Executive Search Deliverables: Every Document a Retained Search Firm Produces, With Templates

A retained executive search produces a set of documents, not only a shortlist. Over a typical twelve-to-sixteen-week assignment a firm writes a position specification, a market map and longlist, progress reports, candidate profiles or dossiers, interview scorecards, an assessment report on each finalist, a shortlist deck with a comparison, reference reports and, at the end, a submittal or offer summary. Clients judge the firm on these documents as much as on the candidates, because the documents are what the board sees. This guide lists each one in the order it is produced, what it contains, who reads it, and links a ready-made template for it.

The documents, in the order a search produces them

Firms name these differently. Some call the assessment report a candidate report, some call the dossier a candidate presentation, and a few merge the shortlist deck and the comparison into one pack. The stages are the same everywhere, so the list below follows the stages.

1. Position specification

Written in the first week from the client kick-off, the position specification is the firm's brief to the market. It describes the company, the role and its reporting line, the first-year priorities, the experience and qualities sought, compensation where the client agrees to state it, and the search process and timeline. Candidates read it before they agree to a first conversation, so it is also a statement of how the firm works. Most firms produce it as a short deck or a four-to-six-page document in the firm's design. Position specification template.

2. Market map and longlist

Weeks one to four are research. The market map lists the target organisations and the relevant people in each; the longlist is the same information organised by person, with a status for each: identified, approached, interested, declined. Shown to the client at the first formal update, the map demonstrates coverage of the market, which is a large part of what a retainer pays for. It is almost always an Excel workbook, and the better firms present it in their own brand rather than as a raw spreadsheet. Longlist and market map template and the research team's market mapping workbook.

3. Search progress report

Sent weekly or fortnightly, the progress report carries the search metrics (organisations mapped, people identified, approached, interested, interviewed), a pipeline table of candidates in play with their stage, short notes on the strongest, risks, and next steps with dates. Its value is consistency: the same numbers in the same table every time, so the client can see movement. Firms that send this as a formatted deck rather than an email are judged as more in control of the search. Search progress report template.

4. Candidate profile and candidate dossier

Once candidates have been interviewed by the consultant, each is written up. A one-page profile summarises the leadership record, the track record in numbers, board roles and the consultant's view; it is the document the chair reads in the car. The dossier is the fuller version, several pages with a cover, the achievements that matter for the mandate, board memberships and the complete career, sent with the shortlist. For board and non-executive searches the profile leads with governance experience rather than the executive career, because that is the question the nominations committee is asking. CEO candidate profile, candidate dossier and board-level profile templates, and the fuller page on board and CEO candidate reports.

5. Blind or confidential profile

Two situations call for an anonymised document. The first is a confidential approach, where a sitting executive's interest must not travel before the client commits. The second is a client who wants the first cut of the shortlist judged without names, increasingly common in public-sector, legal and financial-services searches. A blind profile has no name, photo, contact details, date of birth or nationality, and employer names are replaced by descriptors such as "FTSE 250 retailer, London". The reliable way to produce one is a template that has no fields for those details, rather than a normal profile with the name deleted and a phone number left in the footer. Blind profile template and confidential profile template.

6. Interview scorecard

The internal record of each consultant interview: a rating against each competency in the brief, the evidence heard for it, strengths and concerns, and a recommendation. Filled in during or straight after the interview, the same way for every candidate, it makes the later assessment defensible and feeds the assessment report directly. Some firms share a cleaned-up version with the client; most keep it internal. Interview scorecard template.

7. Executive assessment report

The central deliverable of a retained search: a report on each finalist with an executive summary, the consultant's overall rating and recommendation, competency ratings with evidence, a career overview, a working-style profile and, where the firm uses them, psychometric results and references. The assessment is the consultant's; the report is the form it takes. Boards compare finalists on this document, so the eight sections must be in the same order for every finalist. Where psychometric instruments such as Hogan, SHL or Saville Wave are used, the firm holds the results and lays them into its own report; the instrument provider's agreement governs what may be reproduced. Executive assessment report template, and the pages on assessment reports and psychometric report integration.

