The Search That
Cannot Miss.
Senior hires that shape the direction of your business — whether that’s a critical leadership role or a senior IC who changes what your team can do — and where the cost of getting it wrong is higher than the cost of doing the search right.
The cost of getting it wrong
A wrong hire doesn't just cost you a salary. It costs you 12 to 18 months and everything that didn't happen while you fixed it.
Every senior hire you make shapes the team around them, the work they enable, and the direction of your business in ways that take years to fully play out. The upside of getting it right compounds. The cost of getting it wrong compounds too — it just compounds in the wrong direction.
The people you're trying to hire aren't on job boards. They're not applying. They're in roles that are working. The only path to them is a targeted, discreet, deeply researched approach — not a volume play, and not a database query dressed up as a search.
Put a real number on your specific situation.
The cost of a mishire isn't the same for every company — it depends on the role, the team around it, and how long it takes to recognise and fix. Adjust the inputs below to see what it looks like for you.
Base salary of the role you're hiring for
How long until you recognise the mishire and backfill the role
Number of people whose output is affected by the wrong hire
Used to estimate lost productivity across the team
A mishire at this level doesn't just cost you a salary — it costs you $258,750 and everything that didn't happen while you were fixing it.
A retained search is a fraction of this cost — and specifically designed to prevent it.
- Direct salary burn: Pro-rated annual salary across the mishire period.
- Recruitment & onboarding (×2): 30% of salary — covering the cost of sourcing, hiring, and onboarding the original hire and then the replacement.
- Lost team productivity: A 20% productivity reduction across impacted team members for the duration. Conservative - studies suggest impact is often higher for mis-hires in senior or leadership roles.
- Management & leadership time: 25% of the mis-hire's salary equivalent, reflecting the senior time diverted to managing the situation rather than the business.
These figures are estimates based on commonly cited industry benchmarks. They don't account for opportunity cost, cultural disruption, or delayed roadmaps.
This is a conservative estimate. It doesn't account for missed opportunities, delayed roadmaps, or the cultural cost of a bad hire on the team around them.
Why Retained?
Four reasons the retained model produces better outcomes.
Retained search is a dedicated, exclusive engagement — a senior Talfinity recruiter commits fully to your search, goes deep into the market to find candidates who aren’t looking, and owns the process through to a signed offer. It’s built for situations where the stakes are high enough that getting it right the first time is the only acceptable outcome.
Exclusivity
We commit fully to your search — one engagement, full attention. You're not one of fifteen active requisitions split across a recruiter's week. The search gets the focus it requires, from the first outreach through the signed offer.
Your Shortlist Isn't Limited to Who's Available
Most hiring processes only reach candidates who are actively looking — which is a fraction of the market. We map the full talent landscape before reaching out to anyone, so the shortlist you see includes the best people for the role, not just the ones who happened to apply.
Confidentiality by Design
Sensitive searches require a different level of discretion. Whether the incumbent is still in seat, the hire is unannounced, or the role is business-critical — we protect your business and the candidate's reputation throughout every stage of the process.
Every Candidate Is Worth Your Time
Before anyone reaches you, they've been assessed against a defined success profile — not just matched on keywords. What you get is a focused shortlist of fully qualified candidates, each one vetted for fit, so your team can evaluate with confidence rather than spend time filtering people out.
When you can't afford to get it wrong, a focused, dedicated search is what gives you the highest confidence in the outcome.
Some hires carry more weight than others. When the role is critical enough that a mishire sets your business back by a year — the search deserves the full depth, exclusivity, and rigour that the retained model is built to deliver.
Quality first · No shortcutsThe Process
Six stages. One outcome.
Every retained engagement follows a structured process designed for senior-level searches — built around depth of research, quality of candidate interaction, and accountability at every stage. Scroll to see the full flow.
Role Definition & Success Profile
We align on what a great hire actually looks like — the business context, leadership style, gaps to fill, and what separates excellent from acceptable. This work prevents a bad brief from producing a long search.
Market Mapping & Sourcing Strategy
We map the full landscape of candidates for this role across the US and Canadian markets — where they are, what they care about, and how to approach them. Not a database pull. Structured research.
Targeted Candidate Development
Direct, personalised outreach to passive candidates. We're representing your business to people who aren't looking, which means the conversation starts before any formal process does — and the approach reflects that.
Evaluation & Shortlist Presentation
Every candidate is assessed against the success profile before they reach you. We present a curated shortlist with detailed profiles and assessment notes — fully qualified people your team can interview with confidence.
Interview Process & Stakeholder Management
We manage the process end-to-end — coordination, briefing, feedback collection, and keeping the right stakeholders aligned. Critical hires typically involve more nuance and more moving parts. We manage that complexity so you don't have to.
Offer Negotiation & Placement
The close on a senior hire is where searches come apart. We manage both sides of the negotiation, handle final-stage concerns, and make sure the right candidate signs. The search doesn't end until they're in the seat.
Get Started
This hire matters.
Run it properly.
If you're making a senior hire that will shape your team, your culture, or your next chapter — and you need someone who will own the search with full depth and discretion — this is where it starts.
Book a call with Royce. 30 minutes to understand the role and be straight with you about whether retained is the right fit. If it is, we'll scope the engagement. If it isn't, we'll tell you that too.
No pitch. No standard proposal. Just a direct conversation about the hire you need to make.
Book a Call →When you retain Talfinity, our success is defined by yours. We don't close the search until you have the right person.