Hire Executives Who Understand Billable Time, Client Expectations, and Operational Precision
In professional services—consulting, legal, financial, creative, or technical—the strength of your leadership team directly impacts revenue, reputation, and retention.
At Ready Set Exec, we help firms of all sizes hire strategic leaders who can manage delivery teams, grow client relationships, and scale operations—without compromising on culture or client experience.
Whether you’re expanding practice groups, formalizing leadership, or replacing a founding partner, we deliver candidates who know how to lead professionals, manage client expectations, and drive utilization.
Who We Place in Professional Services
We specialize in filling leadership roles across revenue, service delivery, and back-office operations:
Hiring Challenges in This Sector—Solved by Clarity and Fit
Professional services firms face hiring friction others don’t:
- Conflicts between billable delivery and leadership focus
- Limited time for firm leaders to run a comprehensive search
- Culture and brand risk tied to visible leadership
- High turnover from hiring candidates without service experience
We solve for all of it. Our search process is fast, confidential, and tailored to firms that need someone who can lead a team, win a room, and respect the firm’s DNA.
Why Firms Choose Ready Set Exec
- We Understand the Metrics That Matter: Utilization, margin, client churn—we know what your leaders are responsible for, and we find candidates who’ve owned those numbers.
- Service-Savvy Search Partners: Our team has worked with consultants, advisors, and agencies—we understand how to screen for the soft and hard skills needed to succeed.
- Speed With Professionalism: You get founder-led, client-caliber service throughout the search—without slowing down internal teams.
- Long-Term Placement Success: Our hires lead, stay, and grow client relationships over the long haul.
Find the Leader Who Will Grow Your Team, Client Base, and Brand
When the people are the product, you can’t afford average leadership.
We help you hire proven executives who inspire confidence internally—and externally.
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read service FAQ’s
Retained search involves a significant upfront financial commitment from the client, typically paid in three instalments: one-third upfront, one-third upon interviewing, and the final third upon hiring. This commitment signifies a strong dedication to finding the right candidate and ensures that the recruiting firm allocates substantial time and resources to the search process. In contrast, contingent searches require no payment until a candidate is hired. While this may seem like a lower-risk option, it often results in less commitment, time, energy and resources from the recruiting firm. Contingent searches are typically deprioritized in favor of retained searches, and resources are allocated accordingly.
Contingent searches are ideal for those seeking speed and volume in the recruitment process, typically in more transactional environments. They are recommended for filling entry-level or mid-level roles that can be filled within 30 days. On the other hand, a retained search represents a true partnership between the client and the search firm. It entails a firm commitment from the recruiting company to fill the role effectively. Executive searches, a type of retained search, tend to have a higher success rate, ranging from 80% to 95%, compared to the average success rate of around 15% for contingent searches.
Our standard guarantee period is for 90 days. This allows you to have a full quarter of performance with your new hire. If the candidate’s performance is not satisfactory, then READY SET EXEC will find a one time replacement candidate that meets your hiring criteria. Usually, we are able to go back to our active candidate pool and find one of the top candidates for you or we will conduct the search again. The one time guarantee does not extend the guarantee period, rather it is a fulfillment of our promise to ensure you have a candidate for hire. When making a new hire, having a structured and thoughtful onboarding process, training and a healthy work environment contributes to successfully integrating your new employee and increasing your employee retention.
39 days and 100% success in partnership searches following our milestone fee system. This timeline includes the search start and ramp up, a candidate going through our recruitment process, then client interviews, then an offer being negotiated. The candidate will also give notice to their employer which can be two to four weeks.
