You do not recruit a CEO with a job advert. The executives capable of running a company are in post, performing, and rarely looking: they will never read your listing. To reach them, you have to go and find them one by one. That is what executive search, or headhunting, means, and it is the normal way to run the recruitment of a Managing Director or CEO.
The term sounds mysterious to some, glamorous to others. The reality is more prosaic: a successful executive search is a disciplined, structured process that unfolds in five phases over roughly twelve weeks. Here is how it works in practice when the mandate is a general management position.
Executive search versus classic recruitment: what changes for a CEO role
In classic recruitment, you collect applications and sort them. In a search, you first define a target, then approach people who never asked for anything. That inversion changes everything: the balance of power, the pitch, the calendar. A headhunter does not sell a job to candidates; they open a strategic conversation with executives who already have a comfortable situation.
For a general management mandate, two constraints come on top. Confidentiality, first: replacing a sitting executive or preparing a succession is usually done without any publicity, a subject sensitive enough that we devoted a full article to keeping an executive recruitment completely confidential. Then the depth of assessment: you do not validate a future CEO the way you validate a Sales Director. A casting error costs years, not months.
The five phases of a CEO search
Every firm has its own vocabulary, but any serious process comes down to five phases. Here is the typical sequence, with the durations we observe on our own assignments: our average time to placement is 12 weeks from client signature to candidate signature.
| Phase | What happens | Indicative duration |
|---|---|---|
| 1. In-depth briefing | Analysis of the company, the context and the mandate; building the scorecard and the package range | 1 to 2 weeks |
| 2. Mapping and sourcing | Identifying target executives by sector, company size and geography; personalised approach strategy | 2 to 3 weeks |
| 3. Direct approach | Confidential first contact, qualification of interest and motivations, first structured conversations | 2 to 3 weeks |
| 4. In-depth assessment | Structured interviews, business cases, KOAN personality test, reference checks | 2 to 3 weeks |
| 5. Shortlist and closing | Documented shortlist, client interviews, package negotiation, notice period management | 2 to 4 weeks |
The table reads like a straight line. In the field, phases overlap: mapping continues during the first approaches, and assessment starts with the very first phone conversation. What never changes is the order of decisions: no approach before a solid brief, no shortlist before a complete assessment.
Everything is decided at the briefing
Phase 1 is the one clients always want to rush, and it is almost always a mistake. A poorly framed general management brief produces a search that goes in circles: the executives approached do not match the real need, or the salary range is misaligned with the Belgian market and nobody moves.
Our first call isn’t about validating your brief. It’s about challenging it. Most agencies take the order, go sourcing, and come back with ten CVs. We put the requirement back on the table first: is the role properly defined, does the scorecard hold up, is the market aligned with your range? If the brief drifts, so does the sourcing. This discipline isn’t comfortable for everyone, but it’s what’s kept us in business for 33 years in an industry where half of all firms don’t make it past five.
– The Archetype method, since 1993
Concretely, a CEO briefing covers three planes. The business plane: where the company stands, the three-year roadmap, the projects that cannot wait. The governance plane: who decides, what the future CEO’s real mandate is, where the shareholder’s red lines are. The human plane: which leadership team is in place, what culture, and which leadership style stands a chance of succeeding there. That last point deserves an article of its own: we detailed the criteria to assess the leadership of a future CEO.
The direct approach: how you talk to a sitting executive
This is the invisible part of the trade, and the one where experience shows most. A sitting executive receives solicitations every week. What makes them call back is the credibility of the person reaching out and the quality of the first message: precise about the context, honest about the stage of the project, discreet about the client’s identity until the conversation is truly engaged.
The first conversations barely mention the role. They are about the executive: their current mandate, what they have built, what would make them move. A good headhunter qualifies motivations before selling anything. If the project does not match the executive’s ambitions, better to know it in week 4 than at offer stage.
Assessment: the CV impresses, the mandate demands more
At this level, every shortlisted candidate has a solid track record. The question is not “is this executive good?” but “is this executive right for this mandate, in this context, with this team?”. We structure this phase around in-depth interviews, business cases built on the company’s real issues, and the KOAN personality test we have used for 30 years, all integrated into our assessment approach.
Reference checks follow a strict rule: never without the candidate’s explicit agreement, never inside their current company. A clumsy reference call can burn a sitting executive. That is the kind of detail that separates a professional search from an amateur one.
Closing, notice period, onboarding: the mission does not stop at signature
The final negotiation of a CEO package in Belgium rarely turns on base salary alone: variable, group insurance, company car, governance clauses, sometimes equity. Then comes the notice period, often long at this level, during which a candidate can receive a counter-offer. Close follow-up during those weeks is not a luxury; it is risk management.
Finally, onboarding. The first three months of a new executive determine what follows: reading the team in place, first decisions, relationship with the shareholder. We support clients and candidates before, during and after the hire, and our 6-month replacement guarantee covers the scenario nobody wants. On assignments carried through to final placement, our success rate exceeds 75%.
How much does a CEO search cost?
The Belgian executive recruitment market mostly works on a retainer basis: the client pays a deposit at launch, an instalment during the assignment, the balance at placement. At Archetype, that is 25% on deposit, 25% at the second candidate meeting, 50% at placement, with a fee agreed upfront between 25 and 30% of the annual package. Never a success fee: mutual commitment is the condition for carrying a mission of this level through to the end, whatever time it takes. The sector’s practices are governed by Federgon, the Belgian federation of HR service providers, whose label has validated our recruitment process.
A well-run executive search is not measured by the number of CVs presented but by one thing only: three years on, has the executive transformed the company the way the mandate intended? That long-term obligation is what justifies the process, its discipline and its price.
