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Pitch N Hire · Professional search

Director through manager, and no higher.

A search service that defines itself partly by what it excludes: Director, senior manager and manager roles. The C-suite and leadership lane is executive search, and keeping the two separate is what stops either becoming a general recruiting desk.

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3
seniority bands

Director, senior manager and manager — with the C-suite and VP lane deliberately excluded.

6
functions

Sales, marketing, product, people, operations and finance, and engineering and technology.

7
industries

Consumer, fintech, martech, SaaS, gaming and entertainment, health tech, and venture capital and private equity.

0
performance claims

The published stats are counts of the page's own lists. No time-to-offer or placement rate is asserted.

01

What Professional search is

Professional search covers the specialist and management layer — Director of growth, revenue, HR and people, sales, marketing, operations and product; senior managers across marketing, sales, business development, product, operations and people; and managers in the same functions. It is the layer where the qualified population is small enough that advertising does not reach it and large enough that a full retained search would be over-engineered.

The method is four capabilities applied through three axes. Comprehensive professional discovery across a wide spectrum of parameters; complete synergy with your objectives, culture and needs; matching tools that narrow while staying aligned to the requirement; and a premium pool of vetted, well-matched professionals. The axes are role — sales, marketing, product, people, operations and finance, and engineering and technology — business stage, and industry.

The software join is sold as a first-class part of the offer rather than as plumbing: candidates found by the search enter the Pitch N Hire applicant tracking pipeline you already screen in, so a search does not create a second process to reconcile. And the honest note about proof: the only figures published for this service are counts of its own lists. No performance number is claimed, because none is measured.

02

What it does

Four capabilities, three axes, and one join that most search firms cannot offer.

01

Comprehensive professional discovery

A search across a wide spectrum of parameters rather than a title filter — at this layer, the people worth hiring are usually employed, well-treated and not reading job adverts.

02

Alignment with the actual team

A deep read of your objectives, culture and specific needs, so the person placed thrives rather than merely qualifies. At Director level the difference between the two is usually the reporting relationship.

03

Search on three axes

By role across six functions, by business stage, and by industry across seven verticals — so a fintech growth Director and a SaaS operations manager are searched differently rather than from the same list.

04

Stage archetypes

Pioneering foundations for early stage, operational catalysts for growth stage, and legacy builders for enterprise — a different professional profile expected at each, and the profile is agreed before the search.

05

Backed by the ATS

Candidates the search finds enter the pipeline you already screen in, so the shortlist arrives inside your process rather than as a document to re-key.

06

Market intelligence as a by-product

What the role really pays and who holds it — often the reason to run a search at this level even before the shortlist arrives.

03

How it runs

The published method, in the order it runs. As with executive search, no week-by-week schedule is published.

  1. Agree the band and the axes

    Director, senior manager or manager; which function; which industries are worth searching; and which growth-stage archetype the team actually needs.

  2. Synergy with the team

    Objectives, culture and specifics understood in depth — including who this person will report to and who will report to them, which is where most Director hires succeed or fail.

  3. Discovery

    A wide-parameter search of the market, using the matching tools to narrow without drifting from the requirement.

  4. Vetting and shortlist

    A premium pool of vetted professionals, matched rather than merely qualified, presented against the alignment work.

  5. Into your pipeline

    Candidates enter the ATS you already use, assessed through the group's own interview software and background-verifiable, so you review qualified people inside your existing process.

04

Who it is for

The trigger for this service is specific, and it is not simply "we have a vacancy".

HR leaders with a stuck role

A role that has stayed open despite reasonable effort — usually because the qualified population is small and the people in it are not applying to anything.

Hiring managers who need market intelligence

Teams that need to know what the role really pays and who holds it as much as they need a shortlist. At this level, the pay picture is often the reason the role is stuck.

Founders hiring their first Director

The layer between the founders and the team, where the wrong appointment is felt by everyone below it and the right one buys back a founder's week.

05

What it does not do

A service with a deliberate ceiling, and a floor.

  • C-suite, VP and board roles are out of scope by design. That is executive search: retained, confidential and research-led on a different commercial basis. Executive search →
  • Where the qualified market is deep enough to work on speed rather than mapping, permanent staffing is the cheaper and faster route. Permanent staffing →
  • Interim or fixed-term specialists are a contract engagement rather than a search, and specialists who join your team under your managers are a third model again. Staff augmentation →
  • No commercial terms are published for this service. Category-wise it is engaged differently from retained executive search — settle the basis in writing before the search starts.
  • The published title lists are commercial and operational management roles. Engineering appears as a search axis rather than as a title list, so an engineering leadership brief should be scoped explicitly rather than assumed.
06

Answers

What roles does professional search cover?

Director, senior manager and manager roles across sales, marketing, product, people and HR, operations, business development, growth and revenue. The C-suite and VP lane is deliberately excluded and handled as executive search.

When should we use a search firm rather than advertise?

When the qualified population is small, when the people you want are not applying to adverts, when the role has stayed open despite reasonable effort, or when you need market intelligence — what the role really pays and who holds it — as much as a shortlist.

Can you tailor the search to our stage?

Yes, and it changes the profile materially. Early-stage searches look for people who lay groundwork and take risk; growth-stage for operators who optimise and scale; enterprise for people with a record in complex, high-stakes environments.

How is this different from executive search?

Executive search covers senior leadership and is normally retained, confidential and research-led. Professional search covers Director through manager: the process has a similar shape but it is shorter, less confidential and engaged on different commercial terms.

What performance numbers can you show?

None, and that is deliberate. The only figures published for this service are counts of its own lists — three seniority bands, six functions, seven industries. A time-to-offer or hit-rate figure would have to be invented, so it is not offered.

Where do candidates end up?

In the Pitch N Hire applicant tracking pipeline you already screen in, assessed through the group's own interview software and background-verifiable — so the search produces evidence inside your process rather than a document beside it.