March 26, 2026 Why Standard Recruiting Metrics Fail in Executive Search (And What to Track Instead) Key Takeaways Standard TA metrics like time-to-fill and funnel conversion rates do not translate to executive search due to small…
March 3, 2026 How Should Leaders Use Analytics and AI for Executive Search? A Q&A with Nemo Nemeth, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at True Technologies For leaders who grew up in recruiting—not…
February 26, 2026 The VC/PE Buyer’s Guide to Executive Search Software Executive search within venture capital and private equity is a completely different ballgame than traditional corporate recruiting. Success depends not…
January 17, 2026 The Top 5 Executive Search KPI Dashboards for 2026 Is your data driving decisions, or just taking up space? In this guide, we visualize the five critical KPI dashboards that define a modern executive talent analytics platform. From identifying pipeline bottlenecks and auditing DEI pass-through rates to correlating executive tenure with revenue growth, discover the exact metrics you need to prove ROI in 2026.
December 5, 2025 10 Executive Talent Workflows To Run in 2026 With the year rapidly coming to a close, many executive talent leaders are already reflecting on their goals, priorities, and…
November 7, 2025 5 Ways Thrive Helps You Nurture Executive Relationships Efficiently Executive search requires long-term, strategic relationship building with high-potential leaders before you necessarily have a role for them. When leaders…
October 24, 2025 Answer, “Who Do We Know with These Skills?” If you work in executive search, at some point, you’ve been asked, “Who do we know in our network who…
September 23, 2025 The Risk-Free Way Executive Talent Leaders Can Experiment With AI In recent conversations, we asked executive talent leaders what’s holding them back from more advanced AI adoption around data collection,…
September 5, 2025 Why Data Structure is The New Competitive Advantage There’s a lot of excitement around AI for executive search. In our recent survey, we found that 40% of executive…
August 11, 2025 What 30+ Executive Talent Leaders Revealed About Their AI Strategies For the past year, executive talent leaders have been asking themselves the same question on AI: Am I moving fast…
June 9, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [06.07.2025] The executive search market failed to create enough demand in May to overcome a glut of closed and canceled searches,…
June 2, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [05.31.2025] Opened search volume appears poised to post relatively stable month-over-month results in May. Our preliminary data shows that month-to-date opened…
May 20, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [05.17.2025] Newly opened executive searches in the technology sector dropped 7% YoY in Q1, essentially mirroring the trend line for net…
May 12, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [05.10.2025] With market uncertainty at a local maximum in April, demand for executive talent entered a “wait-and-see” mode. Opened searches dropped…
May 5, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [05.03.2025] Preliminary numbers show executive demand dropped 15% month over month in April. Though Thrive data is not finalized for April,…
April 28, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [04.26.2025] After a series of quarters with elevated C-level openings, Q1 saw a decline in the share of newly opened roles…
April 14, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [04.12.2025] Median compensation for newly hired executives fell nearly 3% in Q1, down from an all-time high in Q4 2024. This…
April 7, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [04.05.2025] Final search volume numbers are in for Q1 and it’s slightly better than expected: Opened search volume rose 8% quarter-over-quarter…
March 31, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [03.29.2025] Leadership hiring will end up at least 4% higher in Q1 than Q4 2024, a modest bump that feels like…
March 24, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [03.22.2025] Median OTE for newly hired executives is flat QoQ so far in Q1. With a Wall Street Journal article from earlier this…
March 10, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [03.08.2025] Newly placed executives were down about 15% MoM and YoY in February. The slow-down tracks with the YoY Q4 2024…
March 3, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [03.01.2025] Newly opened executive searches grew at least 5% in February, giving us two straight months of monthly growth. Though numbers…
February 24, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [02.22.2025] Healthcare, Life Sciences and Technology were the only industries to show year-over-year growth last quarter, showing just how significant the…
February 19, 2025 Hiring Internal Executive Candidates Even with data siloes, it might be a more viable option than you think. Key Takeaways Steward a cultural shift…
February 17, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [02.15.2025] Closed search volume dropped 5% month over month in January, but grew 5% year over year. While we shared open…
February 10, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [02.08.2025] Executive search volume grew 15% month-over-month to start the year, the slowest start to the year we’ve seen in our…
February 4, 2025 10 Metrics That Actually Map To Talent Partner Responsibilities After reviewing the results of True Platform's recent Talent Partner survey, we were struck by the realization that the top…
