's time, which a client can feel happening.
A retainer paid in three parts assumes the first part did something. Where the work is real, the shortlist arrives with the reasoning already sitting under it, and every load-bearing figure carries the record it came from.
The stages, the fee bands and what sets the timeline are worked through in the executive search process, and what it actually costs.
The economics
What the retainer is worth
The floor on a won mandate is $100,000; the CFO search worked in our published pack pays ~$240,000. A research desk behind it runs from $2,495 a month.
- One retained fee, at the floor
- $100k
- The minimum in max(0.30 × $800K, $100k). The healthcare CFO pack we publish in full works a ~$800,000 package and pays ~$240,000; sensitivity ~$160K–$330K. The floor is used here so the arithmetic holds for the search you are actually running.
- What that one fee covers
- 3 years
- The desk runs at $29,940 a year. Floored, so the true figure is longer.
- From, per month
- $2,495
- Two searches included, every report on the menu, revisions until it is right.
Put those two figures side by side and the arithmetic answers itself. One mandate covers3 years of the desk behind it.
The fee base is the hire's first-year total compensation, and total compensation is a filed number. HubSpot's proxy statement, filed 27 April 2026, put its CFO total at $9,377,269against a base salary of $538,333.
Research is the smallest line in a retained mandate and the one a client quotes back to you. It also decides whether the retainer was worth paying.
Questions
Evaluating the model
What is retained search?
An engagement model in which the firm is paid in three parts across one search: engagement, shortlist, completion. AESC, the profession's own body, names the field itself executive search and leadership advisory.
Is retained search a sector or a fee structure?
A fee structure. It describes the commercial shape of the engagement, and the work inside it is leadership advisory.
How long does a retained search run?
AESC's own client guidance puts a successful search anywhere from a few weeks to several months. The width of the acceptable comp band and the depth of the qualified pool decide which end of that range a search lands on.
Where does the research sit in a retainer?
Under part one, before any outreach. It sizes the pool, prices the seat and names the constraint the search will turn on.
Name the seat and the constraint on it.
Two fields is a valid brief. We read the market under it and hand you the record every figure came from.
From $2,495 a month, two searches included.