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Executive Job Hunt & Headhunters

A confidential, well-run search for a senior or executive role: retained search partners, board and investor networks, direct approaches, and the long rounds of interviews, assessments, referencing and contract terms that follow.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Executive Job Hunt & Headhunters, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

209

Starter tasks

🧭 Career Growth

Executive Job Hunt & Headhunters

Searching for senior and executive roles through headhunters, board networks, confidential approaches and long selection processes.

  1. Deciding between an open and a confidential search
  2. Target role brief for your next executive post
  3. Executive positioning statement and career story
  4. Leadership track record with scale and results
  5. One-page executive biography for search firms
  6. Map of retained search firms covering your sector
  7. Confidentiality rules for searching while employed
  8. Runway plan for a six to twelve month search
  9. Search pipeline for mandates and approaches
  10. Online footprint check before researchers look
  11. Quarterly check-ins with key search partners
  12. Weekly executive search review hour
  13. Monthly senior network reconnection list
  14. Chair and investor relationships that surface roles
  15. Leadership change watchlist for target companies
  16. Inbound headhunter call script and log
  17. Monthly search funnel review
  18. Protecting current performance during the search
  19. How retained executive search works
  20. Off-limits rules and which firms can approach you
  21. Preparing for the search consultant briefing interview
  22. Board and panel interview rehearsal
  23. Leadership assessments and psychometrics in selection
  24. Strategy presentation for the final round
  25. Due diligence on the company and its board
  26. Choosing between listed, private equity and family-owned employers
  27. Making the case as a first-time CEO candidate
  28. Interim executive assignments as a route
  29. Spotting paid services that pose as executive search
  30. Assessing an outplacement or executive transition service
  31. Withdrawing from a process without losing the partner
  32. Chair and board final-round meetings
  33. Preparing referees for executive deep referencing
  34. Executive contract review with an employment lawyer
  35. Negotiating start date, notice and garden leave
  36. Background, regulatory and fit and proper checks
  37. Appointment announcement and stakeholder communications
  38. Searching after an executive exit or restructuring
  39. Corporate executive moving into a private equity backed company
  40. Large-enterprise leader moving to a scale-up
  41. Public sector senior leader moving into the private sector
  42. Functional head stepping into a C-suite role
  43. Searching with family and location constraints
  44. Returning to the market after a long tenure at one employer
  45. Direct approach to chairs and investors without a search
  46. Positioning as an external candidate for CEO succession
  47. Management buy-in as a route to running a business
  48. Founder-led company's first professional CEO
  49. Advisory roles that keep you visible between searches
  50. Annual executive market position review

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Deciding between an open and a confidential search

Senior people rarely search in the open while employed, because word of a CEO or divisional director looking around travels fast through investors, boards and the search community. Deciding up front whether your search is confidential, discreetly known to a few, or fully open sets every later choice: who you call, what you post and what you tell your current chair.

First tasks

  • Write two sentences on why you are ready to move now
  • Reread your employment contract for fidelity and confidentiality clauses
  • Choose a confidential, selective or open search and note why
  • List the few people who may be told, and nobody else

Target role brief for your next executive post

Headhunters place people against tight specifications, so a vague answer to "what are you looking for?" gets you filed and forgotten. A one-page brief naming the title, scale of P&L or budget, headcount, sector, ownership type and geography lets a search partner match you to a mandate in seconds and tells you which approaches to decline.

First tasks

  • Write down the two or three titles you would accept
  • Set ranges for P&L, budget and headcount you would lead
  • List sectors, ownership types and places you would and would not consider
  • Condense the brief to one page you could email to a search partner
  • Reread the target role brief and adjust any range that has changed @recurring(quarterly)

Executive positioning statement and career story

Headhunters pitch you to their client in a sentence or two, often from memory, so the story they repeat should be the one you chose. A short positioning statement plus a five-minute career narrative, built around the moments you changed a business's direction, gives every partner and chair the same clear account of who you are.

First tasks

  • Ask the agent to draft three versions of a 40-word positioning statement from your notes
  • Mark the three moments in your career where you changed a business's direction
  • Record yourself telling the five-minute career story and listen back
  • Tell the story to two trusted peers and note what they repeat back

Make it yours.

Install Executive Job Hunt & Headhunters, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.