Found where others don't look.
The ongoing partnership. HID_EN embedded within your business.
Growing businesses that hire regularly at management level face a structural problem. Multiple agency relationships mean inconsistent quality, inconsistent process, and fees that compound with every hire. An in-house recruiter solves some of this — but adds a fixed cost, a management burden, and a capability that rarely matches the depth of a specialist search firm.
Embedded Search is a different answer. HID_EN becomes part of your hiring function — a dedicated search resource that knows your business, your culture, and your standards as well as you do. One monthly retainer. Unlimited mandates. No placement fees on top. The quality of a specialist search firm with the continuity of an internal hire.
From the start of the engagement, HID_EN is your search partner across all management hiring. We attend briefing sessions, we understand the business at a level that takes a contingency agency months to reach, and we build a picture of your culture and hiring standards that improves with every search we run for you.
Every mandate is run with the same rigour as a retained search — direct approaches, candidate assessment, considered recommendation. The difference is that we are already briefed on your business before the mandate begins. The process is faster, the recommendations are sharper, and the quality compounds over time.
The model is a monthly retainer with a minimum commitment of three months. There are no placement fees on top of the retainer. Unlimited mandates within the engagement period. Predictable cost, unlimited capacity, and a search partner who knows your business as well as you do.
Embedded Search is designed for growing SMEs that hire regularly at management level — businesses that have two or more management hires per year, that are frustrated by the inconsistency of multiple agency relationships, and that want a search partner who understands their business rather than starting from scratch with every mandate.
It is particularly well suited to businesses that are scaling — where the hiring function needs to grow with the business but the overhead of an in-house recruiter is not yet justified. It is also the right model for businesses that have had a poor experience with contingency search and want a fundamentally different relationship with their recruitment partner.
We begin with a thorough onboarding session — understanding your business, your culture, your existing team, and your hiring standards. This investment at the start is what makes every subsequent search faster and sharper.
As mandates arise, we brief quickly — because we already know the business. We go into the market, assess candidates, and present recommendations. The process is the same as retained search, but faster because the foundation is already in place.
We meet regularly to review the partnership — what is working, what the business needs next, and how the search function should evolve as the business grows. We are a partner, not a supplier.
The knowledge we build about your business does not reset between mandates. Every hire we make for you makes the next one better. Over time, the quality of the partnership compounds.
The minimum commitment is three months. The fee is a monthly retainer — a fixed, predictable cost with no placement fees on top, regardless of how many searches we run within the period. After the initial three months, the engagement continues on a rolling monthly basis.
The retainer is priced based on the anticipated volume and complexity of hiring within your business. We discuss this during the initial conversation — there is no standard rate card, because every business is different. What we can tell you is that for businesses hiring two or more management roles per year, the Embedded model is consistently more cost-effective than the alternatives.
A UK technology business with sixty employees was hiring three to four management roles per year across Finance, HR, and Sales. They were using three different agencies, receiving inconsistent quality, and spending more in placement fees than the cost of an in-house recruiter — without the consistency or the institutional knowledge.
HID_EN took on an Embedded Search engagement at the start of their next hiring cycle. In the first six months, we placed a Finance Manager, a Head of Sales, and an HR Business Partner. The total cost was forty per cent less than the placement fees they had paid the previous year. All three remain in post.
Tell us about your business and your hiring plans. We will tell you whether Embedded Search is the right model for where you are going.
Begin the partnership.