8. Shortlist deck, comparison and tracker

The shortlist meeting is where the search is judged. The deck opens with the shortlist on one slide, gives each candidate a slide with summary, career and fit against the brief, and closes with next steps. The comparison sets the candidates against the same criteria in a scoring matrix, with a recommendation; it is the slide the discussion turns on. The tracker is the Excel version of the same shortlist, one row per candidate, which the client keeps and updates. The three should agree with each other, which they do only when they are produced from the same source rather than typed separately. Shortlist deck, candidate comparison and candidate tracker templates; overview on shortlist decks.

9. Reference report

Taken on the preferred candidate, usually after the client's final interview and before the offer. The report records who the referee is and how they know the candidate, the dates they overlapped, the questions asked and the answers in the referee's words, any concerns, and the consultant's summary. Written the same way for every reference, it can be read in two minutes and stands up if the appointment is later questioned. Reference report template.

10. Submittal and offer summary

The cover document that formally puts the candidate forward: why they fit, the key facts a client checks first, the agreed terms and the next step. In executive search it often doubles as the offer summary with compensation, start date and conditions. In agency recruitment it is the front page of every submission. Client submittal template.

Adjacent deliverables: talent mapping and succession

Many firms sell two further documents outside a search. A talent mapping report presents a market map as a product in its own right: market overview, a company-by-company map of the relevant people, observations on compensation and movement, and recommendations. A succession or talent review, delivered to a CHRO or board, places a leadership population on a 9-box grid of performance and potential and gives a successor slate for each critical role. In both cases the placements and ratings are the client's or the consultant's; the document lays them out. Talent mapping report and succession and talent review templates; overview on succession planning reports.

What boards expect from these documents

Three things, consistently. First, the same structure for every candidate, so finalists can be compared on the same page of each document. Second, judgement that is clearly the consultant's, separated from the facts: a rating with the evidence beside it, a recommendation in one paragraph, not a rewritten CV. Third, restraint in presentation. At board level the firm's brand should be recognisable and quiet: the firm's fonts and colours, a small logo, generous white space, and the candidate's record dominating the page. Bright agency branding reads as junior.

How firms produce them: by hand, or from templates

Most firms still produce these documents by hand in Word and PowerPoint, from a house template that associates copy and adapt. The cost is not the writing, which is the consultant's job, but the assembly: retyping the career history from the CV into the dossier, then again into the assessment report, then again into the shortlist slide, and keeping the three consistent when a date changes. On a six-candidate shortlist that is a day or two of associate time per search, and the documents still drift.

The alternative is to hold the structure in a template and fill the factual sections from the CV. Formatix.AI does this for each document above: the firm uploads a document it already sends, or picks a template from the library, and it is rebuilt in the firm's brand with the fonts, colours and spacing kept. A CV, or a batch of CVs for the shortlist, fills the career sections in about a minute per candidate; the consultant supplies the ratings, the evidence and the recommendation. The dossier, the shortlist deck and the tracker come from one extraction, so they agree. Standing rules set once for the firm, such as "salaries as ranges" or "never include nationality", apply to every document. Every new account has ten free credits with no card, and each credit fills one document.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between a candidate profile, a dossier and an assessment report?

Length and purpose. The profile is one page and summarises; the dossier is several pages and sets out the full record with commentary; the assessment report adds the consultant's formal ratings, evidence and recommendation on a finalist. A search typically sends profiles early, dossiers with the shortlist and assessment reports on the finalists.

Does the search firm write the psychometric report?

No. The instrument provider produces the results; an accredited consultant interprets them; the firm's report reproduces the results it holds, within the provider's terms, alongside the consultant's assessment. Formatix lays supplied results into the firm's report and never administers or scores an assessment.

Which of these documents should be anonymised?

Whatever the client sees before committing to a candidate, in a confidential search: the profile and the shortlist slide. The dossier and assessment report usually go out named, under the confidentiality terms of the engagement.

Are the templates linked above downloads?

No. Each is built in your firm's brand inside Formatix and filled from a CV or your notes; what you keep is the finished Word, PowerPoint or Excel file, which is yours to edit and send.