Comparing an Executive Search firm to Hawkwood

How to Choose the Right Search Partner for Your Next VP People or Director of Talent Acquisition Hire

When a technology company is looking to hire a Chief People Officer, VP of People, or a senior Talent Acquisition leader, the choice of search partner matters. Not all recruitment firms are built the same way, and the structural differences between them can have direct consequences for the quality, speed, and success of your search.

This guide compares two distinct categories of firm: executive search firms that recruit across multiple functions into technology companies, and Hawkwood – that recruit exclusively within the People and Talent function within the Technology sector. 

Two Types of Firm

Executive search firms that operate in the technology sector typically recruit senior leaders across a range of functions: engineering, go-to-market and operations, with the latter including People & Talent (HR). They work at the most senior levels and are known for bringing a rigorous, structured approach to the search. Their partners tend to be experienced, commercially sharp, and capable of advising clients on how to build leadership teams.

Hawkwood occupies a slightly different segment of the market, as a recruitment consultancy that solely recruits People & Talent (HR) hires, and exclusively into technology companies. This narrow focus – one function, one sector – is a deliberate choice with meaningful implications for how searches are run and what clients ultimately experience.

Where Executive Search Firms Excel

The best executive search firms will typically have an Operations practice that is overseen by senior partners who have spent years operating at the intersection of leadership and technology. This gives them a credible perspective on how companies are built and what kind of leadership hires that succeed over time.

They can advise intelligently on market context, comparative hires and target companies. They bring a structured methodology to the search process, and their brand can carry weight in opening doors with certain candidates.

The 360 Problem: Who Is Actually Talking to Your Candidates?

Where executive search firms operate differently is in how the search is actually executed. Most firms divide the work between a client-facing partner and a research or sourcing team. The senior partner manages the client relationship, advises on the brief, and presents shortlisted candidates. The candidate-facing work – sourcing, outreach, screening, and ongoing management – is handled separately, usually by a more junior team.

When sourcing the absolute best talent, the hardest part of any senior search is not identifying candidates. It is enticing a strong, passive candidate into a conversation, selling the opportunity with enough conviction and credibility to hold their interest, screening them thoroughly, and then managing them through a competitive hiring process in a way that maximises the likelihood of securing them. These are high-stakes, judgment-intensive interactions that require skill, experience and full contextual knowledge.

When the person advising the client on how to close a candidate has never spoken directly to that candidate, something is inevitably lost. Offer management at senior levels is as much about reading tone, picking up on hesitation, and drawing on pattern recognition from hundreds of similar conversations, as it is about presenting the right number. Over time, Recruiters develop an instinct for how to handle these complex situations based on their knowledge of the client and candidate. A partner who is relying on second-hand notes from a sourcer is operating with an incomplete picture.

At Hawkwood, every consultant runs a 360/full-cycle desk. The recruiter who takes the client brief is the same person who builds the search, sources and screens candidates, and manages them through the entire process. This means nothing is lost in translation. The person advising a CEO on what it will take to close a candidate has had every conversation with that candidate themselves.

In a world where AI is increasingly capable of identifying and even contacting candidates at scale, the value of a recruiter is shifting. It rests more squarely than ever in the ability to persuade, influence, assess, match a candidates’ personality & values to a client, and close. That capability can be diluted when the client-facing and candidate-facing functions are separated.

Market Mapping: Starting Fresh vs. Already There

Executive search firms typically begin each new mandate by mapping the candidate market. This is a thorough process – usually taking one to two weeks – in which the research team identifies the universe of potentially relevant candidates, begins making contact, and starts building an initial view of who is worth pursuing. It is a rigorous approach, but the client is effectively paying for work that is being done from scratch each time, whilst also having to wait for it to be completed.

Hawkwood has been continuously mapping the same candidate market – People and Talent professionals in technology companies – since the firm launched in 2016. That work is never reset. Every search begins with a candidate market that has already been mapped, assessed, and refreshed over the course of a decade.

The practical effect is that Hawkwood can typically shortcut the early stages of a search entirely and go straight to the best talent. Where an executive search firm might spend the first two weeks identifying who is in the market, Hawkwood already knows who the best candidates are, what they are looking for, and which of them are likely to be open to a conversation.

Case study: Hawkwood was once engaged by a top European venture capital firm to take over a search that a traditional executive search firm had been unable to complete. The previous firm kindly shared their longlist of candidates as part of the handover. From a single review of that list, Hawkwood was able to immediately discqualify candidates based on prior knowledge of why they would not be suitable – without the need for a screening call. From there, five first-stage interviews were arranged, and the role was successfully filled within a matter of weeks. 

Warm Networks vs. Cold Outreach

Executive search firms employ skilled researchers who are capable of producing high-quality, carefully crafted outreach. In a well-run search, the messaging is personalised, the targeting is thoughtful, and the approach is professional.

