Let’s say one morning you start your BMW and the engine sounds off. After the initial moment of frustration, or mild panic, there’s one question on your mind: Where do you take it? Will you go to the garage down the street, or the mechanic who specializes in German cars?
The garage down the street knows cars, but how well do they know your specific make and model? The specialist knows the ins and outs of BMWs. They know the sound, they’ve seen the issue before, and they’ll fix it faster because it’s the only thing they do.
PE firms looking to hire a search firm to place leaders for portfolio companies face a similar choice: generalist or specialist. But in this case, “generalist” often means offering a variety of services beyond executive search.
What it Means to Specialize in Executive Search
The firms that specialize in executive search run searches, and that’s it. They’ll offer services within that search to assess your company’s needs for the hire, define the ideal candidate, and create and distribute the job posting – but these all revolve around hiring for an open role in your company.
Larger firms with a wide range of services cross-sell additional offerings that can extend far beyond executive search. These firms will help you find a new CEO, but they also do org design, total rewards design, leadership development, and compensation studies.
Which should you hire? It depends on what best aligns with your company and the relationship you want with your search firm.
The Benefits of Working With a Firm That Only Runs Executive Searches
When you’re hiring for a critical role in your company, it pays to have a firm that specializes in executive search at the helm, for the following reasons:
- The focus is on search and nothing else: At firms with an array of service lines, the end of a search is also the start of an upsell. That can be a real value-add, but for PE-backed companies short on time, being pitched five additional services at the finish line can be a distraction.
- Senior eyes on your search: In a larger firm, the executive team must spread their focus across the whole business and its many products. In a firm that specializes in executive search, search is the leadership team’s top priority. At PierceGray, our managing directors and practice leads run a full desk of searches every day.
- Deep expertise: A firm that exclusively runs searches compounds its experience across the entire team, rather than one department. Senior search consultants run your search while digging into the nuances of each role and knowing how to find exactly who is needed.
- Teams who love to search: When a firm only offers executive search, people who join the firm do so because they genuinely enjoy the challenge of running executive searches. And when people like the work they do, it makes all the difference in the outcome. We find that’s the case at PierceGray, where team members have been with us for over a decade and still thrive on new searches.
This single-minded focus allows a smaller search firm to cover the entire search from end to end without distraction. Mayank Parikh, Managing Director of our HR Practice here at PierceGray, has this to say:
“We'll do everything within the executive search pipeline. We will advise you on compensation, marketing, outreach, and messaging, of course. We'll even advise you on the structure of your team, but we're not selling additional products not related to the search.”
This lack of distraction from other services allows the PierceGray team to go deeper into each search. Our teams will find great candidates, but they also have the time to advise on compensation, marketing the role, and anything else it takes to get an attractive offer on the table for an ideal candidate.
Of course, a CFO search and a supply chain search demand different networks, different market knowledge, and a different read on what “good” looks like. To solve that problem, we divide the work – not into other services, but into Practices. Where larger firms invest in their breadth of services, we invest in depth within our teams.
At PierceGray, Practice Makes Perfect
Each Practice is built around a core area to provide depth within the breadth of what we offer:
- Supply chain and operations
- Finance
- General managers
- Sales and marketing
- Technology
- Human resources
- CEO and board
- Strategy and transformation
- Operating partners
Each Practice has team members who have built their entire careers in executive search, and operators who’ve held the above roles before and know what it takes to succeed. The result is a knowledgeable and specialized search team with firsthand experience in the roles they fill.
At PierceGray, we do one thing and do it well: run executive searches. That includes assessing your needs, guiding you through the search process, and helping you find the best candidates to join your team.
We believe our ability to focus is necessary to get the job done right.
See what a specialist can do with your next open leadership role. Contact our team today to start the conversation.
