Why Executive Search Is No Longer Just About Filling Roles
When I started out in recruitment, hiring a senior leader was fairly simple. A company had a gap, we found someone good to fill it, and everyone got back to work.
It doesn't work like that anymore, and I'm glad it doesn't.
The businesses I talk to now rarely ring me just looking for a CV. They want a conversation first. They want to understand their market before they commit to it. Who's actually out there? How are their competitors set up? What does a realistic package look like? And the big one: will the person we appoint still be thriving and growing with the business two years from now?
Finding someone to do the job is the easy part. Knowing whether they're the right person is where the real work is.
The World Economic Forum made this point well in its latest Future of Jobs report. Leadership, and the ability to bring people with you, is now one of the fastest-growing skills employers say they need, rising faster than almost anything else since 2023. The catch is that it's also one of the hardest things to spot on paper.
That's where a lot of senior hires come unstuck. Someone can look perfect on their CV and still find it hard to settle in the wrong culture, at the wrong time, without the right people around them. McKinsey has found that anywhere from a quarter to almost half of executive moves don't fully live up to what everyone hoped for. In my experience, that's rarely about the leader's ability. Far more often it's a genuinely talented person placed in a role that was never quite the right fit, when a more honest conversation early on would have told us so.
This is exactly why I think good executive search has become advisory.
At HERO ONE, we see our job as starting long before a role goes live, and continuing well after the contract is signed. It means mapping the market so you're making decisions on real evidence, not guesswork. It means looking at how someone actually leads, not just what's on their track record. And it means being straight with you when a brief needs a rethink, and just as straight with a candidate about what they're really walking into.
It also means building relationships before anyone needs them. With the leaders you might hire one day, and with the businesses who might one day need them. That's always been the part of this job I love most.
It's also why we invest so much in staying close to the market. Through our podcast series, The Tomorrow People and Greatness Has No Gender, we spend hours in conversation with senior leaders across medtech, pharma, engineering and manufacturing, and that steady stream of insight sharpens what we bring to every search.
Filling a role is a transaction. Finding the right leader is a partnership. I know which one changes a business.
If you're weighing up a senior appointment this year, or you'd just like a clearer picture of your leadership market before you make a move, I'd be glad to have an exploratory conversation. No agenda, just an honest exchange about what you're trying to build.
Michelle Kilcar
Co-Founder & Director, HERO