Executive Search in Ireland: What It Takes to Get Executive Recruitment Right

Hiring a senior leader is one of the few decisions whose consequences keep building for years, for better or worse, and in a market as tight as Ireland’s, the gap between a good appointment and a poor one widens with every quarter.

When a leadership hire fails, the damage spreads quickly. Strategy drifts, good people leave, momentum stalls, and the replacement search begins from a worse position than the first.

What Does a Bad Executive Hire Really Cost?

Ask what a poor senior appointment costs and most boards cannot answer, because few have a clear read on the leadership they already hold to measure the loss against. DDI’s Global Leadership Forecast puts a number on that blind spot. Eighty percent of organisations say they lack confidence in their leadership pipelines, which means most senior appointments are made without knowing who inside the business could already do the role, or who is close to ready. That uncertainty is itself the cost, paid in advance on every appointment. It also explains why the best executive search firms do more than introduce a candidate from outside. Stanton Chase Dublin also carries out leadership assessment and succession planning that show a board who it already has, who is ready to advance, and where the capability gaps sit before a search begins. Boards that understand their own leadership this way tend to perform better, and organisations with a well-developed leadership bench are 2.9 times more likely to be recognised as a top financial performer, because they appoint from knowledge rather than hope. 

Why Are the Best Leaders so Hard to Reach?

Once a board has that clear picture and still needs to look outside, it meets a second problem, because the leaders most worth hiring are usually the ones who are not looking. They perform well, they are paid fairly, and they are settled in roles that depend on them. Senior leaders tend to stay in post for years. Among US large-cap companies, chief executives hold their roles for a median of about six years, and the same pattern holds in Ireland, where continuity has defined the leadership of the largest companies over the past year, with only a few changes at the top and most of those handled as internal succession. The person a board most wants is therefore already years into leading another business and has no reason to raise a hand. Reaching them takes a search partner who can identify the right person, make the introduction, and handle the conversation with discretion while they consider a move they were not looking for. That relationship-led approach is the core of what executive search does. 

How Does Executive Search Assessment Work?

Whilst finding and reaching the right people is a key part of the executive search process, assessing candidates against the role criteria and for cultural fit is vitally important. 

This is where the assessment side of a Stanton Chase search does its work. A Search+® engagement pairs the search with a structured evaluation built on the firm’s Fit-for-Purpose framework, which measures a candidate against a Success Leader Profile drawn from the role, the organisation, and where the business is heading. The framework works across three areas the firm calls the three As.  

• Ability: The technical and leadership capability a role demands 
• Aspiration: What drives the person and whether it matches the job on offer 
• Agility: How they adapt, make decisions, and lead others through change.  

Competency-based interviews, in-depth referencing, market benchmarking, and validated psychometric tools sit behind each judgement, so the read on a candidate rests on evidence rather than on impression alone. 

The aim is to see past whether someone can do the job today and to weigh their potential, their fit with the culture, and how likely they are to stay and succeed once they are in the seat. Because the same partners who assess a candidate also mapped the market to find them, every shortlist is calibrated against the wider field, so a board can see how each person compares with everyone else it could realistically hire

How Do You Choose the Best Executive Search Firm in Ireland?

Choosing a search partner in Ireland comes down to a few things that are simple to state and hard to find together. The first is real local knowledge, because the person leading the search needs to understand the Irish market, its multinational base, its indigenous and family-owned firms, and the regulatory weight on sectors such as financial services and life sciences. The second is global reach, because in a market this tight the right candidate can be abroad, and a firm needs the network to find and attract them. The third is that the work is led by senior people rather than passed down. 

Stanton Chase Dublin brings those together. Its engagements are partner-led, drawing on a global network across more than 45 countries, and around 70 percent of its clients return for further assignments, a plain measure of how often the firm gets senior hires right. Its Search+® approach pairs candidate identification with structured leadership assessment, so a shortlist reflects how a person will lead, not only what they have done. 

About the Author

Linda Roberts Power is a Partner at Stanton Chase Dublin, where she leads the firm’s executive search and leadership advisory services across Ireland. She brings more than nineteen years of executive search experience to her role, having spent fifteen years at another leading global executive search firm where she played a central part in building and developing their Irish office. For the past six years, she has worked exclusively in the Irish market, serving both indigenous Irish companies and international organisations across all sizes and ownership models. Her expertise spans C-suite and board level appointments in technology, industrial, and consumer sectors, with a particular focus on finance, sales, operations, and human resources functions. Before moving into executive search, Linda spent a decade in senior HR roles at Sainsbury’s and Times Newspapers, and she holds degrees from Cambridge, Leicester, and Westminster universities.