Senior Associate – Executive Search

Senior Associate – Executive Search

Location: London (Hybrid)

Job Type: Full-time / Permanent

Sector: Executive Search / Recruitment & Headhunting

Salary: Competitive Base + Performance Bonus & Benefits

Why Join Our Client?

Our client is an award-winning, globally recognised executive search and interim management firm that combines international scale with the agility, high-touch care, and collaborative feel of a boutique partner. By joining them, you will partner with high-growth and market-leading businesses—including prominent private equity-backed enterprises—to appoint board, C-suite, and functional leadership teams driving genuine organisational change. This is a high-impact, empowered delivery role where your expertise is genuinely valued, allowing you to take full operational ownership of retained searches and free up Partner capacity so you can focus purely on high-level execution, research strategy, and candidate engagement without personal business development targets. Furthermore, you will work smarter with state-of-the-art search tooling and AI-driven documentation assistants (such as Metaview) integrated into daily operations, all while playing a pivotal leadership role guiding and mentoring junior Associates in a high-performance, supportive environment.

The Role & Responsibilities

We are acting as a recruitment partner to represent our client in their search for an experienced Senior Associate to join their core delivery team. This is a high-impact, non-fee-earning execution role designed for an established candidate manager or search researcher who wants to take full ownership of retained mandates and directly influence search throughput and delivery quality at scale.

In this capacity, you will independently lead candidate identification, market mapping, and proactive direct outreach, producing focused target lists and insightful longlists. You will conduct thorough qualification interviews, evaluate talent against precise scorecard criteria, and synthesise evidence into clear, consultative reporting. Additionally, you will manage active assignment workflows, coordinate interview schedules, lead structured weekly client updates, help steer search outcomes, and leverage modern search tooling and AI documentation assistants to maintain real-time accuracy on the firm’s CRM (such as Ezekia). Finally, you will mentor and guide junior Associates, upholding delivery quality, consistency, and best practices across the research team.

Requirements & Background

We are looking for candidates who bring proven experience as an Associate, Senior Researcher, or Delivery Consultant within a retained executive search firm or specialised boutique, coupled with a strong track record of managing end-to-end research, mapping, and candidate engagement for senior-level mandates. You should possess exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to draft structured, insight-led candidate reports. Alongside being technologically fluent and comfortable utilising executive search databases and modern AI-enabled workflow tools, you will need a collaborative mindset with a natural aptitude for mentoring others and building trusted relationships with senior stakeholders.

How to Apply

If you are an accomplished search professional looking to advance your career within an award-winning, high-performance environment that values modern innovation and delivery excellence, please submit your CV for confidential consideration
Only candidates based in UK and eligible to work in UK are allowed