The most expensive failure in executive search is not a thin shortlist. It is a search that runs for three months, produces the right person, and then falls over in the last fortnight.
In our experience it happens for three reasons, and all three are preventable.
The number was never tested
The package in the brief was set from a survey or from what the last person earned. By offer stage the candidate has a counter-offer, or has quietly learned what the role pays elsewhere, and the gap is £30,000. Benchmark the package against named comparators before the brief goes out, and have your search firm test the candidate's expectations at first interview, not after the Board has approved them.
The process lost pace
Final interview on a Tuesday. The Chair is away the following week. The offer letter takes four days to draft. Seventeen days pass, during which the candidate's current employer has noticed something, and a competing process has made its move.
Book the decision meeting before the final interview. Have the offer letter drafted, with blanks, the day the shortlist is presented. We aim for an offer within five working days of final interview, and we tell clients at the brief stage that we will be pushing for it.
Nobody asked the real questions
What would your current employer do if you resigned? Has your partner agreed to the move? What else are you looking at, and how far along is it? What would make you say no?
These are asked at first interview, by us, and again before the offer. Candidates at this level answer them honestly if asked plainly. The answers change how the offer is built and when it is made.
The recovery
If an offer has already been declined, there is usually one more conversation to be had, and it should be had by the person the candidate trusts most in the process. Sometimes that is the CEO. More often it is the search consultant who has spent three months with them. What it should not be is a revised number sent by email.