Speed vs. Fit: Why Leadership Hiring Is Different

An email crossed my desk this week pitching a tool built around one idea: whoever submits a candidate first wins the placement. It is aimed at contingency recruiters, and honestly, it is not wrong about how that side of the business works. It just made me think about how differently we operate, and why that difference matters more the higher up the org chart you go.

In contingency recruiting, several agencies are often working the exact same opening at the same time. Nobody gets paid unless their candidate is the one who gets hired, so the incentive is simple. Move fast. Submit first. Get in front of the hiring manager before anyone else does. Whole businesses have been built around compressing that window down to minutes.

That model exists for a reason, and there are plenty of roles where it works well.

For production roles, hourly positions, and other high volume hiring, speed is often exactly what a business needs. The job is more standardized, the candidate pool is larger, and if someone does not work out, the cost of that mistake is manageable. A machine not running for three extra weeks because there isn’t an operator is genuinely costing you money and momentum on the floor. In that world, I understand the appeal of a system built to win the race.

Now flip it to a plant manager, a controller, or a VP of Operations. The stakes change completely. This is someone who will set direction, manage other people, and represent your company in rooms you are not in. A wrong hire at this level does not just cost you a bad quarter. It can cost you good employees who leave because of it, momentum on projects that stall, and months of your own time untangling the fallout.

At that level, being first does not matter nearly as much as being right. The pool of people who can actually do the job well is smaller. The evaluation has to go deeper than a resume and a quick phone screen. Culture fit, leadership style, and how someone will actually operate inside your specific company all take real time to assess properly.

Whoever submits first winning the fee is a fine incentive for a recruiter. It is a poor way to decide who represents you when you’re not in the room.

This is exactly why retained search exists as its own model. When you retain a firm, the goal shifts to getting this right, for the long term. Nobody is incentivized to rush a submission just to beat a competitor to the punch. The focus shifts entirely to finding the right person, not just the fastest available one.

At RFT, we take that seriously enough to stand behind it. We back every placement with our 5-Year Client Loyalty Pricing Program, a commitment most firms in this industry are not willing to make. That kind of commitment only makes sense if you are confident in how the search was actually run.

If you are filling a production role next week, speed may genuinely be the right priority, and there is nothing wrong with a recruiting partner built for that. But if you are hiring the person who will lead your team, set your strategy, or become the boss’s boss, ask yourself if “first to submit” is really the standard you want applied to that decision.

Not sure which situation applies to your open role? Here’s a closer look at when it makes sense to call an executive search firm.