Executive hiring continues to push its highest concentration of C-level work. Since the market’s fall from peak hiring, opened searches have trended close to half the overall executive search market. The same is true for Q1 2024, which saw C-level roles comprise 46% of opened searches—and 47% of new placements. That’s a fairly steady YoY comp (47% opened/44% placed in Q1 2023), but significantly different from the years prior: 2022: 44% opened/39% placed 2021: 36% opened/42% placed 2020: 38% opened/41% placed The gains are primarily being made from director-level roles, which have represented less than 20% of executive search work for three straight quarters now. We have not seen such a streak in our dataset previously. The takeaway here? The bar for tapping executive search firms continues to get higher.