CFO Recruitment in India: Retained vs Contingent Search

When you decide to bring in outside help for a CFO hire, you'll encounter two models: retained and contingent search. They suit very different situations.

Contingent search

The recruiter is paid only if their candidate is hired. It works for high-volume, mid-level roles where speed and breadth matter more than depth. For a CFO, the incentives can misalign — the emphasis is on submitting candidates quickly rather than mapping the whole market.

Retained search

The client engages a firm exclusively, usually with staged fees, to run a thorough, mapped process. For a CFO — where the cost of a wrong hire is enormous and the best candidates aren't applying — retained search is the norm. The firm invests in deep research because it owns the mandate.

The research layer underneath both

Whichever model you choose, the quality of the outcome depends on the research: who's out there, what they manage, what they're paid, and whether they're open to a move. That layer is now available directly through a structured CFO directory, whether you run the search in-house or with a firm.

Scoping a mandate? Learn more about CFO search.