Most of what frustrates companies about recruitment firms is not the firm. It is the economics of the model they are working in. Retained changes the model: one consultant, committed to your role and paid to do the work properly, whatever the role is. This is how we recommend working with us.
The irrelevant CVs. The consultant who goes quiet. The search that loses momentum after three weeks, and the sense that nobody really owns the outcome. When a role goes to three or four agencies at once, every consultant who picks it up faces the same arithmetic: most of the roles they work will be filled by someone else, so no single role can justify much of their time. The rational response is to move fast and shallow, send the candidates already to hand, and quietly drop the searches that get hard. None of that is a failure of effort. It is what the economics require of anyone working inside them.
Retained solves this structurally rather than by promising to try harder. You commit to one consultant and part of the fee is staged, so the work no longer depends on winning a race. The difference is not only that we are committed and will keep going. It is that materially more work happens: the whole market mapped rather than the responsive end of it, passive candidates approached properly and more than once, every conversation documented, salaries benchmarked from real discussions, and a shortlist assessed in writing against your brief. Contingent economics cannot afford any of that. Retained is built on it.
And you see all of it. Regular steering calls report progress and let us adjust direction together. You receive the full long list of the target market, with salary benchmarks drawn from the people we actually spoke to, and a clear record of who was approached and what they said. Then you select the shortlist from that long list with us. Most agencies never show a client their long list. We show you the whole market we mapped, not the three people we chose to send you.
Think of the market as an iceberg. The active candidates, the people applying and answering adverts, are the tip you can see, and for simple roles the tip is often enough. Everything below the surface is what a retained search reaches, and it is why you can be confident you are hiring the best candidate available, not just someone who can do the job. There is no category of role this is reserved for. Contingent serves simple, straightforward hiring well. When it gets more complicated, a niche role, a hard-to-find skillset, a confidential search or a senior hire, retained is the more robust mechanism, whatever the title on the job description.
A defined process with one owner, and you are in it at every stage. This is a partnership, not a delivery.
We sit with you to define the role, the success profile, the reporting lines and the realistic package, and agree how often we will meet to steer the search.
We build a full long list of every credible candidate for the role across Thailand and the region, not just those actively looking.
We make discreet, confidential approaches to passive talent and assess each against your brief, documenting who we spoke to and what they said. Steering calls keep you in the picture throughout.
You see the full long list, with salary benchmarks from the people we actually spoke to, and select the shortlist from it with us. We do not drip-feed candidates.
We manage the offer, counter-offer and notice period, then stay close through onboarding, backed by an extended replacement guarantee.
We would rather point you to the right model than sell you the wrong one.
A seed-funded data insights company had no internal HR function and needed its first Bangkok team: data engineers, software engineers, analysts and a Head of HR, every hire screened through an MBB-standard interview process. Retained, we put a dedicated delivery team on it: forty-nine candidates submitted, twenty-nine through the client's reasoning test, six hired in two months. Almost three years on, many are still with the business.
Read the full case studyIt is a materially different service, not the same service on a different payment schedule. Contingent pays for a placement, so the work that earns nothing on its own, such as market mapping, repeat approaches, documented conversations and salary benchmarking, tends not to happen. Retained pays for the search itself: one committed consultant, the whole market mapped before anyone is approached, steering calls throughout, a long list you see in full, and work that continues until the role is solved. Contingent serves simple, easy-to-fill roles well. Retained is how you can be confident you hired the best candidate available, not just someone who can do the job.
No. That framing treats a proper search as a luxury to be rationed, and it is not how we think about it. It is true that the more complicated the hiring gets, a niche role, a hard-to-find skillset, a confidential search, a senior hire, the more a retained search outperforms the alternatives. But it is the right model for any role where you want the market covered and the outcome owned, whether that is a CTO or a senior engineer. The question is not whether the role qualifies. It is what kind of outcome you want.
Everything. Regular steering calls report progress and let us adjust direction together. You receive the full long list of the target market, not a curated extract, with salary benchmarks drawn from the people we actually spoke to and a clear record of who was approached and what they said. Then you select the shortlist from that long list with us. Most agencies never show a client their long list. We think it is the point of the exercise: you are not buying three CVs, you are buying a mapped market and the confidence that the person you hire is the best of it.
In stages tied to milestones: an initial engagement fee to start the search, a payment on shortlist, and the balance on placement. The staging is the point. Because part of the fee is committed, the work is committed too, and you get a search that continues until the role is solved rather than one that lasts as long as it looks easy.
Yes. Confidential searches are a core reason clients retain us: replacing an incumbent, a stealth build, or a sensitive board-level move. We approach candidates under NDA and never name you until you're ready.
Most searches reach a shortlist within three to four weeks and a signed offer within six to eight, depending on notice periods. We agree a timeline at scoping and report progress against it throughout.
Tell us what you are hiring. We come back within one business day with a plan and a realistic market rate.