98 Days. What the Number Reveals About Search Execution

98 days. That is Falcon's average time from signed engagement to accepted offer across all closed searches. We publish it with methodology because we believe search firms should be held to measurables. What is more useful than the number itself is what drives it and where most search processes lose time.

The spec problem

Searches that start with a misaligned spec consistently close later. The calibration work at kickoff — the four-stage protocol we run before sourcing begins — compresses timeline downstream. A search where the sponsor says "not quite right" after the first slate adds three to four weeks to the clock. That time does not appear in a search firm's average because it gets attributed to "client feedback" rather than process failure.

The engagement problem

The best candidates for most PE-backed C-suite roles are not looking. Our placements respond on the fourth outreach attempt on average. The industry norm for outreach attempts is two to three. Every firm that stops earlier is systematically excluding the best candidates and wondering why the slate feels thin. Persistence is not a soft capability. It is a search performance variable with measurable downstream effects.

The process management problem

Interview scheduling loses more search time than any single other factor. A candidate who completes a screen on Tuesday should have a first-round interview scheduled by the following week. Every gap in the calendar is a window for competing outreach to land. We treat scheduling velocity as a search metric because the data supports treating it that way.

The quality floor

98 days with investment-grade write-ups on every submitted candidate is a different outcome than 90 days with thin summaries. We are explicit about this trade-off. The write-up takes time. The information it contains shortens the interview process, reduces off-spec time in the room, and eliminates compensation surprises at offer. The net time savings is real. The quality improvement is permanent.

Our 86% post-placement retention figure and our 98-day average are not independent of each other. They are both consequences of the same process rigor. A faster search that produces a placement that fails in Year 2 is not a faster outcome for the investment thesis. It is a more expensive one. The full methodology behind both numbers sits in Falcon's track record, and the discipline that produces them is detailed in our full process.