This short guide aims to address the gap of information that is publicly available about the still obscure world of research in executive search. Even if the days of headhunters with black books would seem to be long gone at a time when the transparency of tools like LinkedIn is revolutionizing the industry, the role of researcher has still received very little attention by market participants and outside observers alike. The purpose of this guide is simple. To gather in a clear and straight-forward manner the core activities a researcher can follow to succeed in that extremely important role they perform in executive search. It is intended for three main groups of people:

– Graduates or professionals in other industries that are considering taking a role as a researcher in an executive search firm.

– Researchers already working in executive search that wish to review the research methodology they follow and, perhaps, get a few new tips or ideas which they can implement in their jobs.

– Researchers from other industries that are intellectually curious to understand more about the role of a researcher in executive search, and learn practices which they could potentially adopt to their current fields of operation.

The text is based on many years of experience in the industry. It doesn't pretend to be exhaustive nor the definite best practice approach. It is, nevertheless, the result of a conscious effort to summarize and distill in short chapters the key and most relevant aspects of the research methodology in executive search, offering one of the few guides of its kind – if not the first one– to the market.