You're buying a process, not an outcome. If that sounds like a bad deal, contingent search exists and this page says when it's the better one.

Paid in three parts — A third to start, a third at long list, a third on appointment. The last isn't conditional on the hire staying — that's what the guarantee further down is for, and conflating the two lets a firm charge twice for one promise
The first third: two weeks before any name is approached — Conversations with the board, with the outgoing person where that's possible, and with two or three people who'd report to the hire. The brief that comes out is routinely not the brief that went in
The second third: the search — Two hundred or so identified, sixty approached, and a long list you see in full rather than a shortlist you're presented with
The third: references, the offer, and ninety days — Reference work you can't do for yourself, the offer conversation, and staying involved through the first three months. That last part isn't billed separately, on purpose
When contingent is the better buy — A large pool, a well-understood title, no confidentiality problem. Pay on success and pay less. Retained earns its money on scarce, senior or sensitive, and on nothing else
One search at a time in a sector — So off-limits stays a short list rather than a growing one. It's a real cap on how much work I can take, and it is most of why the fee is what it is

All of it, not a shortlist of four — Everybody identified, with why each was or wasn't approached. Four names and a recommendation is a conclusion, not a market
Including the people who said no — And their reason where they gave one. A pattern in the noes is the single most useful thing a search produces, and it usually says something about the role rather than about the market
Including the ones I couldn't reach — Named, so your chair can decide whether to try where I can't. Some doors open for a board member and for nobody else
What a long list can be held to — That it reflects the market rather than my address book. That is checkable, and you should check it
What it cannot fix — Who applies, who says yes, and what your organisation looks like from outside. A varied long list and a uniform shortlist is a finding about you rather than about the search, and you'll be told that in those words
The search notes are yours — In full, at the end. They belong to the client and they stay useful for years — including to whoever runs the next search without me

Current clients' staff — For two years from the end of a search. It's the standard arrangement, and it means part of your market is closed before we start
The list goes to you before you sign — Not discovered at long list. If it overlaps badly with where your hire would come from, say so and we shouldn't work together — that conversation costs an hour and saves a quarter
People I placed recently — Inside eighteen months. Moving somebody twice is good for me and bad for everybody else in the room
Why one search at a time in a sector — Off-limits grows with every client. A firm with forty clients in your sector is running your search with one hand, and its list is the thing it least wants to show you
What I won't do to get around it — No approaching through a colleague, no "they contacted us" arrangements, and no using an old candidate as a route to somebody covered
Ask any firm for theirs — In writing, before signing. The answer, and how readily it arrives, tells you most of what you need to know

A replacement search inside twelve months — Expenses only. Twelve rather than the usual six, because a senior hire rarely fails inside six months — a six-month guarantee mostly protects the search firm
What it doesn't cover — A restructure, a change of strategy, or somebody leaving for a better offer. Those aren't search failures, and pricing them in would put the cost on every client who never needs it
A conversation before the replacement starts — About why it failed, including where the brief or the process was wrong. Roughly a third of the time the answer is not "we picked the wrong person"
It's in the contract, not on a web page — Ask for it in writing from anybody, including from me. A guarantee described in a meeting is a sentence, not a guarantee

A third of the first year's package — Or a fixed fee agreed at brief stage. Several clients prefer the fixed version and I don't argue about it — ask
What a percentage quietly does — It pays me more for a more expensive hire, which is a poor incentive at exactly the moment you're setting the package. Fixing the fee removes it completely and costs me nothing across a year
Expenses at cost — Travel and assessment, receipted, agreed in advance above a modest threshold. No markup, and no administration charge on top of the administration
Nothing extra for the ninety days — The follow-through isn't a separate engagement. If it were, I'd have a financial interest in it going badly, which is not a sentence anybody should have to think about
What isn't charged for at all — The first conversation, the brief work if we don't proceed, and advice about whether you need an external search in the first place. Sometimes the honest answer is that you have the person already
Put your own numbers here — A page that gestures at "competitive fees" is asking a board to start a negotiation blind, which is a strange way to open a relationship built on candour