The best executive talent is almost never looking. And yet, sometimes it listens. After thousands of conversations with executives in post, we know fairly well when and why.
An essential part of our work consists of calling people who are not expecting the call. Executives with consolidated projects, well remunerated, with teams that work. People who, if they had to tick a box, would tick "not looking". And yet many of those conversations end in attentive listening. Understanding why is probably the most valuable knowledge in our profession.
The first thing we have learned is what does not work: money, on its own, does not open the door. A better package convinces someone who already wanted to leave, but it does not move someone who is doing well. When a satisfied executive agrees to keep talking, it is almost never because of what they are offered: it is because of what they are being asked to do.
The most frequent trigger is a question the executive was already asking themselves in silence. Every professional at the peak of a stage carries a latent restlessness: the feeling that their learning curve is flattening, a project that now runs itself, the question of whether they could build something from scratch or play in another league. A good proposal does not create that desire; it finds it. That is why the best conversations do not start with the vacancy, but with the person’s trajectory and what they have yet to do.
The second factor is the project itself. Executives who are not looking only move for challenges with substance: a real transformation, a succession with a clear mandate, an expansion that demands building rather than just administering. They can tell a project with ambition from a vacancy with an inflated title in minutes. And they appreciate honesty about the difficulties: telling a candidate only the good parts is the fastest way to lose their respect.
The third is who calls, and how. At that level, nobody hands their trust — or their CV — to a stranger reciting a job description. Listening happens when the caller truly knows the project, can hold a conversation between equals and guarantees absolute confidentiality. Discretion is not a courtesy of the process: it is the condition that makes it possible.
And there is a fourth element that is almost never mentioned: life timing. The same project, proposed to the same person two years apart, gets opposite answers. Children leaving for university, a completed chapter, a new boss, a round-number birthday. Our work also consists of understanding those cycles and respecting them: a well-heard "not now" often becomes, some time later, the best appointment.
For companies, the lesson is clear: attracting the executive who is not looking is not about paying more, but about proposing better. About having a project worth telling and telling it through someone that person can trust. That is where a search process stops being a formality and becomes what it should always be: a conversation between equals about something worthwhile.