February 3, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [02.01.2025] CEOs are the only roles with sustained demand on a QoQ and YoY basis. In fact, it’s the only role…
January 27, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [01.25.2025] Median OTE for newly hired executives rose 12% year-over-year in Q4 to $460,000. Median base compensation rose just north of…
January 22, 2025 Executive Search Quarterly Report: Q4 2024 Table of Contents 2024 Overview For three years or so, we’ve put in this space the strong link between the…
January 20, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [01.18.2025] VC and PE executive hiring demand dipped in Q4, but public and private held ground. Newly opened searches for executive…
January 13, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [01.11.2025] More than 50% of talent partners say one of their top obstacles remains consolidating and enriching talent data, but less…
January 6, 2025 Executive Search Trends Report [01.04.2025] The executive search market rebounded in 2024 with 4% annual growth, thanks to a strong first half of the year.…
December 23, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [12.21.2024] Median compensation for newly placed executives is taking a hit in Q4, thanks to lower bonuses. Median OTE is tracking…
December 17, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [12.14.2024] Q4 is pacing to a flat-ish quarter-over-quarter comp for opened executive searches and the market demand is becoming clearer for…
December 10, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [12.07.2024] Opened executive search volume in November dropped 19% from October, a seasonal development that was to be expected. November 2024’s…
November 25, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [11.23.2024] A steady start to Q4 executive demand was buoyed in October by a higher share of lower-level roles. Opened search…
November 18, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [11.16.2024] With Amazon announcing a RTO policy last week, the “office debate” is heating up again. For executive hiring, though, that…
November 12, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [11.09.2024] Leadership hiring demand was flat in October, giving the executive search market two months in a row that more like…
November 4, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [11.02.2024] We noted in a previous newsletter issue that technology hiring was bucking the overall market trend, with leadership demand up…
October 28, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [10.26.2024] Looking for a bright spot in the executive search market? It’s found—mostly—in technology. Our latest quarterly report, released earlier this…
October 25, 2024 Executive Search Quarterly Report: Q3 2024 Table of Contents 2024 Q3 Overview Leadership hiring demand dropped 4% quarter-over-quarter in Q3, the second straight quarterly decline. This,…
October 21, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [10.19.2024] Product and Engineering roles buoyed leadership hiring demand in Q3, a bit of a reversal from recent quarters. Since the…
October 15, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [10.12.2024] Leadership hiring dropped 4% quarter-over-quarter in Q3, again showing market that’s not quite ready to keep all the gains it…
October 7, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [10.05.2024] Newly opened executive searches in Private Equity appear to have grown 17% in Q3, while Venture Capital saw more modest…
September 30, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [09.28.2024] Demand for CEOs—one of the more persistent areas in executive search over the last year or so—has slipped in Q3.…
September 23, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [09.21.2024] Newly placed executives are on pace to hit their highest levels since Q3 2022. That growth, however, has mostly come…
September 16, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [09.14.2024] Median compensation for newly placed executives is nearly flat so far in Q3, coming in at $420K for the first…
September 9, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [09.07.2024] Opened executive search volume is up 4% year-over-year and down 12% quarter-over-quarter so far in Q3. Zooming in to a…
August 26, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [08.24.2024] Prior to Q1 2024’s median compensation of $428K, the previous high-water mark was set in Q2 2022 ($420K). With the…
August 20, 2024 Is Market Mapping Worth It? Introduction As talent data becomes increasingly available with new technology, research tools, and team expansion, leaders outside of executive talent…
August 19, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [08.17.2024] After a roller coaster ride from 2022 to 2023, search velocity has steadied. When viewing Q2 data through a trendline…
August 13, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [08.10.2024] While demand for CEO leadership has been up and to the right for the last several quarters, companies are beginning…
August 5, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [08.3.2024] As earnings season rounds into form, the early message seems to be that the economy is slowing down. According to…
July 30, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [07.27.2024] Three things to know about executive search right now: Leadership demand from privately held companies is nearly 2X the previous…
July 23, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [07.20.2024] We recently released our 2024 Q2 Executive Search Report. In this issue, you’ll find a deep dive our normal market…
July 16, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [07.13.2024] While overall leadership hiring was flat year-over-year in Q2, CEO hiring continues to be in demand, ending the quarter up…