Nonetheless, the response rate from a candidate who has never heard of the firm contacting them is typically lower than a message or call from A Recruiter they have spoken to before, interacted with over several years, and potentially even met in-person.

Because Hawkwood recruits within a deliberately narrow niche – People and Talent professionals in technology – it is common for Hawkwood to have had prior contact with most of the target candidates in a search. More often, the relationship predates the search by years. Hawkwood consultants typically already have a candidate’s direct contact details, are connected on LinkedIn, and have had prior substantive conversations about career ambitions, preferences, and motivations. At the very least, Hawkwood usually have mutual contacts who can facilitate a warm introduction if this is not the case.

This relationship depth has a compounding effect. Beyond improving response rates, it means that Hawkwood often knows things about a candidate that no amount of cold outreach could surface. For example: Hawkwood may know that, while a candidate is not actively looking for a new role, they may have a personal interest that would draw them to a particular company mission, or particular working arrangement. Hawkwood can lead with precisely that information – improving the likelihood of enticing them into an exploratory conversation.

In candidate-short markets, which describes most senior People and Talent roles in leading technology companies, this difference in top-of-funnel conversion can be decisive.

Assessing People & Talent Competency

Within a typical executive search firm, People roles sit within a broader operations or generalist vertical alongside CFO, COO, General Counsel, and other senior hires. A partner overseeing that vertical will have broad competence across all of those roles, but will necessarily spend a minority of their time specifically on People and Talent searches.

Hawkwood does nothing but People and Talent hiring. Every conversation, every search, every placement sits within this single function. The cumulative effect of that focus is a quality of assessment that is difficult for a generalist firm to match.

This manifests in several ways. Hawkwood has a sharper view of what genuinely strong looks like at each level of the People function – not as an abstract framework, but as a continuously updated picture built from thousands of conversations with practitioners across the market. It is correspondingly easier to secure informal, backchannel references from within a network that Hawkwood has cultivated over nearly a decade.

It also means that Hawkwood can be better positioned to advise clients before a search begins. For a CEO hiring a Chief People Officer or Head of Talent Acquisition for the first time, the questions that matter most are often: what level of seniority is actually required for the stage the business is at? Who should they report to? What is the right job title to attract the calibre of candidate we want? How should we structure the interview process to assess the right things? What aspects of our brief might deter strong candidates, and how do we address that?

Hawkwood can advise on all of these questions with pattern recognition drawn from placing identical roles into similar companies dozens of times, as well as having spoken with a large volume of candidates seeking to leave these roles, and building an understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

Roles Hawkwood Covers

Hawkwood recruits across the full People and Talent function, from People Manager and People Partner level through to the most senior leadership positions, on a permanent, interim, and fractional basis.

Leadership and executive roles:

• Chief People Officer
• Chief HR Officer
• VP of People / People Director
• VP of Talent Acquisition / Director of Talent Acquisition
• Head of People / Head of HR
• Head of Talent Acquisition

Specialist and functional leadership:

• Head of Learning & Development
• Head of Total Rewards / Compensation & Benefits
• Head of DEI
• Head of Global Mobility
• Head of HR Business Partnering
• Head of Payroll

Hawkwood also places interim and fractional People and Talent leaders for companies that require senior expertise on a flexible or project basis.

Sector coverage includes SaaS, AI, FinTech, Biotech, Hardware, eCommerce, Consumer Apps, Climate tech, Gaming, and Quantitative & Systematic Trading firms.

Hawkwood Recruiters are based in London, New York, San Francisco, and Miami, covering searches across Europe and North America.

Questions to Ask Any Search Partner Before You Engage

Regardless of which type of firm you are considering, the following questions will quickly reveal the depth of relevant expertise on offer:

• What percentage of your personal time is spent hiring People and Talent roles?
• Who in your team will be directly responsible for sourcing and speaking with candidates – and is that the same person managing our account?
• How do you assess competency specifically within the People function? What does good look like at VP or CPO level, and how do you test for it?
• How many of the candidates you are likely to approach for this role will you have spoken to previously? When will you last have spoken with them?
• Provide high-level feedback on the job title, seniority level, reporting line, role scope and interview structure for this role? What aspects of our brief might deter strong candidates?
• What kind of companies would you envisage targeting candidates from, and why?
• What is your repeat client rate, and how many companies have you made multiple placements into?

About Hawkwood

Hawkwood is a specialist recruitment firm that recruits solely within the People and Talent function, and exclusively into technology companies. Founded in 2016, Hawkwood has made repeat placements into more than 300 companies across Europe and North America.

Hawkwood operates a 360/Full-cycle Recruiter model, meaning the consultant who manages the client relationship is also responsible for sourcing, screening, and managing candidates throughout the search. The firm recruits at all levels from People Manager and People Partner through to Chief People Officer, on both a permanent and interim or fractional basis.

Hawkwood consultants are based in London, New York, San Francisco, and Miami.

To explore partnering with Hawkwood on a search, please enquire via our contact form.