Waygoose

Retained Search Ethics

The retained search industry has a widely accepted body of principals that most professionals know and most firms uphold.

Retained search professionals are employed by the client to conduct the entire recruitment effort from start-up until the candidate has started working.

A primary tenet is that, being paid on retainer as a consultant regardless of whether hiring occurs, we, as the recruiter, have a duty not to weaken the
client’s organisation he or she had been paid to strengthen. Therefore, a retained search firm considers its clients employees off limits and does not solicit them for other clients. Traditionally, client employees are considered off limits for one or two years after a retained search is completed.

The relative advantages

Clients often prefer to work with recruiters who performed in the past for them. By working exclusively with one firm on such searches, the client generally develops a much deeper relationship with the recruiter, and receives a much higher level of service.

Executive Search Ethics

Search firms generally commit to off limit agreements. These agreements prevent a firm from approaching employees of their current client as candidates for other clients. (for instance, if a headhunter recruits a new CEO for a client, they will agree not to recommend the cient executives to other companies).

Since we operate as management consultants working in the best interest of the client for whom we conduct searches, it would be counter productive to
simultaneously remove talented executives from those client companies.

Search firms may decline to undertake a search assignment from certain
companies, in order to preserve their ability to approach candidates from those
companies.