Scale a search practice

Your executive search practice needs to outgrow you.

Bring your book. Add new revenue lines, and stand out in a market that competes on fees.

You've built an executive search practice clients come back to: retained mandates, confidential VP and C-suite searches, and a candidate network you've spent years earning. Now you're the ceiling. One desk can only run so many searches at once, your only product is the placement fee, and contingency shops, job boards and AI sourcing make every recruiter look the same. At Chameleon you bring your book, add revenue lines around every hire, and sell executive recruiting no database can match: run by people who've done the job, with an interim operator who can hold the seat while you fill it.

What you have when it’s working

New revenue lines from the clients you already have, and executive search no database can copy.

Apply Tell us where you are

You’re here because…

“I'm turning mandates away.”
Your book is bigger than the number of searches one desk can run at once.
“Search is turning into a fee war.”
Contingency shops, job boards and AI sourcing make every recruiter look the same, and push fees down.
“My only product is the placement fee.”
Between searches the client relationship goes quiet, and so do your billings.
“My clients need more than a placement.”
An interim leader while the search runs, or help once the hire starts. Until now you've had to send them elsewhere.
“I don't want to run a recruiting firm.”
Sourcers, researchers, coordinators and payroll: the overhead of scaling a desk.

We were here too

Clients kept asking the Chameleons inside their teams the same question: "Who should we hire for this?" So we built executive search into the Collective, run by former in-house talent leaders and people who've done the job. A search practice here can offer what a desk alone can't: someone to run the seat while you fill it.

What changes

With the Collective behind you.

New revenue lines
Earn on more than the placement fee: when your search clients bring in operators, from an interim executive to a whole team, you're rewarded for the work you bring in.
Recruited by operators, not by a database
Run retained searches with operators who've held the role on the panel, helping write the brief and assess the slate. That's hard to commoditize.
Fill the seat, and run it too
When a client can't leave a seat empty for two quarters, a Chameleon runs the function as an interim while you run the search. A search firm can't run the seat; an interim firm can't fill it.
A search team beside you
Share sourcing, research and candidate pipelines with a search team of former in-house talent leaders, so you can run more searches without hiring a desk.
Searches from inside client teams
Chameleons working inside client teams can bring you in when a role should become a permanent hire, often before it's a req.
A stake and a say
Every Chameleon's work counts toward ownership; Collective Members vest it and vote on where we go.

Two ways to belong

One standard. Your pace.

Every Chameleon is vetted the same way. After that, you choose how deep you go, and you can go deeper later.

Executive recruiters with an established book usually join as Collective Members, from day one if they qualify, and bring their search clients under the banner.

Expert Network

Do great work, your way.

A non-exclusive relationship. Keep your own practice, and take on work through the collective when it fits.
Clients, peers and CORE from day one, and your name in a community clients trust.
Your work through the collective counts toward ownership.
Right for specialists who love the craft, people building toward independence, and anyone who wants the Collective without going all in.

Collective Member

All in.

Bring your whole practice, clients included, under the Chameleon banner. If you ever leave, the clients you brought can go with you.
Lead client accounts, help bring in work for yourself and others, and help shape the collective.
Vest ownership, vote, and stand for the Leadership Council.
Established practice and firm owners who qualify can join as Members from day one.

What stays yours

Your clients
Your book, portable if you ever leave.
Your candidate network
The relationships you've built stay yours.
Your search methodology
How you run a search, from brief to offer, stays yours.
Your freedom to say no
No one to justify it to.

How it unfolds

01
First month
Meet the search team and your peers, get set up in CORE, and bring your search clients across.
02
First shared win
A client can't leave a seat empty, so a Chameleon runs it as an interim while you run the retained search.
03
As it grows
More mandates and new revenue lines from the clients you already have, with sourcing capacity you didn't have to hire.
04
What's yours
Your book, your candidate network, your reputation, and a stake in what we're building.

You built a desk. Now build an executive search practice.

None of us is smarter than all of us together

Bring what you have.Get what we all have.

Bring your expertise.
Get 280 people's.
Bring your network.
Get everyone's. Every Chameleon's network adds to the one you can reach.
Bring your clients.
Get a bench to serve them, so you never have to turn work away again.
Bring your best work.
Your case study helps the next Chameleon win, and theirs helps you.

In a company, people hoard what they know to protect their job. Here, sharing is how everyone grows.

Not ready to join?

Refer the work you can’t take, and earn from it.

Our partner programme

Tell us

Tell us about your book.

A sentence is enough: the functions and levels you recruit for, the clients you serve, retained or contingency, and where you're hitting the ceiling. We'll tell you honestly whether Chameleon is the right fit.

Apply

Where are you today?

Wherever you are, someone here has been there.

Start with where you are.

Not sure which? Tell us where you are, and we’ll tell you where you’d fit →