For retained and confidential search
A search is a market map, not a pipeline
Contingency software counts applications. A retained search has almost none. What it has is a defined universe, a long list you defended to a client, a qualification standard you have to evidence, and a confidentiality requirement that makes ordinary tooling unusable.
What a retained search actually produces
None of this fits a pipeline built to count inbound applications.
The search is the record
Scorecards, blind CVs, branded presentation and the client's own portal, from one job.
6 scorecard groups
What actually makes this desk hard
Your work is judgement, and judgement needs evidence
A client paying a retainer will ask why this person and not that one. "They interviewed well" is not an answer that survives a second meeting with a board.
Confidentiality is a feature, not a preference
Approaching someone in a role they have not left is normal in search and catastrophic if handled carelessly. Ordinary CV sharing leaks the current employer on the first page.
The relationship outlives the assignment
The candidate you did not place this year is the client who briefs you in three. Systems built around a live pipeline forget people the moment a job closes.
What changes when it all runs in one place
A qualification standard you can show
The Agency Scorecard is your own criteria across money, motivation, mobility, communication and compliance, scored yes, partial or no, with comments, history and an audit trail. Per-job scorecards sit alongside it for role-specific criteria.
Search the market, not just your database
Per-job AI candidate search with saved results, live LinkedIn research on people and companies, company hierarchies with parents and subsidiaries, and enrichment through Apollo, Lusha or FullEnrich when a map has gaps.
Present without exposing
Blind CVs redact the company, dates, institutions and locations. Branded CVs come from your own template with your watermark. Spec sends carry an expiry and tell you when they were opened.
Give the client somewhere to look
A branded client portal where the hiring committee reviews your shortlist, plus a Client Brief on the job holding what you were actually asked for, and a Client Overview holding how that client really buys.
Let the AI write the first draft, not the assessment
Candidate briefs generated from the CV and scorecards pre-filled from the CV against the job spec — as a starting point you edit. The judgement stays yours; the typing does not.
Close it properly
Offer letters and terms of business signed through DigiSign with tracking, then the placement, its fee stages and the retained fee schedule recorded against the job and invoiced.
The document the client remembers
A blind CV that is genuinely blind
Configurable redaction of company names, institutions, dates and locations, generated from the original rather than retyped — so a confidential approach stays confidential and the presentation still looks like your firm made it.
Questions this desk asks
Can we run retained fee schedules?
Yes. Retained fees are a first-class billing type alongside placements, with fee stages on the job for staged invoicing across the assignment.
How do we keep an off-limits or confidential list?
Tags, folders, statuses and custom fields you define, combined with data privileges controlling who can see which records. Archiving hides a record from normal views without destroying its history.
Is the AI going to write our assessments?
No, and you should not want it to. It drafts the candidate brief from the CV and pre-fills a scorecard against the job spec. A person edits both, and the audit trail records who scored what.
We do very few, very large searches. Does the pricing work?
Seats are per recruiter rather than per placement, so a small team running a handful of retained assignments is not paying for volume it does not do. The metered AI features carry monthly free allowances and caps you set.
Evidence, confidentiality and a document worth the fee
Scorecards with an audit trail, genuinely blind CVs, a branded client portal and retained fee schedules. Book a walkthrough with a live assignment in mind.