July 8, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [07.06.2024] Executive search volume dropped 3% in Q2 from its Q1 numbers. While we’ll be releasing full Q2 data in the…
July 1, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [06.29.2024] Median OTE for newly placed executives is down 10% over Q1 through the first two months of Q2. The quarter-to-date…
June 22, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [06.22.2024] C-level placements comprised 51% of all new executive placements through the first two months of Q2, the placement share we’ve…
June 15, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [06.15.2024] Through the first two months of Q2, executive search volume has held on a MoM basis, projecting for a flat…
June 10, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [06.08.2024] Through the first two months of Q2, executive search volume has held on a MoM basis, down just 1% over…
June 3, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [06.01.2024] Median executive compensation rose 7% QoQ in Q1 and 10% YoY, setting new compensation highs in Thrive's dataset. The increase…
May 24, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [05.25.2024] VC has seen a significant deceleration in search cycles since Q2 2023, slowing roughly 10% from 118 days to 130…
May 20, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [05.18.2024] Executive hiring continues to push its highest concentration of C-level work. Since the market’s fall from peak hiring, opened searches…
May 13, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [05.11.2024] Last week, we wrote in this space that Sales leadership roles are up 52% at Series B/C companies in Q1…
May 6, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [05.04.2024] One of the trends we’ve monitored in this space is the persistent growth of Sales roles since the market’s bottom.…
April 27, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [04.27.2024] The market consensus for some time has been that cloud infrastructure earnings reports are leading indicators for the software market…
April 22, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [04.20.2024] While we previously reported that open search volume was up 12% QoQ in Q1, we now have insight into where…
April 15, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [04.13.2024] The 12% QoQ growth in opened executive searches in Q1 was driven by higher interest in nearly all functions, but…
April 8, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [04.06.2024] Opened executive search volume rose 12% QoQ and 9% YoY in Q1. 2024 kicked off with an especially active January…
April 1, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [03.30.2024] While median executive compensation grew 2% YoY last year, one of the hidden developments was that executives who spent 3-5…
March 25, 2024 Executive Search Trends Report [03.23.2024] Through January and February, opened searches for Sales executives are up 36% YoY quarter to date and CEO searches are…
March 18, 2024 C-level Hires Lead Q1 Opened Searches While search volume continues to rise so far in 2024, the makeup of those searches is following a prolonged trend…
March 14, 2024 6 Tactics to Maintain DEI Momentum in 2024 In a recent poll, 79% of executive talent leaders reported that they were receiving more requests from C-Suite leadership on…
March 11, 2024 Sixth Straight Month of YoY Growth in Search Volume Opened search volume posted its sixth straight month of YoY growth in February. The growth was a modest 2%, perhaps…
March 4, 2024 Recent Shifts in Startup Hiring Trends Earlier this week, Carta released 2023 hiring and departure/layoff numbers for startups with the headline that more employees left startups…
February 26, 2024 Insights from January 2024’s Closed Search Volume Last week, we reported that January’s MoM and YoY opened search volume trends were stronger than January 2023’s, a promising sign…
February 21, 2024 Green Shoots: A Strong January for Tech Companies One of the persistent story lines to earnings call season, at least in technology, has been the mention of “green…
February 12, 2024 Time to Find Executives Decreased but Overall Hiring Time Increased While this benchmark data was shared in our annual report, it didn’t receive much commentary: Identifying the right executive is…
February 5, 2024 Sales Leadership Hiring: Strong Pipeline and Growing Demand One of the prolonged trends we’ve been highlighting for the last few quarters is the rebound, in particular, of Sales…
April 25, 2026 From Spreadsheets to Strategy: 4 Problems Thrive TRM Solves for In-House Executive Talent Teams Stop managing global executive search with messy spreadsheets and siloed data. Discover how Thrive TRM helps in-house talent leaders own their data by eliminating manual reporting, preserving historical relationship memory, automating data integrity, and building dynamic succession plans. Move from simply managing searches to leading your organization's executive talent strategy.
April 17, 2026 The Evolution of In-House Executive Search: Insights from the Trenches Transitioning from an agency to an in-house team? Discover our 3-phase strategic playbook—built from three years of community insights—to help you establish trust, proactively pipeline leadership talent, and measure your team's true impact.
March 26, 2026 The Top 5 Executive Search KPI Dashboards for 2026: Real‑Time Insights for Immediate Impact In 2026, executive search will move at the speed of data. Real-time executive search KPI dashboards—live workspaces that aggregate and…